The High Court in London has upheld the ban on prescribing puberty blocking drugs to children. Enacted in March by the previous British government, the measure was challenged by transgender activists.
The Tory government restricted the National Health Service from using puberty blockers outside of clinical trials and banned private suppliers from prescribing them. The NHS had stopped prescribing the drugs last year, saying there was not enough evidence about their benefits and harms.
Gender care is an area of “remarkably weak evidence” and young people have been caught up in a “stormy social discourse,” Justice Beverley Lang said in a ruling on Monday, citing a review commissioned by the NHS.
The emergency procedure used to enact the ban was “rational,” said Lang, to “avoid serious danger to the health” of children during the six-month period required for regular consultations.