The UK government has officially announced new regulations to restrict the prescribing and supply of ‘puberty blockers’, to children and young people under 18 in England, Wales and Scotland.

It is an emergency plan that will last from 3 June to 3 September 2024, and it applies to prescriptions issued by both UK private prescribers and those registered in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland.

During that time, “no new patients under 18 will be prescribed these medicines for the purposes of puberty suppression in those experiencing gender dysphoria or incongruence under the care of these prescribers”, explains the UK government.

The medicines included are those that “consist of, or contain” buserelin, gonadorelin, goserelin, leuprorelin acetate, nafarelin or triptorelin.

The regulation does not affect patients already established on those medicines by a UK prescriber, who “can continue to access them”. They will also remain available “for patients receiving the drugs for other uses, from a UK-registered prescriber”.

The Cass Review

The official statement points out that the National Health Service (NHS) stopped the routine prescription of puberty blocker treatments to under-18s “following the Cass Review into gender identity services”.

Furthermore, it “introduced indefinite restrictions to the prescribing of those medicines within NHS primary care in England, in line with NHS guidelines”.

In Mach 2022, Hilary Cass, a former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, denounced in an interim review for NHS England that “gender medicine for children and young people is built on shaky foundations” and is “remarkably weak” evidence on medical interventions.

For Peter Lynas, United Kingdom director of the Evangelical Alliance (EAUK), the Cass Review “opens up the space for some fascinating missional conversations about dignity, care, respect, bodies and reality, deep discussions on what it means to be human”.

A long and controversial process

The Cass Review was commissioned by NHS England in 2020, after a sharp rise in the number of patients referred to the NHS who were questioning their gender, from less than 250 cases in 2011 to over 5000 cases by 2022.

At that time, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that it was up to doctors to decide if children under 16 can be prescribed puberty blockers without parental consent.

However, in July 2022, the NHS closed the Tavistock gender clinic in London, while hundreds of families prepared to sue the foundation for medical negligence.

“The Tavistock scandal will be seen as one of the most egregious child protection failures of recent times because it happened in plain sight. Those who were harming children didn’t need to hide from view; they were shielded by a fashionable ideology that few adults dared question”, said Miriam Cates, an evangelical parliamentarian in Westminster.

The Tavistock scandal will be seen as one of the most egregious child protection failures of recent times because it happened in plain sight. Those who were harming children didn’t need to hide from view; they were shielded by a fashionable ideology that few adults dared question pic.twitter.com/Y4OqlP36Rz

— Miriam Cates (@miriam_cates) May 30, 2024