The British High Court bans puberty-blocking drugs for under-16s.
The British High Court bans puberty-blocking drugs for under-16s.
T here is perhaps no aspect of the gender-identity debate more emotionally fraught than the question of what to do about children who say they are transgender. In recent years, lavishly funded transgender-lobby groups have fought hard to implement what they claim is a medical “pause button” whereby gender-dysphoric children and young people are administered “puberty-blocking” drugs that, activists claim, buy these minors more time on the road to transition.
Only the most pernicious of euphemisms can justify such a gung-ho approach to this medical intervention. For not only are these drugs experimental, but they are also, in almost every instance, followed by a regimen of cross-sex hormones that compromises a young person’s fertility and sexual function. Puberty blockers are not a “pause button,” then, but a nuclear button, setting children on the path to irreversible bodily impairment they may well deeply regret. (This, of course, is to say nothing of the fact that the vast majority of children grow out of gender dysphoria by late adolescence.)
So just when, exactly, is a young person competent to consent to such treatment? At 13 or younger? “Highly unlikely.” What about at 14 or 15? “Doubtful.” How about at 16 or 17? Well, since the drugs are “experimental” and “truly life-changing,” even clinicians treating those nearly at the age of legal adulthood must first consult the courts before prescribing them. But don’t take my word for it: This is the ruling of England’s High Court, which, earlier this month, decreed that children are unable to consent to transgender medical interventions.
The High Court case was brought against the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic at the Tavistock Hospital in London by Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who began to medically transition (FtM) at the clinic in adolescence but has since reverted to a female identity, and by “Mrs. A,” a mother seeking to prevent the clinic from prescribing puberty blockers to her 15-year-old autistic daughter. Though the decision may still be appealed, the ruling could not have been clearer.
On the steps on the court, Bell — now, due to “gender reassignment,” a breastless young woman with a deep gravelly voice — spoke of a “complacent and dangerous culture at the heart of the national center responsible for treating children and young people with gender dysphoria” as well as of gender clinicians “playing God with our bodies.” An awkward, anxious teenager, Bell grew up with an alcoholic mother and without a father in the home. Though her courage is remarkable, her story is regrettably familiar. Feeling rejected at school and different from her peers, Bell first found the so-called trans community online; then, inspired by trans activists on YouTube, decided she was really a boy. Bell was referred to GIDS at age 16. Clinicians explained that she would be infertile, but she says now that “I was a teenager; I couldn’t imagine wanting a baby.”
Mrs. A spoke with a similar hope that their case would change the fortunes of others. In a statement read out on her behalf, she said: “I hope this judgment will provide a safety net to prevent the unsupervised medical experimentation on children, like my daughter, by an institution charged with helping to alleviate her distress.” The spike in numbers and disproportionate representation of girls in particular should have prompted greater caution. The number of minors referred increased from 97 in 2009 to 2,519 in 2018. There was a 4,000 percent increase in the number of girls. Paul Conrathe, the solicitor representing Bell and Mrs. A, called the decision “a damning indictment of clinical practice at the Tavistock” as well as a “historic judgment” showing how “a culture of unreality has become embedded in the Tavistock.”
Indeed, the GIDS has been dogged with scandal after scandal as whistleblowers reported to the Times of London that children came into the clinic with a host of complex co-morbidities to their gender dysphoria — anxiety, depression, eating disorders, sexual abuse, homophobic bullying — but were, on declaring a transgender identity, put on the conveyer belt of transition. One clinician told the Times of London: “The Tavistock were given chance after chance to moderate their approach, after staff voiced our concerns, but they essentially called us transphobic. The High Court has said no, we weren’t transphobic, and the judges agreed with our concerns.”
Though there is much to be done by all concerned citizens, the fight to protect vulnerable minors from gender ideology will be ultimately won by those worst affected by it. Still, the case of Keira Bell and Mrs. A ought to inspire hope. They represent a victim and a protector — and remind us that together, theirs is a powerful voice.