Mick Hartley

LGB Alliance on the puberty blocker trial:

We are horrified by the announcement of the PATHWAYS trial. As a charity representing lesbians, gays and bisexuals we are outraged that the lives of mostly LGB teenagers are held in such contempt that blocking their development has been given ethical approval.

We are supporting increasing numbers of detransitioned LGB people who are appalled that more children will be subjected to a trial of drugs we already know to be harmful. They now know they had difficulty accepting their homosexuality. They can attest to the effects of these drugs but have not been asked. All the evidence shows that lesbians, gay and bisexual young people make up the majority of those who will suffer.

Every detail of this planned trial is a disgrace. Recruiting children for a trial of drugs now known to be harmful, while more countries are banning them, is indefensible. The follow-up time is laughably short, the self-evaluation by the children is ridiculous and the expectation of “reasonable prospect of benefit” flies in the face of everything we now know about puberty blockers. Puberty is an essential stage in human development. Recruiting children who have been led to fear it, in the current online and social climate, verges on a criminal enterprise.

It is profoundly shocking that 9,000 children passed through the Tavistock GIDS – again, most of them lesbian, gay or bisexual – and their data have been lost or suppressed. This ill-fated trial must be cancelled. It is unworthy of a civilized society.