Mick Hartley

Good news on the puberty blocker front. From the Times:

Gender clinics will be forced to release data on the outcomes of thousands of children who received puberty blockers on the NHS.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has announced a law change to allow researchers to study the long-term impact of medical interventions given to children in distress about their gender.

The data of 9,000 people who were treated at the Tavistock gender identity clinic as children, before the clinic closed in 2023, will be linked with their adult NHS records to see how they have fared.

The study, led by NHS England, will evaluate how treatments such as puberty blocking drugs have affected long-term mental and physical health.

The data linkage study was a key recommendation of the Cass Review in 2024, which advised overhauling gender services on the NHS. However, six of the NHS’s adult gender clinics had refused to co-operate with the medical research study and hand over data on their patients. Many of their patients were initially treated with puberty blockers as children before being transferred to adult clinics for cross-sex hormones and gender-reassignment surgery.

This should have been done from the start, as per the Cass Review. And should obviate the need for the Pathways trial. The data’s out there.