The World Is Turning against Gender Experiments on Children
Last week the United Kingdom s National Health Service announced that it would limit the use of puberty-suppressing drugs going forward. Only those children enrolled in clinical trials may be prescribed these drugs. The decision comes in response to an interim report about the infamous Tavistock gender clinic, which found there were gaps in evidencein the use of the drugs.
New guidelines will strongly discourage families from seeking out these drugs from other sources.
The U.K. is not alone. In March, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board announced its intention to revise clinical recommendations around so-called gender affirming care for minors. The updated guidelines restrict the use of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and transition related surgeries only to clinical research. Finland and Sweden have also pulled back on the medical experimentation on children in the name of gender ideology.
These European countries are reversing course not because they have experienced some religious revival or have been subjected to conservative culture war politics. Rather, their more publicly rationed form of healthcare provision, severely constricted by public budgets, puts a premium on showing good results and thereby limits the reach of ideological fantasy disguised in medical language.
In the US twelve states, led by Republicans, have passed restrictions on the use of off-label drugs or experimental gender surgeries on children. More red states may do the same.
There is a clear public interest in limiting the damage done to children by an ideological mania and superstitious moral panic that says our children are somehow born into the wrong bodies.
