Mick Hartley

Next up, the private clinics. From the Times:

Ministers are under pressure to make it illegal for private clinics to give puberty blockers to children, amid fears online doctors could exploit an NHS ban on the drugs.

On Tuesday NHS England issued landmark clinical guidelines saying puberty blockers should no longer be prescribed to under-16s wanting to change gender, due to a lack of evidence they are safe or effective.

However, a loophole means they can still be issued by private providers, and campaigners warned that children and parents could migrate from the NHS to online clinics running a “Wild West operation”.

On Friday members of the House of Commons will debate the issue, at a reading of a private members’ bill introduced by Liz Truss, the former prime minister.

The bill would make it illegal for any healthcare provider — whether NHS or private, in any part of the UK — to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children….

Dr Michael Biggs, a sociologist and board member of Sex Matters, who was the first external researcher to discover the Gids trial of puberty blockers said: “The NHS has finally recognised that there is no evidence to support puberty blockers.

“As a matter of urgency, private clinics must be stopped from exploiting vulnerable children and adolescents. If this does not happen, those clinics will continue to provide these drugs, which were never licensed to treat gender dysphoria, on demand.”

Bev Jackson, co-founder of LGB Alliance, said that allowing online clinics to keep prescribing puberty blockers would “make a mockery” of the NHS guidelines.

She said: “If these drugs cannot be provided on the NHS they should not be obtainable anywhere, particularly not by rogue private clinics operating largely online. We call on the prime minister to support the Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill on Friday that would make these drugs unlawful. Hundreds of vulnerable young people have already been harmed. Rishi Sunak can ensure that no more children join their ranks.

“We have to close this loophole. If not, then everybody who is convinced they need these drugs will try to get them somewhere else.”

Faye McGinty, of Women’s Rights Network, said puberty blockers “locked children into a lifetime of medicalisation”, adding: “If it’s not appropriate for the NHS to prescribe puberty blockers then it’s certainly not right for private providers, some of which are located overseas in order to evade controls, to do so.

“There are many side-effects and the treatment remains off-label in the UK for children with gender distress. It can’t be right that private clinics continue to expose children to harmful interventions that are not proven to be in their best interests.”