Labour Proves Disastrous for Trans Community
Looks like that landslide Labour win won’t be a return to sanity for trans folks in the UK. New Health Secretary Wes Streeting has declared open war on the trans community by expressing an interest in permanently banning private care puberty blocker prescriptions thanks to the bogus Cass Report.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Predicting the future sure does get old… but it’s just so easy to do when liberals are so damn predictable!
Do you remember when we talked about Keir Starmer and Labour’s big wins in the UK general election a few weeks ago? Okay, do you recall that we said it seemed unlikely that things would change for the better for trans Britons, despite the ostensibly left-wing new government coming in?
Yeah, well, about that: Labour’s new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, seems to be signaling that the new government plans to make permanent a once temporary ban on acquiring puberty blockers outside the National Health Service, the UK’s publicly funded healthcare system.
“Our approach will continue to be informed by Dr Cass's review, which found there was insufficient evidence to show puberty blockers were safe for under 18s,” said Streeting. “This ban brings the private sector in line with the NHS. We are committed to providing young people with the evidence-led care that they deserve.”
Like most UK politicians, Streeting is a master of prevarication. Characterizing the Cass Report’s findings on puberty blockers in this way is a very obvious misrepresentation; in fact, the Report included several studies that suggested a range of psychological benefits from using blockers to suppress puberty in adolescents reporting gender dysphoria. Furthermore, no part of the Report suggested in any way that puberty blockers were unsafe for trans youth.
In fact, we’ve been treating cisgender children presenting with precocious puberty using blockers since 1981 and found absolutely no adverse effects. Cis kids in the UK can, of course, still be prescribed puberty blockers should they experience puberty early… it’s only our kids, trans kids, who must be stopped from accessing these potentially life saving medicines.
Thank goodness LGBT Labour worked so hard to ensure Wes Streeting, an indisputable trans ally, became Health Secretary.
Streeting’s transphobia isn’t entirely novel news, of course. The private care puberty blockers ban instituted by his predecessor, Victoria Atkins, originally set to expire in September, was apparently “welcomed” by Streeting back in May. She described those harmless medicines as “a risk to [children’s] safety,” and bleated obnoxiously about “the damaging effect that social media and degrading pornography has had on young people’s sense of self.”
I guess Atkins subscribes to Hilary Cass’s theory that pornography makes you trans.
Jolyon Maugham, director at the Good Law Project, said on Twitter that Streeting’s ban would kill trans children. Susie Green, former chief executive of trans charity Mermaids, said that Streeting would have blood on his hands. Streeting, responding like a cowardly little boy who’s been caught with his hands in the cookie jar, said: “Some of the public statements being made are highly irresponsible and could put vulnerable young people at risk. I know there’s lots of fear and anxiety. I am determined to improve the quality of and access to, care for trans people.”
This is, unequivocally, a lie. Should Streeting move forward with a permanent ban on puberty blockers in private healthcare throughout the UK, he will be depriving trans youth of the treatment they desperately need. This medicine was already deeply underprescribed by the NHS prior to the Cass Review, with less than a quarter of dysphoric trans children being prescribed blockers, an extremely common and good treatment in a gender-affirming care plan. Ahead of the Review’s release, the NHS shut down its only functional gender clinic and stopped prescribing blockers altogether.
There are no surprises here, sadly. Keir Starmer, once Labour leader and now prime minister, has made his position as an enemy of the trans community clear more than once. Now, the newly elected so-called liberal government in the UK has decided their first move in this massive, vile culture war against the trans community should be to harm our children even more.
My heart aches for the UK’s trans community. I can only hope more sensible MPs can keep people like Streeting and Starmer from destroying our siblings overseas.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
