A group of activists from the Trans Kids Deserve Better network flocked to the Health Secretary’s Ilford office in protest against his decision to implement a blanket ban on puberty blockers
Last night (December 11), a group of young trans activists affiliated with the Trans Kids Deserve Better action network camped outside Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s constituency office in Ilford, in protest against his decision to implement an “indefinite ban” on puberty blockers for trans people below the age of 18. The ban is not only limited to the NHS but will also apply to private healthcare providers.
The activists left a large cardboard coffin bearing the words “we will live out of spite” outside the politician’s office door. The group have been placing smaller cardboard coffins outside Streeting’s office since August, demanding that the Health Secretary be “held accountable” for putting young trans lives at risk.
Grin, 18, is one of the activists who took part in last night’s action. He says he was despondent when he saw the news that Streeting had gone ahead with the puberty blocker ban on Wednesday. “The moment I saw what he’d done I just slumped. So much time, effort, blood, and tears have been spent trying to stop this from happening, and in the end none of it mattered,” he says. “What this ban has done is show now that the denial of our healthcare isn’t a side effect of a struggling NHS. It’s a deliberate political choice.”
“They’ve deliberately chosen to enact this policy despite all the damage we know it will do, and gone above and beyond even what the Cass Review called for – something we know to be a piece of political psuedoscience anyway,” Grin continues.
Arguments presented in the Cass Review, published in April this year, contended that the quality of evidence that puberty blockers are beneficial to young people with gender dysphoria is “poor”. In spite of this, the review stopped short of calling for a blanket ban on puberty blockers. Regardless, the report led to the Tory government to announce a ban on puberty blockers back in May, and despite Labour ousting the Tories in July, Streeting decided to move forward with the proposed ban.
It’s abundantly clear that Streeting’s decision is misguided. The Cass Review has been widely criticised for alleged bias: a paper published by academics at Yale University alleged that it “repeatedly misuses data and violates its own evidentiary standards,” is “rife with misapplications of the scientific method,” and fails to evaluate the evidence “in a neutral and scientifically valid manner.”
In addition, research published in 2021 by the NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) found that the majority of transgender teenagers who take puberty blockers to treat severe gender dysphoria feel happier, and that 98 per cent of the young people continued on to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) once puberty-blocking treatment stopped at the age of 16.
24-year-old Angus Natalie is another supporter of Trans Kids Deserve Better. “Wes Streeting’s decision to indefinitely ban puberty blockers for gender dysphoria is nothing but an unhinged, cold, hazardous and disgraceful decision,” they say. “I think words actually fail me.” They say that in their view, Streeting has “stabbed the the LGBTQIA+ community in the back.”
“Black trans women fought for his rights as a gay man and this is how he uses his power?” they continue. “The only ‘evidence’ that Streeting is paying any attention to of late is the blood-stained Cass Review [...] The real evidence, studies, and experience indicates that gender-affirming care is life-saving care.”
“It’s traumatising being stuck as a trans kid knowing your body is permanently changing in ways you never wanted – you’re in this state of constant panic,” Grin adds. “There’s this idea that blockers are the permanent intervention, but the reality is that all they do is give us room to breathe.”