Ten Questions for Wes Streeting
Crucial questions about the NHS Pathways Puberty Blocker Trial
Our Concerns
In a recent interview, Health Secretary Wes Streeting admitted that he is ‘uncomfortable’ about the PATHWAYS puberty blocker trial. His conscience tells him what so many of us already know to be true – the trial is clearly unethical and should not proceed. At Genspect, we believe the Health Secretary must answer the following ten questions before the trial begins recruitment.
Ten Questions for Wes Streeting
Puberty is the only route to adult physical, sexual, and psychological maturity. On what ethical basis can the state justify blocking a natural developmental process that can never be repeated if harm occurs?
How can a child meaningfully consent to losing fertility, sexual function, and adult developmental capacities they have never experienced and cannot understand?
Adolescents often outgrow gender distress naturally. How can a trial ethically enrol children when the condition commonly resolves without medical intervention?
Childhood gender non-conformity is strongly associated with same sex attraction in adulthood. How will the trial avoid unnecessarily medicalising children who would otherwise grow up to be healthy, same sex attracted adults?
The trial includes children identifying as non-binary, queer, two-spirit, or agender. What medical pathway is being tested for identities that have no biological or clinical definition?
In every other condition involving distorted body perception, medicine treats the mind rather than altering a healthy body. Why is gender distress the only exception?
Dr Hilary Cass says that the trial must go ahead because children ‘believe passionately’ that puberty blockers work. On that basis, when will the NHS launch a trial of Ozempic for anorexic young people who ‘believe passionately’ that they need to lose weight?
A desire to medically transition is listed as a ‘symptom’ of ‘gender incongruence’. For what other health condition is a desire for experimental medical intervention considered both a symptom of an underlying disorder and its cure?
Experimentation on children is only warranted where the anticipated benefits of the proposed medical intervention are clearly defined. Puberty blockers halt normal bone, brain, and sexual development, and the Cass Review found weak and uncertain evidence for safety or benefit. How do you justify exposing minors to experimental treatment with known developmental risks?
The UK Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case found that transgender people do not have a legally protected right to use single sex spaces and services intended for the opposite sex. Yet the trial is predicated on the belief that medical transition makes it possible to ‘live as the opposite sex’. How is it ethical to lead children into a pathway built on a false promise?
Puberty is Every Child’s Right
Learn more about Genspect’s Memorandum of Understanding on the Role of Puberty. Show your support here.