A controversial clinical study in Great Britain will see hundreds of children injected with puberty blockers.In the first National Health Service (NHS)-backed experiment of its kind, as many as 226 children as young as ten years of age who believe they are transgender are set to take part.The Daily Mail reports that researchers — who have dismissed accusations that the trial amounts to “coercing” children into taking these drugs — plan to administer puberty-suppressing medication to test subjects in order to assess if they are safe for future use and to help young people align their physical development with their gender identity.Researchers insist the process will be safe because they have planned the “most rigorous and safest study design,”which will involve “close monitoring” of any potential side effects and risks, such as potential damage to fertility or bone density.Critics, such as Maya Forstater, chief executive of the sex-based rights organization Sex Matters, questioned the approval of a new study involving children before outcomes from previously treated young people have been fully assessed..‘THIS MUST STOP’: England to review all transgender treatment for children and adults.“It’s outrageous that a trial involving yet more children being given puberty blockers has been given the go-ahead before studying outcomes for those already treated,” Forstater said, arguing that puberty blockers represent a significant medical intervention, that evidence of benefit is lacking, and that concerns about potential long-term harm are increasing.“These drugs are a major intervention, with no evidence to suggest that they do any good and increasing reason to think they cause permanent harm. It’s both foolish and unethical to expose yet more children to experimental treatment,” she stated.“At this point, the only reason to research puberty blockers is to be able to offer long-term medical support to those who have already been exposed.”Plans for the trial were announced in 2024 following publication of the Cass Review, which found that the quality of existing research on the benefits of puberty blockers was “poor.”The review recommended a comprehensive programme of research examining the characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of all young people referred to NHS gender services.After the review, puberty blockers were banned from being prescribed by the NHS.Before that, the drugs were given to hundreds of children who were treated at the NHS’s controversial child transgender service, the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London.The new study — led by King’s College London — will involve girls aged 10–11 and boys aged 11–12, with an upper limit of 15 years and 11 months.Participation in the study will require parental or guardian consent and a World Health Organization-standard diagnosis of “gender incongruence.”One cohort of 113 participants will receive puberty blockers for two years, while a second study will run in tandem, involving roughly 100 participants receiving puberty blockers and others who will not, to investigate possible neurological effects..‘UNACCEPTABLE SAFTEY RISK’ UK stops puberty blockers for minors.Both groups will be followed for two years, meaning results will not be published for at least four years, and researchers said each participant will have a series of health checks before taking part.The projects have both received regulatory approval and form part of a wider £10.7 million programme of six NHS-funded studies.Professor Emily Simonoff, chief investigator and a child and adolescent psychiatry specialist at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, has said that some children may remain on puberty-suppressing hormones after the trial ends if clinicians consider it appropriate.“At the end of the trial, each young person will be reviewed individually and clinically to look at their ongoing care needs, which may include remaining on puberty-suppressing hormones if that’s deemed clinically appropriate for them,” Simonoff said.She added that the study was not “coercion” and “one might want to argue that puberty suppression should never have been made available to people outside of the clinical trial some ten or 15 years ago. The most ethical thing to do would have been to do a trial at that time.”Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder of Transgender Trend, a parent-led group raising concerns about the rising number of young people seeking to change gender, said her organization is disappointed that the trial was approved.“We don’t think it’s ethical to give irreversible treatment to children when we don’t have adequate evidence of benefit, but we do know some of the risks,” she said.“Those are serious risks to fertility, bone density, and brain development in adulthood.”
