England’s National Health Service (NHS) announced it will no longer prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to children at gender identity clinics citing there “is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness.”
The move comes just a few years after doctors had already issued draft guidance to recognize that childhood gender dysphoria could simply be a “transient phase,” and young, pre-pubescent children should be treated based on “evidence that, in most cases, gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence.”
The guidance also expressed concern about the use of puberty blockers.
Doctors later issued an interim policy rejecting routine prescription of the drugs after an independent review by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) investigating gender identity services for children under the age of 18.
Puberty blockers, or gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRHa), are a classification of drugs that suppresses sex hormones in adolescents by continually interfering with the person’s pituitary gland.
The NHS’s website said, “Puberty blockers (gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogues) are not available to children and young people for gender incongruence or gender dysphoria because there is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness.”
England says it welcomes the “landmark decision,” adding that it will ensure that care is in
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