The UK government on Wednesday placed an indefinite ban on puberty blockers for children under 18 years of age following the advice of a requested consultation by medical experts. An emergency prohibition on puberty blockers is currently in place and will expire on December 31. The emergency ban will be replaced with The Medicines (Gonadotrophin-Releasing Hormone Analogues) (Restrictions on Private Sales and Supplies) Order 2024, which is due to come into force on January 1, 2025.
In March, the NHS restricted the prescription of puberty blockers to minors. In May, the UK government placed an emergency ban on access to puberty blockers by minors through private prescriptions, which was extended three times. The ban was based on the advice provided in Dr. Hilary Cass’ recommendations. A claim was soon brought to the UK High Court by transgender activist group TransActual, who alleged that the ban was unlawful. However, the claim failed on all grounds and the ban continued.
The targeted consultation by the independent Commission on Human Medicines built upon the findings of the Cass Review, and made the following conclusion:
This review found puberty blockers to have no statistically significant impact on gender incongruence and/or gender dysphoria, mental health, body image and psychosocial functioning in children and adolescents. [The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence] found the quality of evidence for all these outcomes to be low and noted that GnRH analogues may reduce the expected increase in lumbar or femoral bone density during puberty.
The consultation also noted the Cass Review findings in April 2024, which found that:
…the use of puberty blockers in these circumstances blocks the normal rise in hormones that should occur into teenage years, and which is essential for psychosexual and other physical developmental processes such as brain and cognitive development and bone health. It also has implications for fertility, and the use of puberty blockers may also reduce psychological functioning.
The report clarified that young people who are already taking puberty-blocking medications or were prescribed those medications six months prior to June 2024 can continue to do so once their prescriber is UK-registered. Dr. Cass recommends that if puberty blockers are prescribed, they are only done “following a multi-disciplinary assessment within a research protocol”.
In terms of providing care to the LGBTQIA+ community, the government outlined a holistic approach to supporting patients affected by this ban, with eight regional mental health centers being established.
TransActual criticized Dr. Cass’s findings in October 2024, expressing concern that trans people were “specifically excluded from the review process”, and that Dr. Cass was not “as neutral as previously claimed.” The group requested transparency from the government as to how the Cass Review was commissioned, that the ban be suspended and that it instead support the British Medical Association’s “ongoing review of the [Cass] Review’s methodology and conclusions.”
The new legislation is set to be reviewed in 2027, and NHS England will be commencing further research trials into puberty blockers next year.
