The Department of Health and Social Care declared that private prescriptions of puberty blockers are banned in the UK, effective from June 3 until September 3.
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In an effort to eliminate a loophole allowing access to the medications, the UK government has prohibited private gender clinics from prescribing puberty blockers to individuals under the age of eighteen.
On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) declared that it would impose an emergency three-month restriction on the provision of puberty-suppressing hormones to children in England, Wales, and Scotland who are gender non-conforming. Prescriptions written by physicians registered in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom will be covered under this policy.
According to the DHSC, the prohibition was implemented “to address risks to public safety” and will be in effect from June 3 until September 3.
“Indefinite restrictions” have also been put in place on the prescription of these drugs within the National Health Service (NHS), the UK’s publicly-funded health care system. The NHS has already stopped the routine prescription of puberty blockers.
“Today I have taken bold action to protect children following the Cass Review, using emergency powers to ban puberty blockers for new treatments of gender dysphoria from private clinics and all purposes from overseas prescribers into Great Britain,” Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said, announcing the measures on social networking platform X.
Ms. Atkins continued, saying that to “further close the loopholes,” she had imposed comparable limitations on NHS prescriptions.
Concerns Over Private Clinic Loophole
The Cass Review, which was released in April, chastised NHS healthcare staff for forcing youngsters who were unclear about their gender into the wrong medical treatment path, which involved medication and surgery.
In a departure from the widely accepted “gender-affirming” approach, which saw medical professionals merely affirming a child’s chosen gender and prescribing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions, Dr. Hilary Cass called for a “holistic” approach to treating gender dysphoria.
After the historic assessment was over, publicly-funded NHS England and health authorities in Scotland stopped prescribing puberty blockers. However, activists cautioned at the time that youngsters might still get the medications from private clinics.
The director of Transgender Trend, Stephanie Davies-Arai, told The Epoch Times that she was pleased with the government’s announcement and that it will “close that loophole for puberty blockers.”
While there will always be methods to obtain the pills on the black market, Ms. Davies-Arai stated that the government has taken all reasonable steps to prevent those drugs from moving through UK pharmacies.” In general, she added, it will be “much more difficult to get hold of puberty blockers.”
Cross-Sex Hormones
The director of Transgender Trend also expressed concern over the availability of cross-sex, or masculinizing/feminizing, hormones on the NHS and in private practice for anyone over 16, despite the Cass Review’s recommendation that they be supplied “extremely cautiously.”
Cross-sex hormones can result in a variety of long-term physical and health issues, including male pattern baldness, deep voice in women, and infertility in both sexes. One known negative effect of testosterone-blocking medications for men is a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and blood clots.
Puberty blocker bans, according to Ms. Davies-Arai, are a big step in the right direction, but they “doesn’t solve the problem if teenagers are getting cross-sex hormones that are going to have effects for the rest of their lives—some of them known, some of them not known, because this is so new.”
The NHS announced that it will review the prescription of cross-sex hormones in the wake of the Cass Review. Cross-sex hormone prescriptions will cease for patients with gender dysphoria until they turn 18 according to Scottish health authorities.
The Vulnerable 17–25 Cohort
The Gender Identity Development Service, which was operated by the now-closed Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London and specialized in working with children and young adults who had gender dysphoria, had a substantial rise in referrals, which led to the Cass Review.
Dr. Cass’s evaluation also examined the services offered to young adults and older teens. A “follow-through service” for 17 to 25-year-olds is recommended by the review to NHS England to guarantee continuity of care and support during what Dr. Cass described as “a potentially vulnerable stage in [the patient’s] journey.” Regional gender care centers were established to replace the Tavistock clinic.
Concerning care for this older teen/young adult cohort, Ms. Davies-Arai expressed her worries, calling it an “incredibly vulnerable” stage of life in which people are maturing and frequently moving away from home for the first time.
She went on to say that the generation in particular has been raised with gender ideology “marketed ruthlessly to young people” and that gender ideology is “taught as fact and that biological sex is irrelevant.”
The director of Transgender Trend stated that even if they were still legally adults at the time, they were still “much too young to be making those kinds of decisions.”
“I don’t think informed consent can be given to treatments that are at such an experimental stage,” she explained.
“The NHS has now committed to doing a full Cass-style review of the adult clinics, and that can’t come soon enough,” Ms. Davies-Arai said, adding: “Adult clinics are similar to the private clinics. They’re based on gender affirmation, giving ‘gender-affirming care.’ And there is not enough exploration and finding out what’s behind the young person’s distress.”
She issued a warning, saying that many of these young people who are “coming up from the Tavistock” might be dealing with other underlying concerns that have not been addressed by medical professionals. These difficulties could include trauma, mental health disorders, sexuality struggles, or a history of being in foster care.
Ritchie Herron, a detransitioner who had gender reassignment surgery in his mid-20s to try living as a woman, was interviewed by The Epoch Times last month. To safeguard vulnerable individuals and ensure that they receive a thorough psychiatric evaluation and the assistance they require, he is advocating for reform of adult gender services.
Mr. Herron, who has both autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, claimed that before prescribing medication and surgery, doctors failed to take into account his mental health issues or his difficulty coming to terms with his sexual orientation.
Previously, GreatGameIndia reported on how the use of puberty blockers may result in vision loss. The FDA issued a warning about idiopathic intracranial hypertension, also known as pseudotumor cerebri, in children.
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