All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
why is the UK government now embarking on trials of puberty blockers for the treatment of children who believe that their identity is misaligned with their body? Approximately 250 children will be involved in the study to be conducted by researchers at King’s College London. Because they are too young to consent, permission will be sought from parents who may or may not have been deceived by the reckless lie that gender-nonconforming children are more likely to commit suicide if not medicated.
The Cass Review confirmed that the evidence for the efficacy of puberty blockers in such cases is remarkably weak, but we do know of the likely harms. Documented cases include an increased risk of osteoporosis, testicular atrophy, cancer, brain damage, and impaired future sexual function. And all of this to prescribe medication to children who are fit and well, and whose problems are clearly the result of a mental-health condition. Why would any conscientious doctor take such risks for a problem that requires a psychotherapeutic approach?
In order to justify this trial, which could potentially ruin many children’s lives, we should surely first establish beyond doubt that such a thing as a ‘gender identity’ exists. In spite of its confidence about the trials, our government cannot even define the term ‘gender identity’. When its spokesperson for equalities in the House of Lords, Jacqui Smith, was asked for a working definition, she simply could not answer. Not that she is alone; even those who believe in a ‘gender identity’ and claim to possess one cannot tell us what it means without resorting to circular (and therefore useless) definitions.
We need to be honest about what is happening here. An unevidenced and pseudoscientific claim is being assumed to be true, and innocent children will almost certainly be injured as a result. This is wholly unethical. Medical trials are initiated on the principle that the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks. But, as Tavistock whistleblower Dr David Bell has pointed out, these trials will ‘introduce a known risk of systemic physical harm to a physically healthy child. To put it mildly, this is a divergence from normal clinical practice’.