Children not able to give ‘proper’ consent to puberty blockers, court told
from BBC News:
Children are not able to properly understand the lifelong consequences of taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, the High Court has been told.
The case has been brought by Keira Bell, who began taking puberty blockers when she was 16, and the mother of a 16-year-old awaiting treatment.
They are taking action against the UK’s only children’s NHS gender clinic, run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
The landmark hearing in London is expected to last two days.
The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), based in Hampstead, north-west London, is a specialised unit for young people who have difficulties with their gender identity.
Lawyers representing Ms Bell, 23, and Mrs A, whose autistic child is currently on the waiting list for treatment at the service, argue that children going through puberty are “not capable of properly understanding the nature and effects of hormone blockers”.
They argue there is “a very high likelihood” that children who start taking hormone blockers will later begin taking cross-sex hormones, which they say cause “irreversible changes”.
Read also:
End the silence on gender identity services, by Julie Bindel, UnHerd
No One Is Born in ‘The Wrong Body’, by William J. Malone, Colin M. Wright, and Julia D. Robertson, Quillette:
Man cannot be registered as ‘mother’, France’s highest court rules, from Christian Institute
The sexist pseudoscience of ‘gender identity’, by Josephine Bartosch, The Critic
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