UK human rights group tells Mike Nesbitt to 'rethink' Northern Ireland's involvement in puberty blockers trial
A human rights group says serious mental health issues are being ignored in the current approach to children identifying as transgender – and Mike Nesbitt need to rethink his approach on puberty blockers.
Sex Matters – a lobby group which seeks to protect sex-based rights – says it is wrong to let children believe that they can change sex, when they can’t.
The UK group’s Director of Campaigns Fiona McAnena, who is originally from Northern Ireland, says that the best cure for gender confusion in children is to allow them to go through a natural puberty.
Her comments come after Dr Hilary Cass launched a review of gender services in Northern Ireland – advising Stormont’s health ministry on where it should align services with England, in order to take part in a national trial of puberty blockers.
The banned drugs were widely prescribed in the past for children questioning their gender – but that practice was stopped after Dr Cass questioned the evidence base, an recommended a trial. The drugs halt normal physical development during puberty.
Fiona McAnena says studies should be carried out on the estimated 2000 children who have already been given the hormone-blockers. “We can learn the impact of blocking puberty from them, without doing it to a whole new group of children. The health minister needs to rethink this”, she said.
The Sex Matters director told the News Letter: “Once again we are seeing what Dr Cass called ‘diagnostic overshadowing’: all other issues are ignored when someone says ‘trans’. She previously found that almost all young people presenting with gender distress had other mental health issues. Many were autistic, many had experienced childhood trauma. These children need mental health support as they grow up. Instead some will have their natural development stopped.
“Puberty is the best cure for gender confusion. Before puberty blockers, most children grew out of this. Many grew up to be gay. But puberty blockers seem to lock in their cross-sex identity. In the previous study of puberty blockers done in the London clinic, almost every child went on to medical transition - which meant losing their fertility and their sexual function”.
Ms McAnena said: “That’s a shocking outcome when they probably would have grown out of it through puberty”.
She said it is “wrong to promise them they can change sex - they can’t. Giving them puberty blockers is just setting them up for misery and confusion”.
“What are these children meant to do in school? They are not allowed to use the facilities for the other sex because it’s not fair on other children. It would be much kinder to let them grow up normally”.