Why Scotland Has Paused Puberty Blockers For Children

Scotland’s only gender clinic for young people has paused prescribing puberty blockers for new patients under 18 years old after the National Health Service (NHS) in England banned children from receiving the gender treatment last month.

Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty changes by stopping the body from making sex hormones including testosterone and estrogen. They can be prescribed to treat gender dysphoria, the clinical term for psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.

The Sandyford Clinic, based in Glasgow, announced that new patients aged 16 and 17 “will no longer be prescribed gender affirming hormone treatment until they are 18 years old,” the clinic wrote in an update on its website. Existing patients currently receiving treatment will not be affected.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), the national health branch that oversees the clinic, said in a statement Thursday that it had contacted patients this week to advise that the prescription of puberty hormone suppressants and gender affirming hormones to young people was paused following research findings of NHS England that were published in March.

The independent report made for NHS England, which was led by Dr. Hilary Cass, a consultant pediatrician and former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said that there was insufficient long-term evidence of what happens to youth who are prescribed puberty blockers. As a result, the NHS banned children in England from receiving puberty blockers, only providing the prescription to youth taking part in clinical research trials.

NHSGGC and NHS Lothian, another area in Scotland, said that “on clinical advice,” they had deferred starting new patients on these treatments in mid-March in response to the position taken by NHS England and while waiting for the publication of the Cass Review. After the review was published and with the…