JK Rowling hails ‘humane’ ban on puberty blockers
The author has applauded the British Labour Health Secretary for reaffirming a ban on private prescription of puberty blockers for under-18s, angering some MPs.
JK Rowling has described as “humane” and “considered” the new British Labour government’s decision to ban the private prescription of puberty blockers for under-18s.
The Harry Potter author said “the times they are a-changin’” after Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said that the government would make permanent an emergency stop on the prescription of the drugs.
Mr Streeting said he was “treading cautiously” and putting children’s safety first in his decision but has faced a backlash from left-wing MPs and LGBT+ Labour.
Victoria Atkins, Mr Streeting’s predecessor in the Conservative government, used powers in the Medicines Act 1968 to stop private or European organisations from prescribing puberty blockers to people under 18, if the drugs were intended to help with gender incongruence or gender-affirming healthcare.
The National Health Service had already stopped prescribing the medication, which suppresses young people’s natural production of sex hormones to delay puberty, to children because “there is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness”, according to the health service.
Mr Streeting said he supported an NHS trial to find out what effects puberty blockers had, and said: “The evidence should have been established before they were ever prescribed.”
He said: “Children’s healthcare must always be led by evidence.”
Labour is preparing to introduce legislation which would ban so-called conversion therapy, including for transgender people.
This has raised concerns about the potential of teachers and parents being criminalised if they do not affirm a child’s gender, however the party is convinced it can protect professionals with exemptions.
Rowling, an outspoken campaigner on women’s rights and single-sex spaces, has been critical of Labour’s position on gender issues, accusing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during the election campaign of having “abandoned” her and other women.
But she said on Monday that Mr Streeting’s position came as a “relief”.
Puberty Blockers. A 🧵
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) July 14, 2024
Children’s healthcare must always be led by evidence.
Medicine given to children must always be proven safe and effective first.
I know there’s lots of fear and anxiety.
Let me explain why this decision was taken.
1/9
Sharing a thread on X where the Health Secretary had set out his position, Rowling said: “It is a mark of how febrile and often vicious the discourse around child transition has become that this humane, considered thread from @wesstreeting comes as such a relief.”
She added that Mr Streeting was “doing the right, rather than the easy thing”.
Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said she agreed with Mr Streeting and added: “I’ve read the Cass review, and in it, it’s very clear that there are serious concerns about the long term impact of puberty blockers on young people. We don’t know enough about the long-term impact on physical health, on mental health.”
(Chair of the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people, paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, reported serious concerns about the long-term impact of puberty blockers on young people.)
The times they are a-changin’ https://t.co/yPG38dhHJf
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 15, 2024
Ms Nandy told TalkTV she wanted “far more light, far less heat” in what she called a “very polarised and toxic debate”.
Rowling once said that Ms Nandy was “one of the biggest reasons many women on the left no longer trust Labour to defend their rights”, but sharing her interview on Monday said: “The times they are a-changin’.”
However, activists have said Labour’s position would put transgender young people’s lives at risk.
Jolyon Maugham, the founder and director of Good Law Project, which is supporting campaign group TransActual and a young person who cannot be named with a High Court challenge to the original ban, said the measures would “kill trans children”.
Mr Streeting unfollowed Mr Maugham on Twitter/X after he had posted 25 questions that he said the Health Secretary needed to answer, suggesting if he did not do so “the trans community and its allies will reasonably conclude they are regarded by Labour with contempt”.
Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, said: “A blanket ban is wrong and not what Cass recommended. Careful, clinical provision is the way forward, not this politicisation.”
Apsana Begum, the MP for Poplar and Limehouse, said puberty blockers were “a life-saving measure”, and Nadia Whittome, the Nottingham East MP said she would fight the ban.
Zarah Sultana, another backbencher, said she supported ending the ban and Stella Creasy said the Cass review “recommended caution, not exclusion”.
Mr Streeting said: “The Cass review found there is not enough evidence about the long-term impact of puberty blockers for gender incongruence to know whether they are safe or not, nor which children might benefit from them.
“The evidence should have been established before they were ever prescribed. The NHS took the decision to stop the routine use of puberty blockers for gender incongruence/dysphoria in children.
“They are establishing a clinical trial with the National Institute for Health and Care Research to ensure the effects of puberty blockers can be safely monitored and provide the evidence we need.”
Mr Streeting said clinicians can prescribe blockers to children who begin puberty too early because this has been “extensively tested”, and added: “This is different to stopping the normal surge of hormones that occur in puberty. This affects children’s psychological and brain development.
“We don’t yet know the risks of stopping pubertal hormones at this critical life stage. That is the basis upon which I am making decisions. I am treading cautiously in this area because the safety of children must come first.”
Following his posts on social media, LGBT+ Labour published a letter to Mr Streeting, signed by the organisation’s trans officer Dylan Naylor, and Willow Parker, the trans officer for the party’s student wing.
They wrote: “In line with the review’s recommendations, steps must be taken to cut waiting lists for trans youth, address long-term staffing issues, move towards a decentralised, equitable system for accessing care (including through the provision of regional centres), provide comprehensive training for NHS staff on how best to support and work sensitively with trans and questioning young people, and better address the current toxicity of public debate which is actively harmful to young people.”
The authors called on the minister to “urgently set out the timeline, scope and nature” of a clinical trial and added: “We hope that under this new Labour government progress can be made to reset the public discussion on trans rights, centring on the humanity of, and compassion for, each individual trans person.”
The Times
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