𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Why did the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, need a regulator to stop him putting children as young as eight on a medical pathway to sterilisation? This week our medicines regulator, the MHRA, blocked the Government’s unethical trial which would have seen over 200 children struggling with their gender given puberty blocker drugs. The MHRA forced the Government’s hand by raising grave concerns about the risk of long-term biological harm to the young children involved.

The MHRA said the trial will “very likely” cause infertility and risks permanent bone damage, loss of brain function, and even vaginal bleeding in “very young children”. They said that the current trial risks putting children who are far too young on a pathway they couldn’t possibly consent to.

None of this is new. The Conservatives, campaigners, and hundreds of health professionals have been warning about these risks for months. Almost 400 clinicians wrote to Wes Streeting and over 144,000 members of the public signed a petition urging the government to put an end to the trial. Kemi Badenoch echoed those concerns in a letter co-signed by MPs from across the political spectrum. Yet still the Government, in what has become a familiar pattern, stuck its fingers in its ears and pressed ahead despite the mounting warnings.

Now the regulator has told them what everyone else already knew: this trial is not suitable for children. Whatever you want to do with your gender as an adult, is not a decision for when you’re a child. 

For years, radical trans activists have been telling children that they were ‘born in the wrong body’. Many of these children were vulnerable and when faced with the natural struggles of puberty were told that everything could be fixed with puberty blockers and a pathway to gender transition. They chose medical pathways which caused irreversible damage to their bodies.

It took brave campaigners like Keira Bell, journalists like Helen Joyce and Hannah Barnes, and courageous politicians like Kemi Badenoch and Rosie Duffield to take a stand against this dangerous ideology that was causing lasting harm. We know that the vast majority of children who question their biological sex no longer feel that way once they get through their teenage years. Many grow up to realise they were gay – not in the wrong body, as they were told, but simply coming to terms with their own sexuality. 

We risk making the same mistakes again that so many fought so hard to stop. These puberty blocking drugs do not give children “time to think”. They are the start of a medical pathway with irreversible consequences. Almost every child placed on puberty blockers goes on to take cross-sex hormones, which cause permanent loss of sexual function and infertility. How can a child as young as 10 or 11 possibly consent to that?

If anyone had asked me whether I consented to giving up my chance of having children or a functioning sex life when I was so young, I would have had no idea what they were talking about – let alone able to make a rational decision with lifelong consequences. Childhood innocence is precious, and that is exactly why this trial is so dangerous. Children cannot consent to things that they do not understand.

The Conservatives banned the routine prescription of puberty blockers for under-18s because we believe that the state should not stop healthy children from growing up. Kemi Badenoch has been fighting to protect vulnerable children from harm for years – often in the face of huge opposition. We should be helping children understand the changes happening to their bodies, not pumping them with drugs and leading them down a path of irreversible biological damage. 

No child is born in the wrong body. For most of them, puberty is not the problem – it is the cure. To chemically prevent it is to rob them of the very process that would have resolved their distress.

Wes Streeting himself has admitted that he feels “uncomfortable” with this trial. Perhaps he should listen to that instinct. The MHRA has given him the cover to do the right thing. He should not waste it by tinkering around the edges – he should stop the trial for good.

Years from now, people will look back on this period and ask how we allowed healthy children to be put on a pathway to chemical sterilisation. The Conservatives will continue to fight until this trial is stopped.