CLAIRE COUTINHO: The puberty blocker trial is nothing lower than the state sanctioned chemical castration of youngsters
Christmas is a season that brings joy for children across the country. But the gift that the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, will be giving to more than 200 young people is nothing short of a nightmare.
The Labour Government, with Streeting’s blessing, is pursuing a dystopian experiment to test puberty-blockers on healthy children who think they were ‘born in the wrong body’.
These youngsters, some just eight years old, will be pumped with drugs that slow or stop the natural development of their bodies through puberty.
They will be put on a medical pathway to possible infertility and sexual dysfunction. To describe it another way, they could face the potentially lifelong consequences of retaining the physical development of a child, even if surgery is then pursued.
In short, this is nothing less than the state-sanctioned chemical castration of children. And in years to come, it will be seen as one of the darkest acts of this Labour Government.
‘These youngsters, some just eight years old, will be pumped with drugs that slow or stop the natural development of their bodies through puberty’
Streeting has pointed to the Cass Review on gender identity services in the NHS as though its findings somehow oblige him to press ahead.
The review, led by former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Dr Hilary Cass, said there was no strong evidence to support the use of puberty-blockers, and while it did suggest a trial to provide better evidence on their use, it framed this strictly as a step to take after certain data collection had already taken place. Streeting is taking Cass’s warnings as a green light rather than a siren.
If the Government wanted to carry out research on outcomes, it could track down the children and young people who have, tragically, already been prescribed them.
Why does a new group of young people, almost certainly some with autism, others learning disabilities or mental health conditions – and none of whom can properly consent to the lifelong consequences on their bodies – need to be experimented on when the work to collect that data has not yet been done?
The public deserve to know what is at stake here. Almost every child placed on puberty-blockers goes on to have ‘cross-sex hormone therapy’ such as testosterone. So puberty-blockers are not a ‘pause button’ to give children ‘time to think’ – they are the beginning of a medical pathway that risks irreversible consequences for otherwise healthy children.
Take the famous case of Keira Bell. As a 15-year-old girl, she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. A year later, she was being given puberty-blockers. The next year she was being injected with testosterone. At 20, she had both of her breasts surgically removed. Keira then realised that she was not a ‘boy’, as she had been told by doctors at the notorious Tavistock clinic. She was a woman who happened to be gay.
But, by that point, it was too late to reverse all of the changes and harm that she had been put through. Keira is now a courageous campaigner for ‘de-transitioners’ – those who realise that they made a mistake in trying to change their gender.
‘Take the famous case of Keira Bell. As a 15-year-old girl, she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria’
‘Keira then realised that she was not a “boy”, as she had been told by doctors at the notorious Tavistock clinic. She was a woman who happened to be gay’
For many youngsters struggling with their gender identity, puberty is the true ‘cure’. Studies show that around 80 per cent of children who believe they were in the wrong body no longer feel that way once they are through adolescence.
But now Streeting’s puberty-blocker experiment will send hundreds more down that path to permanent harm under the guise of ‘research’.
The trial itself quietly acknowledges this. Buried deep in a document published online, researchers claim that one ‘benefit’ of putting children on puberty-blockers is ‘better alignment of body shape with gender’. We should be clear what this means: children trapped in their pre-puberty bodies for life. How can anyone think that children as young as eight can consent to such permanent damage?
Astonishingly, as I said, children with autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders will not be barred from the trial. That means children who may find it hard to express themselves or have cognitive difficulties – children who deserve our love, support and care – will instead be sent on a pathway to sterilisation. This is grotesque.
Like so much of what Labour are doing, permitting this puberty-blocker trial appeases a radical fringe on their own backbenches while doing great harm to the country as a whole.
The Health Secretary deserves the credit he got for facing this minority down and banning puberty-blockers last year.
But he should now consider how he will explain, in a future inquiry, why he sanctioned a programme that caused life-altering damage to more than 200 children.
It’s time for the Government to stop the Streeting Trial.
Claire Coutinho is Shadow Equalities Minister
