Parents of Transgender Children Launch Legal Action Against Wes Streeting in Bid to Stop Puberty Blockers Trial
Parents of children who identify as trans or non-binary have launched legal action against the Government in a bid to stop a controversial trial of puberty blocking drugs. The Mail has the story.
They are taking action against the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), headed by Wes Streeting, and the Health Research Authority (HRA).
It is claimed the ethical approval process for the trial, which is being led by researchers at King’s College London, “contained serious flaws”.
Campaigners had previously sent a legal letter in December to regulatory bodies, the Government and the trial researchers calling for it to be halted.
They have now launched formal action and are seeking permission in the High Court to challenge the decision which saw the trial granted approval.
The claimants said they will “if necessary” ask for recruitment to be paused while legal proceedings are under way.
Confirmation came in November that ethical and regulatory approval had been granted for the trial.
Researchers at the time said they were aiming to recruit around 226 young people aged between 10 and almost 16.
The trial is being undertaken following a recommendation by the Cass Review into children’s gender care.
It concluded that the quality of research claiming to show the benefits of puberty blockers for youngsters with gender dysphoria was “poor”.
Baroness Hilary Cass, who led the review, has previously said her report “uncovered a very weak evidence base” for the benefits of puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria.
But she added that “given that there are clinicians, children and families who believe passionately in the beneficial effects, a trial was the only way forward to make sense of this”.
The senior paediatrician said a supervised puberty blocker trial is “better” than children buying drugs on the dark web.
A number of high-profile names have expressed their opposition, including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling who has signed a petition launched by one of the campaigners urging the Government to cancel the trial.
Rowling has criticised the trial as “an unethical experiment on children who can’t give meaningful consent”.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch previously wrote to Streeting, the Health Secretary, saying the medical trial must be stopped “before more damage is done to children”.
Streeting has admitted to feeling “uncomfortable” with puberty-suppressing hormones being used on young people.
But the Cabinet Minister added it is his responsibility to follow expert advice and said going ahead with a trial is the “right thing to do”.
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Parliament is going to debate the petition – “Cancel the clinical trial into puberty blockers & safeguard vulnerable children”.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/751839
The debate is scheduled for 9 March 2026.
Streeting is a man torn between conflicting convictions. On the one hand he’s trying to reconcile his political stance, ambitions and lifestyle to a Christian faith (I do not pass judgement), on the other he’s at the mercy of the pressure-groups that have helped define his party’s agenda and assist his political career.
Having made something of a principled stand against “legalised euthanasia” (not easy for a member of Starmer’s cabinet), he must fight to keep his seat secure from militant pro-Gaza Islamists (a significant and fast growing minority), but also sees attacks and vandalism of his constituency office from pro-trans activists (damage to the “shop front” and regular deliveries of coffins).
Couple these with clearly stated ambition, alignment with Fabian doctrines and kow-towing to Peter Thiel (via the Bilderbergs) and you have a full set of irreconcilable opposites.
There’s no such thing as a transgender/non-binary child and parents have to take responsibility here and remedy this at home, not stick your poor, confused ( likely social media-addicted/brainwashed ) kids in a drugs trial which will have no positive outcomes whatsoever, only negatives due to the damage done to their physical ( as well as ongoing psychological ) health. Shame on anyone for normalizing or attempting to justify this abuse and dress it up as ”gender affirming care” or some such twaddle. Twitter has many active ‘detransitioners’, who wholeheartedly regret their decision to ‘transition’ due to falling victim to this nefarious cult which preys on the vulnerable. Mary is just one of many; ”I once believed I was non-binary and took testosterone for four years, including undergoing a double mastectomy. Now, I’ve fully detransitioned. I’ve made peace with my past and reclaimed my health. Grateful to be grounded again. Before testosterone I was healthy. I worked out every day, watched what I ate and was in good shape. One year on testosterone I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure. My numbers were good before that. Testosterone will cut years off of your life. I’m basically a sexless human… Read more »
It’s heartbreaking. I presume the parents thought they were helping but as a parent I cannot get my head around it.
It’s hard to get any kind of quality data on the regret/detrans rate because how would something like that even be reliably recorded and compiled? With regards to psychological follow-up post-surgery, what do people even have, if anything? Because you’ve just undergone significant body modification so if you were struggling mentally before that does this alleged ‘gender dysphoria’ just go away? Well, I’ve not got any stats but just from reading various sources it seems suicide rates and ideation are still above average post-transition compared to the non-trans population. A contributing factor will be the many health complications they suffer.
This is just a few MtF people talking about the complications they’ve experienced after having their penises inverted to create a fauxgina. You can’t help but feel sympathy for them because it’s obviously irreversible and sounds horrendous.
What sane parent would be supportive of their child going through this, even if their child was an adult?🙁
https://x.com/i/status/1970863097670947149
Yup our 2 kids are well into adulthood and I can’t imagine what we’d do if they came out with anything like this. I mean you have to let go and by and large we do but if someone you love is about to make a choice like that I think you have to do your utmost to stop them basically self-harming.
“It concluded that the quality of research claiming to show the benefits of puberty blockers for youngsters with gender dysphoria was “poor”.”
This presupposes that “gender dysphoria” is a thing and that it requires “treatment”. I think that’s a completely mad and incorrect starting point. The whole idea is mad and evil and any “trial” should be dismissed out of hand on moral grounds.
“But the Cabinet Minister added it is his responsibility to follow expert advice”.
Nonsense. It’s his responsibility to assess expert advice and make a decision taking into account many other factors, including moral considerations. He’s saying he can’t asses the expert advice and therefore has to blindly follow (cf Covid).
Indeed. That’s what all leaders of larger enterprises need to do- detect bullshit, use common sense, learn which experts actually correctly predict things, ask awkward questions. Christ I run a department of 25 software engineers, which is my background, and I still need to assess who to trust.
Precisely Mikael; there are plenty of experts whose advice is that puberty blockers shouldn’t be used. Follow that advice Streeting.
Rowling for PM
Cass was wrong to say a trial was needed. The rest of her report was credible, but she completely undermined her findings with this concession.
Let someone else argue for the necessity.
A Christian would not behave the way Streeting behaves.
There is NO justification for experimenting on children who are too young to consent, particularly when the consequences of experiment will be irreversible.
A child cannot identify as non binary, it’s a nonsense.
First of all, why on earth have the DHSC been given the go ahead on this off the back of a totally ambiguous review (Cass), whose only real conclusion was that the “evidence was poor” (misquoted in the government’s response to the petition by the way, in which it stated the evidence was “unclear”)?
Secondly, if the “threshold for warranting a clinical trial is extremely high” as is also stated in the response, then are we really looking at such an extreme nationwide epidemic of “gender dysphoria” that the only solution is to greenlight a project that involves weird science experiments on hundreds of children?
This whole saga highlights a kind of nihilistic attitude towards male and female stereotypes, where it is thought that boys will be boys and girls will be girls, and that if a part of you feels not entirely masculine, then you must BE a girl trapped in the wrong body (and vice versa).