NHS trans drug trial ‘betrays our children’

[IwantToRetire]

Puberty blockers will be given to more than 200 young people, potentially as young as eight, who think they may be transgender.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, banned the drugs last year because of “unacceptable safety risks”, but they can still be administered as part of clinical trials for patients who meet certain criteria.

For the NHS trial, being run by King’s College London (KCL), children who show a “persisting desire” for the drugs and are deemed by gender doctors as standing a “reasonable prospect of benefit” could be eligible.

Children will be screened for neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, but participants who are deemed to have such conditions will not be excluded from the trial.

While researchers running the trial acknowledged that children faced potential harm in their cognitive and sexual development, they claimed the risks of not prescribing the drugs could include depression and self-harm.

Article continues at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/22/nhs-trans-drug-trial-betrays-our-children/ and at https://archive.is/cyLf9

I agree. Not least because there seem to be no shortage of fully-grown adults who don't seem Gillick competent to understand the impact of puberty blockers for gender confusion (see all the captured institutions and charities, for example).

Whatever happened to “first do no harm”?

how have a mediation pathway which is known to lead to loss of bone density, greater risk of heart disease and cancers, loss of cognitive development, sterilisation and loss of adult sexual function possibly have passed an ethical review for a trial for CHILDREN? How?

@browser2025

These drugs will not be given to children to make them feel more like they are the opposite sex. They will be given to children who express a desire to be the opposite sex. The purposes of the drugs are first to prevent normal puberty and then to modify the child’s body to more closely resemble the opposite sex.

As for drug to help a child feel more comfortable with their biological sex - why drugs at all? Mental health conditions surely require mental health therapy, not harmful body mods. Talking therapy, social skills therapy, occupational therapy, therapeutic physical exercise, surely all those should be the priority. Perhaps antidepressants can be considered as part of the overall therapeutic picture.

David Bell doesn't think it's a well-designed study, however. I must admit I'm confused about the expected utility of the one-year wait for half the subjects.

It will provide a cohort for whom the effects are not to severe and will be seized on by trans activists for their puberty blockers are not harmlful and are reversible line. Either those who designed the study are unaware of this which is worrying or they are aware which is much more worrying.

My suspicion is that those running the study know that using puberty blockers to "treat" gender dysphoria is harmful but they think that it is justified for some super special kids.

I agree with this too.

Also requires understanding of the risks. How can they understand the risks when nobody knows what they are?

Agree with this. And I think the researchers are very much aware, i.e. it is deliberate.

I suspect the "scientific data" being planned is something like this 📝:

1. Having been surrounded by sloganeering affirming cheerleaders instead of functional adults, carefully questioning parents and cautious professional services: Children (sorry, Young People) who are asked to wait for a year for sweeties PBs are distressed.
2. YP who get their sweeties PBs immediately are happy.
3. YP who have had their sweeties PBs for a year and then have them removed are distressed.
4. YP who have had sweeties PBs for only a year will have less severe side effects than if for longer.
5. Therefore, sweeties PBs are harmless and reversible.
6. In conclusion, due to 1-5, the YP must, just to be scientifically rigorous and clinically ethical, you understand, continue on this completely harmless, distress-alleviating and happy-making, lifelong medical pathway.

After all, what kind of bigoted dinosaurian monster wouldn't want YP to have this harmless, distress-alleviating and happy-making, now scientifically rubber-stamped, joyous authentic authentication of authenticness?

The news that this trial is going ahead is utterly depressing. I know from personal experience how easy it is for young people to be swept away by the idea that biological sex is an identity, and you can choose to change it. My daughter was 19, facing a very difficult and traumatic time in her life, when she got caught up. As the brain doesn’t mature until at least 25, how can children as young as 10 have the ability to understand the devastating consequences of halting or blocking puberty?

My intelligent and articulate daughter was seduced by an ideology that promised her a new life, a way to disappear painful feelings. The chance to become a different person and to find her ‘people’. To start again. For young women like her, the past has to be erased so they can say, ‘I always felt this way.’

