NI puts puberty-blocker trial participation on hold

Northern Ireland has suspended its involvement in NHS England’s planned puberty-blocker trial.

Stormont Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said he would only revisit his decision if legal proceedings launched in London by campaigners to stop the controversial trial from going ahead fail.

Bayswater Support Group, psychotherapist James Esses, and detransitioner Keira Bell recently lodged papers with the High Court seeking judicial review of what they called a “government-funded experimentation on young children”.

Legal challenge

When Nesbitt published Dr Hilary Cass’ review of Northern Ireland’s gender identity service, he initially accepted her recommendation that children from the Province participate in the proposed puberty-blocker trial by King’s College London.

But within days of the announcement, the Health Minister said the collaboration would be halted “until the legal process has concluded”.

He added: “Should the trial ultimately be given the green light to proceed, I shall take the views of Executive colleagues before any potential lifting of the pause.”

‘Irreversible harm’

The Christian Institute’s NI Policy Officer James Kennedy said: “We are grateful that the Health Minister has put this cruel experiment on hold. While we don’t know of all the risks involved in puberty-blocking drugs, we do know they can cause irreversible harm.

“They stop children developing alongside their peers, prolong their fears and anxieties, and prevent gender distress from resolving naturally, which it usually does. Almost every child who takes these drugs progresses to taking cross-sex hormones, which have drastic lifelong impacts.

“It’s time for the Westminster Government to heed the growing disquiet over this unethical trial and ditch it altogether.”

Public opinion

A December poll on behalf of Transgender Trend found that 63 per cent of the British public agree that the NHS puberty blocker trial should be stopped, with opposition being particularly strong among parents of under-18s.

Transgender Trend’s Director Stephanie Davies-Arai called the results “a clear mandate from the British people to stop the trial”.

She explained: “The British public instinctively knows that medically experimenting on children is wrong. Most understand that children are too young to make medical decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

“It’s not a party political issue but common sense. The government now needs to listen and do what’s right.”