{"id":16942,"date":"2024-03-14T00:46:24","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T00:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/14\/englands-health-service-to-stop-prescribing-puberty-blockers-to-transgender-kids\/"},"modified":"2024-03-14T00:46:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T00:46:24","slug":"englands-health-service-to-stop-prescribing-puberty-blockers-to-transgender-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/14\/englands-health-service-to-stop-prescribing-puberty-blockers-to-transgender-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"England\u2019s health service to stop prescribing puberty blockers to transgender kids"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

England\u2019s National Health Service (NHS) has stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, saying there is \u201cnot enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness\u201d of puberty-suppressing hormones. <\/p>\n

NHS England said it made the decision, which was widely condemned by LGBTQ groups, after it \u201ccarefully considered\u201d an evidence review it commissioned in 2020. It also reviewed evidence published since then, it said in a\u00a0policy document\u00a0published Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Puberty blockers will now only be available to young people in clinical research trials and some private clinics, UK\u2019s PA Media reported Tuesday. Fewer than 100 young people are currently on puberty blockers via the NHS and they will be able to continue the treatment, it added. <\/p>\n

Puberty blockers will also available through some private gender identity clinics. <\/p>\n

According to the NHS clinical policy, treatment for young people \u201cfocuses on psychosocial and psychological support.\u201d Gender-affirming hormones and surgery may be available later or in adulthood. <\/p>\n

Gender-affirming care for young people in England has faced legal and political scrutiny in recent years that has coincided with rising anti-trans rhetoric in the country, say LGBTQ advocates. <\/p>\n

Some British politicians welcomed NHS England\u2019s announcement. The UK\u2019s Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said on X that \u201ccare that affects our children\u2019s health and wellbeing so profoundly must always be based on clinical evidence.\u201d <\/p>\n

Health minister Maria Caulfield also\u00a0welcomed\u00a0the policy, calling it a \u201cgroundbreaking change as children\u2019s safety and wellbeing are paramount.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stonewall, a LGBTQ campaign group in the UK, criticized Tuesday\u2019s announcement, writing in a statement that \u201call\u00a0trans young people deserve access to high quality, timely healthcare.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cFor some, an important part of this care comes in the form of puberty blockers, a reversible treatment that delays the onset of puberty, prescribed by expert endocrinologists, giving the young person extra time to evaluate their next steps,\u201d it wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned that NHS England will be putting new prescriptions on hold until a research protocol is up and running at the end of 2024,\u201d the charity added. <\/p>\n

Mermaids, a charity that supports trans, non-binary and gender-questioning children and young people, said that the NHS announcement is \u201cdeeply disappointing, and a further restriction of support offered to trans children and young people through the NHS, which is failing trans youth.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gender-affirming care\u00a0is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender \u2013 the one the person was designated at birth \u2013 to their affirmed gender \u2013 the gender by which one wants to be known. <\/p>\n

Puberty blocking is a\u00a0noninvasive therapy\u00a0that can be reversed. Doctors inject a compound or use an implant that mimics the actions of a puberty-stimulating hormone that is released in the brain known as\u00a0gonadotropin-releasing hormone. The compound makes the pituitary gland less sensitive to that hormone and, in doing so, it essentially pauses puberty. Puberty starts again after the drugs are stopped. <\/p>\n

In the US, where several Republican-led states have banned gender-affirmative healthcare for young people, every major medical association agrees that gender-affirming care is\u00a0clinically appropriate\u00a0for children and adults. This includes the\u00a0American Medical Association, the\u00a0American Psychiatric Association,\u00a0and the\u00a0American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. <\/p>\n

Gender-affirming care can include puberty blockers, which may not be a part of every association\u2019s treatment. <\/p>\n

The\u00a0AMA\u00a0and LGBTQ advocates stress that\u00a0gender-affirming care can be a life-saving treatment\u00a0for trans youth. In the US, transgender and nonbinary youth are twice as likely to have attempted suicide compared to their cisgender peers, according to a\u00a02022 survey by the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

England\u2019s National Health Service (NHS) has stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, saying there is \u201cnot enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness\u201d of puberty-suppressing hormones. NHS England said it made the decision, which was widely condemned by LGBTQ groups, after it \u201ccarefully considered\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}