Children will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics, NHS England has confirmed.
The government said it welcomed the “landmark decision”, adding it would help ensure care is based on evidence and is in the “best interests of the child”.
The NHS England policy document, published on Tuesday, said: “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of (puberty blockers) to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”
I totally understand wanting to prevent youths who may not actually be certain what direction they want to go from making an irreversible choice. To my (admittedly shallow) understanding though, puberty blockers are pretty benign, no? They just delay what would happen, more or less, and that progress can begin again when the blocker is removed? If that’s correct, then this seems like the least logical transitioning tool to be blocked. Plus, stopping puberty will probably have the biggest impact on your post transition ‘success’ of anything, for the level of invasiveness it has.
Bigotry has nothing to do with logic.
Yes, they’re pretty benign. They do have the potential to decrease bone mineralization a little (calcium doesn’t build up in the bones as well,) but generally not enough to be a huge deal in the grand scheme of things.
From a doctor’s point of view, this is like fretting over whether to take ibuprofen for your headache: sure, there’s theoretically a potential for harm, but not to the extent that it’s a serious consideration.