UK National Health Service bans puberty blockers for gender transitions for minors
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service announced on Friday it plans to ban puberty blockers outside of the use of clinical trials as well as increasingly to regulate gender transition treatments for minors.
“We have previously made clear … the intention that the NHS will only commission puberty suppressing hormones as part of clinical research,” the NHS announcement said.
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The 25-page document for U.K. practitioners specifies that the NHS “will adopt a holistic, multi-disciplinary integrated approach to assessing and responding to an individual’s needs” and will center on “fully involving the child or young person and their family.”
“A significant proportion of children and young people who are concerned about, or distressed by, issues of gender incongruence experience coexisting mental health, neuro-developmental and/or personal, family or social complexities in their lives. The relationship between these presentations and gender incongruence may not be readily apparent and will often require careful exploration,” the report reads.
The NHS also acknowledges the “increased prevalence of mental health needs” and “neurodevelopmental disorders” among youth that have been identified as comorbidities of gender dysphoria. The new protocols now require “expertise for the direct assessment of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other forms of neurodiversity” to be included in a minor’s treatment plan when addressing gender dysphoria.
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Children who have already been treated with puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones will be assessed on a case-by-case basis by their medical providers, but the NHS “strongly [discourages] sourcing puberty suppressing or gender affirming hormones from unregulated sources or from on-line providers that are not regulated by UK regulatory bodies.”
Republicans in Missouri, Louisiana, and Florida have taken steps in recent months to enact similar bans on gender-transitioning medicine for minors, and the issue has become a central feature of the 2024 presidential election campaign season.
Source: Washington Examiner
