Streeting declares the puberty blocker trial 'safe'

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://archive.ph/CFzK4

'On Monday, Mr Streeting reiterated that he was not “comfortable” with the trial, which involves more than 200 people under the age of 16, but said there were significant “checks, balances and safeguards” that made it safe.

He told Sky News: “The thing I’ve had to continually weigh up is that for lots of people who have been through this sort of gender identity treatment, they describe it as life-affirming and life-saving. But there is an understandable degree of public anxiety and concern.

“The crucial reassurance is that not just anyone will be able to sign up to this trial. They will go through extensive assessment by expert clinicians locally that will be reviewed nationally, and every young person would need to assent.
“They’re not old enough to consent. They would need to assent, and they would <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/CFzK4/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/17/children-cannot-consent-puberty-blocker-trial-wes-streeting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">need the consent of parents.

“And so there are lots of checks, balances, oversights and safeguards and constant monitoring in a way that disgracefully wasn’t there before. That’s what gives me the confidence and assurance of knowing this trial is safe.

“There is a debate about whether this is the right thing to do. I understand that, and there’s one thing we’ve learnt about this particular area of policy is that we shouldn’t silence, debate, dissent, disagreement.

“So we’ll continue to have that, and we’ll continue to be subject to scrutiny and challenge.”

Mr Streeting admitted that the children who will be involved in the trial are “very young” and that the drugs are “very strong”.

But he claimed he had tried to take the “politics out of what has been an extremely <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/CFzK4/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/25/nhs-puberty-blockers-trial-repeat-tavistock-whistleblowers/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">difficult and sensitive issue”.

Despite the research going ahead, the Health Secretary added: “I think there are still big questions about how we ever ended up in this situation where these sorts of drugs were being routinely prescribed with and we’re continuing to get into that and looking.
“There’ll be another study looking at what’s happened to that cohort of young people over time.”'

I was wondering about the age limit of 14 suggested by the MHRA... Is it because at that age children are somehow closer to understand the effects on fertility? Or because the risks to fertility are lower at that age?

Is that how other branches of medicine work? (genuine question)
That a patient's general quality of life determines the medical treatment (drugs, surgery) that doctors prescribe to cure specific illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, brain tumours etc?

Maybe this just shouldn't be anywhere near the NHS other than as a mental health issue needing treating. At the moment the NHS appears to be offering this mentally unwell cohort either extreme / experimental cosmetic surgery and in the case of children, experimenting with medication that stops them developing into fully functioning adults.

It's in their letter here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6998b06d047739fe61889efb/Sponsor-letter110226.pdf

Paragraphs 2-5.

https://kclstopthepathwaystrial.online/

Open letter here from KCL students and doctors calling fpr a stop to the trial.

It's appalling that this trial was ever approved - they are opening discussing the fact that children going onto puberty blockers then cross sex hormones are being sterilised.

Sterilising children in a clinical trial to treat an ill defined mental health disorder which usually self-resolves over time.

The entire UK medical ethics system is not fit for purpose.

Thanks for the link, that's some letter, it mentions all the pushback against it unlike the bbc who didn't say anything about the widespread concern for the trail that there is. Well done David Stickland for having the courage to put his name to it, but is it likely to get any traction if it's signed by a Music Student.

Is the debate in parliament only for MP's or are other people allowed to weigh in because they could get DS in to speak, or someone on the cancel side can read the letter out.

Another point no-one mentions - a girl who wants to be a boy who goes onto puberty blockers will end up with being shorter than if she'd gone through normal puberty. Hardly helpful if as an adult they want to 'pass' as a man.

'When the PATHWAYS protocol refers to “gender incongruence” in children, what they are describing is childhood gender non-conformity – when children display behaviours, interests, and presentations that do not align with sex stereotypes. It has been widely accepted for quite some time that there is nothing wrong with childhood gender non-conformity. '

Scroll down a bit further and there are many other names in the red box of signatories.

