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State-sanctioned child abuse.
That’s what the so-called ‘clinical trial into puberty blockers’ is. In fact, to call it a ‘clinical trial’ at all suggests a robust evidence base and principled framework, whereas this flies completely in the face of medical ethics.
226 children, some as young as 11 years old are about to be placed on this pathway (the minimum age was originally 9 years old…)
Brain development. Bone growth. Sexual functioning. Fertility. These are just some of the things harmed by puberty blockers. Never mind the social and emotional damage caused by the narrative that puberty is something to be feared, while your peers continue to mature normally.
That is precisely why the UK government banned puberty blockers back in 2024. Their exact justification was “unacceptable safety risk”. Forgive my naivety, but I assumed that, if something carries unacceptable safety risk, perhaps it should not be trialled on young children?
International Conventions mandate that, when it comes to clinical trials on children, there must be some evidence of a concrete benefit in the first place. Here, there is none. The literature being given to families signing up to the trial expressly acknowledges that they cannot say whether participants will benefit.
Their fudge, as put forward by Baroness Hillary Cass – whose Review called for a trial – is one of ‘belief’. She has said that there are people who strongly believe puberty blockers work. Of course, it is evidence, and not beliefs, that underpins medicine. There are people who believe that consuming large quantities of baking soda will cure cancer. Why is the government not currently running a baking soda trial?
Other pathetic justification from Cass, and others, is that, without a trial, some children will seek out puberty blockers illegally. Good idea Hillary, perhaps we should also legalise cannabis and heroin while we’re at it.
Unlike the vast majority of clinical trials, there is no control group here. The follow up period is just 2 years, whereas harms may not become apparent for years or even decades.
Medical ethics requires testing the least invasive or risky option first. Yet, the government refused to consider an initial standalone trial of psychotherapy. They also refused to trial them out on animals first, preferring to treat our children as guinea pigs instead.
Most shocking is that the data linkage study – looking into outcomes for the thousands of children already placed on puberty blockers at the disgraced Tavistock Clinic – has not been carried out. It is simply not good enough to say ‘oh, we don’t have that data, so let’s wrangle up another few hundred children’.
In the UK, clinical trials involving children are prohibited from using cash payments or other financial incentives. Yet, the bodies running this trial have developed a nice little ‘workaround’. Child participants will be offered up to £500 in Love2Shop vouchers – not for taking puberty blockers…but for undertaking the tests, scans and surveys mandated by the trial.
This is manipulation and coercion through the back door.
As a psychotherapist, I work day-in, day-out with children who would like nothing more than to be signed up to this trial. I have significant clinical concerns regarding this cohort of children, who are incredibly vulnerable.
There are serious concerns over informed consent. These children can be so desperate that they will say anything to get what they want, even threatening to kill themselves. I have spoken to children who have admitted playing up to this.
There are also serious concerns about their capacity to understand and weigh risks. Many firmly believe puberty blockers are harmless, “fully reversible”, and without long-term consequence.
I have encountered girls who have stated that, should they one day have their healthy breasts removed and later regret it, they can simply get breast implants instead. I have had others who have hated their breasts so much that they wish breast cancer upon themselves. This naïve thinking and failure to consider long-term consequences is typical of even older children, let alone 11-year-olds.
The reasons given by children I work with for wanting to transition often reflect developmental immaturity. Some want to be the opposite sex because they dislike body hair or other pubertal changes. Others rely on rigid, regressive stereotypes, concluding that preferences associated with the opposite sex mean they must actually be that sex.
These simplistic beliefs are being treated as grounds for medical intervention.
There are significant co-morbidities alongside gender dysphoria. Every single child that I have ever worked with on this issue either has a diagnosis of autism or is suspected to have autism. Many have experienced trauma, including sexual trauma and severe bullying. Almost all have question marks around same-sex attraction, and I frequently see sexuality and ‘gender identity’ developing together and becoming conflated.
As regards parental assent, only one parent needs to give this. Where parents disagree, the judge in our Judicial Review litigation simply said they can fight it out in the family courts.
In my opinion, puberty blockers are no different to self-harm – they arise out of extreme discomfort and unhappiness in these children and their bodies. In every other area of mental health practice, comparable distress would be approached through psychological assessment and therapeutic exploration, not medical intervention on an otherwise healthy body.
Nor is puberty a disease to be treated. Puberty is a normal developmental process that can be uncomfortable, confusing, sometimes distressing, but this is part of growing up.
Research shows that the vast majority of children who experience cross-sex identification will eventually reconcile with their biological sex if puberty is allowed to proceed. Puberty blockers interrupt this natural developmental process.
A central concern of mine is the way in which these interventions encourage children to reject reality. Human beings thrive when they embrace reality, not in embracing delusion.
Even with all the puberty blockers in the world, you cannot change sex.
And yet, this trial will not die. I have organised a petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures leading to parliamentary debates. Alongside Keira Bell and the Bayswater Support Group, we attempted to bring a Judicial Review to halt the trial, which we lost and I am still utterly devastated about. We have seen 3 successive Health Secretaries give a green light to the trial.
What are the vested interests that keep this monstrosity alive? Virtue signalling? Political expediency? Professional pride? Financial gain? All of the above.
The madness is that we are about to live in a world, under this Labour government, in which a 15-year-old will not be legally allowed to purchase a can of Red Bull, but an 11-year-old will be able to consent to being placed on a pathway towards infertility.
Finally, I want to say this, particularly given that the success of this trial is to be based on questionnaires asking these children how ‘happy’ they feel afterwards.
In my clinical practice I do not assess a child’s psychological wellness based on their feelings alone. A child with an eating disorder may claim to feel better when they are at their absolute skinniest. That does not mean they are ‘well’ or that this is in their best interests - in fact, quite the opposite.
Children may report feeling happier on puberty blockers, but that does not mean they are not causing them serious harm.
Let us not be written into history as the country that knowingly harmed vulnerable children.