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ELbowloh
I'm going to try to do something novel in the world of trans rights, I'm going to try to give you a balanced and fair overview of the science and what each 'side' says about it.
Scientifically speaking, puberty blockers are safe as hell. We've used them since the seventies to combat precocious puberty in children, and since the 80s to combat certain midlife conditions, also related to hormone production. They're safe for those use cases.
More recently (since about 1998), they've been used as a sort of delaying tactic for pre-pubescent teens who think they might be trans - they're seen by gender clinicians as being able to buy a teenager some time before they make any decisions about surgery etc. The Cass report said that as this was a novel use for puberty blockers compared to the use cases above, we should do more research, since we don't yet know if there's any irreversible effect of their use on (for example) a teenagers brain or bone development.
Important to note the Cass report did not recommend an outright ban, just more clinical research. But the government has taken this recommendation, and since clinical research happens before a drug is released to the public, that effectively means that people who used to be able to get puberty blockers on the NHS or privately can no longer do so. This is what's being called the 'ban'.
Labour has said they are "minded to renew the emergency banning order with a view to converting it to a permanent ban, subject to appropriate consultation”.That means trans teens will be unable to get these drugs, even privately. Which will mean trans teens going through a puberty they don't want - which must be horrific. And, arguably worse, trans teens for whom these drugs ARE working will have them taken away, and go through a puberty they thought they were saved from.
This is quite a challenging one. I'm very much pro trans rights, but I believe in evidence based medicine. If Cass is right that this is a novel use, and the impact on bone/brain development in teens is not yet understood, then I don't see why they should've been prescribed in the first place. On the other hand, we've been prescribing them since 1998 and isn't that trial enough? Banning them will lead to trans kids killing themselves. Not banning them might mean people who aren't trans being pushed into using puberty blockers without us understanding the impact. What's the right answer?