Sterilising children in a clinical trial to treat an ill defined mental health disorder which usually self-resolves over time.

The bluntness of this really hits home.

Amazing letter, and seriously impressive set of signatories.

Nice tactic too, addressing KCL itself, and spelling out what it is opening itself up to if the trial goes ahead.

Suzanne Moore has written about the Streeting Trial (again?) In the Telegraph

https://archive.ph/KriLq

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/24/wes-streeting-has-shown-hes-a-coward/

Thank you for sharing. A few observations:

1. great letter
2. it's not clear how signatures are validated. Has anyone here already tried to sign it? Hopefully clicking on the red button leads to a landing page asking for an email address or something similar. Otherwise it's open to abuse, similar to the odd collection of signatures on the Your Party open letter. Apparently Osama Bin Laden posthumously signed that one, amongst other notable figures.
3. hopefully (if it is collecting email addresses for a validation step) the personal data (email address) of anyone who signs it is protected from data exfiltration. Unfortunately, there will undoubtedly be IT-savvy activists who see the signatories as fair game.. upon whom to vent their frustrations...
4. I didn't spot Gordon Guyatt's name there but maybe I missed it. I'd like to think that he didn't read the whole thing but signed it anyway. Likewise, perhaps I missed Hilary Cass sneaking in there so that she doesn't come across as someone who is weaponising children with a polarised viewpoint (in order to push for a medical trial, no matter what the potential harms might be)

(Admittedly, point 4 is a little tongue in cheek 😁 If you're reading this, Gordon and Hilary, hi 👋

Gordon, please can you remind me if this trial is medically necessary or not?

Hilary, please could you remind me if asking children 10 questions on a self-reporting basis is an example of high quality evidence?)

This interesting article popped up in my news feed, about an extension of the eligibility to sue the NHS if their negligence during childhood treatment led to harm.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/18/children-harmed-nhs-better-compensated-supreme-court/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/8dv7D

Given there has been no new clinical evidence, perhaps the MHRA was referring to new evidence that the NHS would probably be completely fucked if it goes ahead and stops even more children going through puberty.

Their reverse ferreting to at least let them get to 14 now does have that whiff of panic about it. Rightly so, considering the $2 million payout following the surgical harm of a child in the US for "gender affirming care". Perhaps they think it'll all be OK if they congratulate themselves that the surgery option has never been available to children here... and are hoping that nobody really notices that prescribing hormones that can permanently damage children's brains and bones is just as bad ethically.

There's 2000 kids who went through the Tavistock. If just 1% sue that's a BIG bill for the NHS.

I do think about writing for different audiences though.

The trial positions the symptom of distress being treated through the halting of puberty and the distress arising from the condition ‘gender incongruence’ - which isn’t understood/ defined as a mental illness (in the trial).

Is the target audience likely to be swayed by this language or will they dismiss the signatories/ letter because it’s seen to come from a place of misunderstanding?

Initiatives like this are great for making noise and getting public attention, which is important. I think it’s great that the organisers are being proactive and galvanising others in to action. I think the letter will fall short of swaying the KCL arm.

Indeed.

I would count that as "pretty much fucked". I reserve "completely fucked" if they continue on their Mengele pathway now that the Cass Report highlighted that there is no evidence base for any of these prescriptions ever having been handed out.

It's all semantics really. It's a race against time for them to get a viable detransitioner service up and running, probably stop offering any (including adult) "gender affirming care" and continue scrubbing their website clean of what they already knew.

On the latter point, a personal favourite of mine, given my own experience when my daughter asked for puberty blockers, is their removal of the wording which clearly stated that it is ""not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain".

Back in 2022, when we read this sentence my husband and I told our daughter that we would not allow her brain to be experimented on. There it was, in plain sight, the NHS telling potential patients that the treatment it was offering might impact their brain development. They may as well have written "possible side effects include permanent brain damage".

