Editorial: Welcome leadership from unionist parties on the use of puberty blockers

The clarity from the Ulster Unionist Party that it will not support the participation of children from Northern Ireland in a controversial trans drug trial is welcome.

Stormont’s health minister Mike Nesbitt paused local involvement in the King’s College London trial back in February, a move copied by the UK health secretary at the time, Wes Streeting.

A legal case which had been brought by campaigners against the use of puberty blockers has now been thrown out – but Jon Burrows’s party says that doesn’t mean the trial will restart.

The controversial drugs are used to pause puberty – and the subsequent natural changes to children’s bodies. They are used for precocious puberty, but have been used in recent years to “treat” children confused about their gender.

Until recently, many of these decisions were made purely in the medical arena – something supporters of such interventions argue should still be the case. However, the use of these drugs is not purely a medical matter.

The trial goes to the heart of a much bigger ethical and moral debate about whether any child can ever be born in the wrong body. Of course, no child is.

How society approaches such children, who are clearly in distress, is important. Many experts believe that should be left to psychotherapists, be entirely neutral, and not involve medical interventions like puberty blockers.

Those who advocated for ‘gender affirming care’ for children for many years were also politicising healthcare. Their euphemistic language covered up what is an emerging medical scandal for many whose lives were ruined by a journey which began on puberty blockers.

Well done to both the DUP and UUP for doing their part to stop any more children being put on a medical pathway they cannot fully comprehend.