A ruling by the British High Court of Justice last year—one holding that children under 16 may not be prescribed puberty blockers to medicate their transgender identities—has been overruled by an appeals court:
The court of appeal has overturned a controversial judgment that children under the age of 16 considering gender reassignment are unlikely to be mature enough to give informed consent to be prescribed puberty-blocking drugs.
Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust, which runs NHS England's only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, challenged a high court ruling last year in a case brought against the service by Keira Bell, a 24-year-old woman who began taking puberty blockers when she was 16 before detransitioning. The other applicant was the unnamed mother of a teenage autistic girl on the waiting list for treatment.
The three high court judges had also said the doctors of teenagers under 18 may need to consult the courts for authorisation for medical intervention. As a result of the decision, the Tavistock suspended new referrals for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the under-16s.
However, in a judgment handed down on Friday, the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, Sir Geoffrey Vos and Lady Justice King said it had been "inappropriate" for the high court to issue the guidance.
It seems—I don't know, call me crazy—a bit of a no-brainer that, say, 13-year-old children shouldn't be ingesting synthetic chemicals meant to delay their body's natural development, all over the grave misconception that they are a member of the opposite sex.
Then again, it would have seemed unlikely that any medical figures would have ever signed onto this plainly unhinged ideology to begin with, but here we are. God help us.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