Here's a link to me advocating for the trial to be put forward, so that trial protocol can stop it from going ahead:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5121560-puberty-blockers-clinical-trial?reply=136849305&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

The link also includes the original wording from the NHS page about puberty blockers.

Obviously it did get put forward but it danced through the ethics committee with no issues (although I do wonder if 6 of the committee dropped out owing to their own concerns and fear of speaking up about them.... how ironically.... unethical)

The KCL researchers running the trial are clearly not remotely interested in a letter like this, or they wouldn’t be involved in the trial.

I think the usefulness of this sort of letter is to open the eyes of all the other lecturers and researchers and students at KCL who might not have known that the trial was taking place under their banner - or if they did know, did not understand the dirty details. Sunshine, and external pressure, will be what brings this trial to a halt, not the researchers themselves changing their minds.

I particularly liked the amount of time and care he spent explaining how gender non-conformity in children is highly correlated with same-sex attraction in adulthood, and that therefore this trial has, as an underlying motivation, the continuation of “transing away the gay,” that the Tavistock had.

I feel like allies and lay audiences are very quick to dismiss autism, mental health issues, sexual abuse as possible alternative reasons why a child might present with gender distress. It is harder, politically, to dismiss “they are actually children who will grow up gay/lesbian if you leave them alone.”

It was actually worse than that. She was saying it would be unethical to do the kind of trial that had been done on animals (re brain development impact) on children.

FFS.

I do need to finish watching the whole session. There was another point at which this same doctor said that the point of the trial was not to see if puberty blockers alleviated distress in gender dysphoria, because PBs will never do that.

Looping back to a PP's comment (apologies that I can't remember who it was), listening to these 3 doctors talking it seems like at least 2 of them quite enjoyed the fact that nobody really knows what the point of the trial is. By "enjoyed", I mean they gave a whiff of arrogance that suggested they consider themselves superior and that lesser plebs just don't get it. Presumably this kind of personality is a prerequisite if you are delivering experimental medical interventions, consider yourself great at what you do and need to keep weaving out of trouble when there could be doubts about safety.

I don't think my quoted text from pp is a direct quote from the letter?

I am commenting here specifically on the pp's stark distillation of the trial in that short paragraph, and how amongst all the contradictions and convolutions, this really just sharply hits the disturbing core of it.

Re the letter though, I hear your point- I am always too painfully aware and constricted in real life by constant awareness of "how will what I say actually be heard/recieved"- and so of things being potentially counterproductive.

(Which, as an aside, is why I love reading this board and being exposed to people just saying it as it is- the raw truth of things)

But, to me, the letter is part of the laying out ofmore and more evidence of forewarning- which is vital, and this kind of action is part of what has caused the MHRA pause in the first place I believe.

I think the usefulness of this sort of letter is to open the eyes of all the other lecturers and researchers and students at KCL who might not have known that the trial was taking place under their banner - or if they did know, did not understand the dirty details.

I think it also makes it clear that an excuse of ignorance is not available to anyone who might wish to make this claim at a future court appearance or public inquiry.

The 'I was just a minister given bad advice' cover is not available.

@BonfireLady

listening to these 3 doctors talking it seems like at least 2 of them quite enjoyed the fact that nobody really knows what the point of the trial is. By "enjoyed", I mean they gave a whiff of arrogance that suggested they consider themselves superior and that lesser plebs just don't get it.

Vomitous. Examples of the worst type of researcher. The best, most amazing senior researcher I ever worked with was a woman who constantly asked questions - mostly along the line of “I don’t understand what you just said, can you explain more?” She had an enormous brain, and a depth of knowledge in her field that was astounding, but she would never, ever pretend that she had all the answers. Why would
you do that? Your job as a researcher is to have all the questions, not all the answers! She also spoke and wrote in the clearest way possible - short words, short sentences, no obfuscation. Sorry, derail. But I hate researchers who think they’re so amazing because other people don’t understand their oh so complicated work. No, that doesn’t mean you’re smart - it means you’re beyond dumb.

