The puberty-blockers trial will ‘trans away the gay’

Starting next month, the NHS will perform a medical experiment on more than 200 physically healthy children. Under the new Pathways Trial, these children will receive a regular dose of a drug, GnRHa, which will prevent them from going through puberty. Pathways is unprecedented, because it seeks to rediscover what we already know – namely, that puberty blockers do not resolve young people’s distress, but instead cause irreversible harm to many who take them.

As their peers begin to grow, to develop secondary sex characteristics and acquire the reasoning skills, emotional maturity and resilience that are vital for adulthood, children given puberty blockers will be frozen in a spectral, hairless, childlike state that will last as long as they continue taking the drug. No wonder UK health secretary Wes Streeting says that he feels ‘uncomfortable’ about this experiment, despite having authorised the trial himself.

GnRHa is a powerful drug that is also used to treat sex offenders, eliminating libido and diminishing sexual function. This kind of chemical castration is currently being trialled in the UK, championed by home secretary Shabana Mahmood. Her conscience need not be troubled though, because unlike the NHS Pathways Trial, which will include children as young as nine, the trial for sex offenders is on a strictly adult-only basis. How could it be considered ethical otherwise?

There is no reason to believe that Streeting is not sincere in his compassion for children who struggle with disliking their own bodies. He is right to recognise that puberty is a difficult and troubling time for many children. However, it seems likely that his particular discomfort with this trial may stem from his own experiences as a gay teenager and gay man. The Pathways Trial will consider gender non-conformity as evidence that a child might be suitable to participate. Perhaps a girl will be invited to participate because she insists on short hair and loves football. Maybe a boy will be approved to take part because he has begged to attend dance classes with his sisters and chooses a pink rucksack for school.

Streeting will be ‘uncomfortable’ with that reasoning because he knows that little boys who are effeminate sometimes grow up to be homosexual men. It’s also true that tomboys who reject frills and Barbies sometimes grow up to be lesbians. Not always – but often enough.

Figures from the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) are stark and troubling. Eighty-nine per cent of the girls and 81 per cent of the boys who attended the clinic said they were same-sex attracted. They were persuaded that their emerging sense that they were lesbian, gay or bisexual meant they were trapped in the wrong body and should be ‘treated’ with powerful drugs. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was right to describe ‘gender-affirming care’ for children as ‘transing away the gay’. Adding to Streeting’s hesitance must be the fear that he, the first out gay man to run the Department of Health and Social Care, would be the enabler-in-chief of this scandal.

The medicalisation of homosexuality undoubtedly has a long and ugly history. As the UK’s only charity exclusively for lesbians, gays and bisexuals, LGB Alliance, where I am CEO, led the fight against puberty blockers. Streeting was an incredible ally, and did the bravest thing a politician can do: he admitted he was wrong.

We call on him to be brave again, and reconsider this mass medical experiment on children – the vast majority of whom will grow up to be lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Kate Barker is CEO of LGB Alliance.