by Joan Smith, UnHerd
The NHS’s decision to pause new prescriptions of cross-sex hormones to 16- and 17-year-olds comes with an important admission. According to NHS England, an extensive review of the impact of testosterone and oestrogen on young people “does not support the continued use” of such drugs.
“We cannot say if they are harmful or effective,” acknowledges Professor James Palmer, National Medical Director for Specialised Services at NHS England. In other words, under-18s with “gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” have been given powerful, life-altering substances by doctors who simply didn’t know what the outcome would be. A 90-day public consultation will start next Monday to look into the draft legislation before being formalised into law, and activists are already up in arms. One advocacy group, TransLucent, has called it “yet another blatant act of discrimination against transgender youths’ healthcare”.
This hyperbolic reaction is an indication of how the NHS came to take foolish, unevidenced decisions in the first place. A fear of upsetting activists has led to a widespread acceptance of the language of an unscientific ideology, while overlooking potential harm to patients.
Terms such as “gender-affirming” are all over the NHS website, which hasn’t yet been updated to reflect the newly-announced pause in prescribing hormones to under-18s. It attaches outdated stereotypes to young people who “might feel their physical appearance does not match their gender identity”, a distinctly unclear term.