Snigger at Gordon Guyatt ref @BonfireLady but it does get me thinking again about how we (we as in society in general) got here.

I understand about following the money and the closed doors lobbying to influence legislation and institutional guidelines e.g. the NHS’ Annex B (and other guidelines supplied by activists acting as expert consultants).

However, when you also consider that the success of these tactics relied on “no one” knowing what was happening until the GI ideology ran through every aspect of our institutions, it doesn’t explain how people like Gordon Guyatt got hoodwinked.

Where were the critical thinkers / evidence based researchers coming across GI for the first time and ripping holes in it? Was it simply the cancel culture? Even that assumes no one came upon the topic with no information - it was always weighted towards the GI position.

If so, why have no other lobbies been able to apply these strategies (perhaps they have and I’m unaware)?

I don’t know I feel as if there’s more to it. Sorry, I’ll put my tinfoil hat away now and stop derailing.

@Cantunseeit, there are probably three explanations for Guyatt: he’s old, he’s an academic and he’s Canadian.

He did his big work on evidence-based medicine what, 20? 30? years ago? Before GI had really taken hold, so it was not on his mind when he was doing his work. Since then Canada has really embraced it - particularly in the leftist liberal enclaves of academia. And they embraced it quite blindly - they really do think it’s gay 2.0. So he has been surrounded by that type of thought - and because his research is about research, not about GI, he probably hasn’t questioned it. So when someone came to him with a letter saying “please sign this letter, it’s to make sure no right wing nut jobs weaponise the GI study you just helped carry out” it would not seem weird for him to do that.

Now, the fact that he didn’t actually read the letter, well, that’s just dumb. But if it was presented to him in the context I’ve just described, by students or researchers he trusted or worked with, maybe not surprising.

One of the things I struggle with and have issue with is the arrogance of doctors and the idea that we must blindly believe and follow them without question. Its a trust issue as the result of personal experience of poor conduct by doctors who don't treat patients as thinking, feeling beings who want to make properly informed decisions.

It has lead me to look in depth at what research is examining and have a good idea about what a study is really examining compared to what the researchers say they are examining. It opens a massive can of worms and the problem is recognised well within research circles - its what Ben Goldacre and Margaret McCartney write extensively about and they identify an industrial level dedication in various area to deliberately repress and supress, obscure and hide, misrepresent and willfully lie about data and what it says and what it doesn't say.

You have to start with clear goals and clear definitions. You have to have good methodology. You have to have a clear idea about weaknesses and flaws in the study and you have to have people who aren't driven to demonstrate a position they already believe because of just how much bias it introduces. You have to understand how your questions are worded and how they might be leading. You have to have a good understanding of whether your subjects can be trusted to truthfully and accurately report issues. You have to understand concepts of undue influence and outside pressure.

This study is massively problematic for so many of the above reasons. You do not have to have a medical background to identify them. You do not need to be university educated to understand the problems.

To give an example. Given the understood nature of whats been happening, the known issues with coaching that were identified and acknowledged as problematic and harmful with the Tavistock and Mermaids, anyone taking part in this study really should not be participating in any online forum or group relating to gender transition. We KNOW this alone would be introducing huge problematic weaknesses to the study and its quality of anything it shows. It highlights the self selecting nature and underlying beliefs of those seeking blockers to a point that it might lead to the deliberate concealment of issues in acts of self harm. We see this in vocabulary and testomony given on MN where individuals have talked about the brutality and horror of what they've been through and then deny that medicalistion has been problematic for them in the same breathe. They say how happy they are whilst also stating how awful life is.

You can bet the level of social contagion and cult like behaviour won't even be considered in the methodology. Ive seen no evidence of acknowledging how this has been problematic in the past and thus needs to be considered as part of the trial as a potentially massive weakness and flaw.

I see no gathering of information in terms of how much engagement with these type of groups might be linked to a desire to get on such a trial. Thats pretty fundamental.