This younger cohort will be children who have always been gender non conforming, are perhaps realising they’re same-sex attracted, have been bullied or ostracised by their peers, have been unduly influenced by adults and social media. Their problems are real, but there is every chance to give them expert, non-medical help and support. To help them accept the realities of their physical bodies and to unpick the distress that is centred on this.

The Cass report was carried out within a febrile backdrop of resistance and hostility. I thought it was probably the best we could expect at the time, considering how difficult it was to do this work. I’m horrified that it seems to have led to where we are now.

We can’t know the full extent of the harms caused to this group of children for another 20 or 30 years and inevitably will look back on this trial with absolute horror. Have medics, politicians and researchers not learnt anything?

My hope is that widespread revulsion to this decision will be enough to prevent the trial going ahead. Keira Bell, who is one of the young women who went through the Tavistock experiment and speaks so movingly about her experiences, is working with James Esses to try to find a legal way to stop this. If anyone knows, she does.

There is so much wrong with the trial but not this as it isn't how the trial is structured. It requires the informed consent of one parent & informed "assent" from the child. There is no question of just the child alone consenting it always requires parental consent.

I completely agree, no drugs should ever be used. The whole idea is absurd. My point about medication was more about challenging doctors who seem determined to prescribe drugs that alter a child’s sex characteristics. If a doctor insists on giving estrogen to boys because they feel like girls, then what are that same Doctors views on prescribing testosterone to align feelings with their biological sex instead? I’d just want to know how these professionals can justify their actions, but I also appreciate I really don’t know enough about the drugs, the process etc. That said, I absolutely agree that no drugs should be prescribed at all. The situation is dreadful.

Of course children will go through phases of curiosity about their identity; that’s perfectly natural. We grow up surrounded by people who look and act differently from us. If everyone looked the same, perhaps identity wouldn’t feel so complicated.

Instead of medical interventions, children should be guided to understand that it’s normal to have questions about who they are. Curiosity is part of growing up. It takes time to figure out your identity, especially in school environments where expectations about how to act or behave can conflict with how you truly feel.

While researchers running the trial acknowledged that children faced potential harm in their cognitive and sexual development, they claimed the risks of not prescribing the drugs could include depression and self-harm.

As though there are no other treatments for depression and self-harm.

it’s all such experimental frankenstein nonsense and children aren’t being safeguarded. It felt like a throwaway concession in the Cass review to appease the trans activists. It’s a scandal.

Professor Emily Simonoff, research lead and professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at KCL, said it “allows us to explore additional interesting questions, such as does the amount of time on receiving puberty suppression lead to increased effects, if they exist”.

What is the point of the one year delay if they are recruiting children of different ages who continue to use puberty blockers at the end of the trial?

Or are they only studying the impact of puberty blockers for 2 years and then not doing any follow up?

Surely the entire concept of puberty suppression is completely illogical if you're using it to form further decisions.

They're not growing in any way, or maturing, are they? They're exactly the same in two years' time as they are now.

And if their IQ goes down, they'll be in an even worse position to make any decisions.

It really does feel as though it's one big Frankenstein experiment, just to see what happens.

and what about this suggestion that if they want to continue they can, how does that work if they find bones start to crumble?

Just a side-effect?

It's all so irresponsible. We've just banned all this!

It doesn't follow that because there is a lack of reliable data, a particular experiment is necessary or wise.

They haven't explain either the problem they are trying solve - what is 'gender incongruence'? - or the imagined consequences of the suggested solution. Puberty does cause distress, but what alternative are they proposing?

But didn't the Cass report recommend the trial because the research to determine the effectiveness wasn't robust enough yet?

NC for this.

My inadequacy at having been born female was (literally) knocked into me as a child. A boy had been expected, my dreadful parents had no idea what to call me, no clothes for me. Girls were an utter disappointment.

