Amy Hamm: U.K. puberty blocker trial asks children to consider freezing eggs, sperm

Imagine asking a child as young as 10 to consider whether they want to freeze their sperm or eggs in order to one day have babies, should they become infertile. It sounds patently insane. 

However, that’s what researchers with the U.K.’s NHS will do to children who identify as transgender and who are approved to participate in a new puberty-blocking drug trial — the only legal way for minors to take these drugs in the U.K.  

The two-year experiment on 226 children, all of whom will receive puberty blockers, either from the outset or after one year, is set to begin in January 2026. It will compare results with 300 “gender incongruent” children who did not take the drugs. The study is meant to assess the risk versus benefit of the blockers, which begs the question of why any parent would ever dream of allowing their children to be used in this manner at all. 

A potential side effect of these powerful drugs, which are intended to “pause” puberty in children who identify as the opposite sex, is infertility. Other concerns (not exhaustive) include bone density loss, vision loss and brain swelling. The drugs were banned in March 2024 in the wake of The Cass Review, an NHS England commissioned report that examined “gender affirming” health care for youth.  

A key finding of the Cass Review was that the “rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown.”  

Unfortunately, Dr. Hilary Cass, the retired pediatrician who penned the final report — and who perhaps felt a need to straddle the fence between gender ideologues and those fighting to end a medical scandal — concluded that there should be studies done on puberty blockers. As such, U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who admitted he personally feels “uncomfortable” about the clinical study, has ignored calls to kibosh the whole thing. 

Of course, gender critical advocates across the U.K. are not going to let this happen without a fight. Bless their resolve in the face of this obvious and atrocious medical scandal. 

Speaking to U.K. media, journalist and director of advocacy for the Sex Matters charity, Helen Joyce, laid bare the absurdity of presenting gender confused, pre-pubescent children with questions that would flummox any mature, psychologically stable adult. 

“Some of the participants in this trial will be so young they still believe in Santa Claus. Some may not even be clear on the facts of life. This guide envisages conversations they will not be mature enough for, and which are totally inappropriate for their age group,” said Joyce.  

Spot on.  

On Dec. 18, a group of U.K. clinicians, academics, and researchers sent a letter to Streeting, again imploring him to stop the trial. They are practically begging for it to at least go on hold until data from former patients given puberty blockers before the drug was banned, called the Data Linkage Study, is complete. They also insist that the expected benefits of the trial do not outweigh its expected risks; that it is “not scientifically sound”; and that “foreseeable risks to child development are not minimized.” 

According to the Daily Mail, “107 MPs and peers” have also pleaded for Streeting to “halt” a “dangerous mistake in allowing the study to go forward.

A news article in the British Medical Journal, also published on Dec. 18, states that in addition to the political backlash, several parties have threatened legal action over the pending research study. So far, nothing has stopped it. The long-term plan is for these 226 children to be followed into adulthood, so that researchers can track their fertility loss, bone fractures, or other major health concerns.  

It is difficult to understand how the parents will consent for their children to participate in this drug trial, knowing the risks. It is equally as difficult to understand how researchers don’t balk in horror at what is already known about puberty suppression in transgender-identifying children.  

The bottom line here is that children are not born into the wrong body. “Wrong bodies” is an unverifiable and pseudo-scientific notion, preached by gender ideologues. Let adults do what they’d like to do to their bodies and minds. But it is unethical to provide life-altering and extreme medical treatments to impressionable children — children who’ve been sold falsehoods about gender, years before they have the capacity to understand the idea philosophically or even practically. Freezing sperm? Freezing eggs? Becoming a life-long medical patient who requires hormones and potentially surgeries? All when there is no long-term safety data, and clear evidence of harms. We are talking about children.  

Can it be any clearer that this a medical scandal? 

National Post