UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has approved a trial of puberty blocking drugs in which a group of children will be given the drugs to test the outcome. There has been opposition to this plan from across the spectrum.
Health officials approved the trial to give more than 200 gender-questioning children puberty blockers last month, but faced an immediate backlash.
The trial will see 226 children who are being treated for gender dysphoria by NHS specialist clinics given the drugs and monitored by researchers from King’s College London.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, is among dozens of MPs to have condemned it as “unethical”…
A spokesman for Bayswater Support Group said the trial would “subject a new cohort of children to an experimental intervention”.
He said exposing the children to the drugs “comes with a high risk of infertility, sexual dysfunction and long-term health risks” and criticised the failure to track the outcomes of children who have already been given puberty blockers since 2011 as “indefensible”.
There is a lawsuit aimed at stopping the trial but Wes Streeting has refused to back down.
He told MPs he was “uncomfortable” about such drugs being used on young people but said he had given the go-ahead to a clinical trial as recommended by the Cass Review into children’s gender care, because it was the “right thing to do”.
Conservative shadow health minister Dr Caroline Johnson, a consultant paediatrician who said she had looked after children with gender dysphoria, asked why the government was funding experiments on “physically healthy children” when Streeting himself had said he was “uncomfortable” about the use of these drugs.
Streeting replied: “The reason why, whatever my discomfort in this extremely sensitive area, I have made this decision is because I am following clinical advice and because, as health secretary, it is my responsibility to follow expert advice.”
He added: “Am I uncomfortable about puberty-suppressing hormones for this group of young people, for these particular conditions? Yes, I am, because of risks.”
It was pointed out to Streeting that children could not possibly consent to this medical experiment on them and he agreed. He said that consent would have to come from their parents.
Joe Roberston, a Conservative MP, said: “If this trial is to go ahead, it is on your watch and with your consent.”
He told Mr Streeting that “no child under the age of 13 can consent to sexual activity because they don’t have capacity”, and asked: “How can children under 13 consent to body altering drugs, drugs that will change or even block their sexual development, potentially?
“How can they possibly have capacity to understand what that means? Will you consider a lower age limit by which no child can receive those drugs because they cannot consent?”
Mr Streeting said: “I absolutely agree with your assertion that a young person cannot give consent. What they would be required to do is give informed assent, and it is for the parent or guardian to provide consent. Absent of that, they cannot participate in the trial.”
Explaining the “assent” process, Mr Streeting said it involved “repeating back to the clinician what the risks are and why they would want to go through them”.
This is of course complete insanity. Can we give a child a carton of cigarettes if we have them repeat back the dangers of lung cancer? Can we sell them mixed drinks if they repeat back the dangers of drunk driving? Obviously not but that’s the premise under which these drugs are being tested on kids.
At least some MP’s get it but it looks like only the lawsuit can stop this.
‘What they need is love, support and compassion, children cannot consent to this.’
Labour MP Jonathan Hinder believes Health Secretary Wes Streeting should follow his instincts and not allow the puberty blocker trial, saying there is ‘no democratic consent’. pic.twitter.com/ofrXwBQpKF
— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 17, 2025
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