I’m in my 70’s now but clearly remember being six and wondering, with what was then childlike naivety, whether to ask them if the doctor could make me a boy. I didn’t want to be a boy, I just wanted to be liked. In the end I didn’t mention it, not only because any attempt at a conversation with them never ended well, but also I liked typical girl things - dolls, pretty clothes, long hair - and dreamed of the day when I’d be able to have those things.

It was particularly cruel having cropped hair but long hair got on their nerves apparently.

I almost can’t bear to read about this transgender evil, it makes the six year old me cry for these children’s innocent souls.

I don’t think I can bear to look at the protocol, but presumably half the cohort will be taking a placebo? Are they going to do MRIs on the children at regular intervals? There’s a huge wait to analyse brain MRIs at the moment due to shortages in experts. 200 extra is a lot.

For thoroughness, I would like to see psychiatric tests done on the primary care giver for the child and the doctors. Preferably before any children went through this.

I watched a programme on Channel 4 last night about sequencing Hitler’s DNA. Fascinating, unsettling and upsetting. He had various markers for all sorts of disorders. He had a tough upbringing. He also allowed experimenting on people and got rid of people who didn’t conform to his standard. Whether nature or nurture (probably both) I kept thinking about the crossovers with this experiment on children in so many different ways. Before anyone starts, I am not comparing anyone to Hitler but this experiment gives me chills when I was watching about what went on in Germany back then. It feels so morally wrong. I don’t think I could work on this if I were asked to as a medic.

it “allows us to explore additional interesting questions, such as does the amount of time on receiving puberty suppression lead to increased effects, if they exist”.

FFS.

If they exist? Like the already well documented side effects ‘don’t exist’? Aren’t there enough evidence of bone density and connective tissue issues documented?

It really does seem to be like they have gone in with a blank sheet approach to rediscover what has been discovered before.

And if a child goes on to cross sex hormones, how will they determine what negative impact is purely from
puberty blockers, which from cross sex hormones and the degree of interaction from both?

They talk about "time on receiving puberty suppression" as though the assumed goal isn't permanent suppression.

I find it worrying they're 'screening for Autism' but not considering this as a reason to potentially exclude those children. I have a (slightly) older YP (18) who wants referral to a gender clinic. They carry a plushie around most of the time. They don't know the months or seasons of the year. If a 'cuddly' scene comes on TV they hide behind a cushion. Its part of their particular Autistic presentation. Re their own body- interception problems mean they dont even know if they are hungry or not, hot or cold or not - yet they are considered able to give consent to whole life altering drugs that there are NO long term medical studies for? It's madness
Does anyone have reliable data about the prevalence of Autistic kids who are 'gender confused' please? In my kids high school it was all of them (statistically unlikely) ???

"We can explore all sorts of interesting questions by experimenting on children."

Mengele would be right at home in a modern day gender clinic.

This has been discussed quite a lot on here. This is one thread but there are a lot more.

Michael Craig at Tavi: Are autism and gender dysphoria linked? | Mumsnet

This might also be useful.

Autism & Gender Identity - Introduction - Transgender Trend

I find the two year follow up terrifying. How will that show the long term changes to bones, that relief mentally is often temporary? It needs to be a minimum 10 years and longer would be far, far better. it is negligent.

There is evidence out there that is being deliberately hidden..

Show that evidence before they hurt any more children.
Their reluctance is telling.

I agree with many of the points made but also dont see how they can do any real assessment given the age of those concerned.

It is doubtful, even if some experience negative side effects, that in 2 years the emotions, thought process whatever that made them as a young person feel they were the wrong sex will have shifted.

Why aren't they also studying people who transed medically some years ago.

Or is that they are hoping the placebo group will have the same responses as those taking the drugs. So proving they make no difference in reality.

Not forgetting that this isn't about did a painkiller stop the pain.

This is about assessing the subjective feelings and perceptions of a young person.

How do you measure that.

In the 2 years they could change schools, join a new friendship network, move to a different area, which could have a huge impact.

Or join an annonymous support group online who could twist and alter how they think about what they are experiencing.

This isn't a measurable "cure" such as does a broken bone mend better through one sort of treatment compared to another.