Health Minister Victoria Atkins says she has had “enough” of a “culture of secrecy and ideology” around children's gender care.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she criticized NHS practitioners in England, in response to a landmark review of gender care practices.
She called for gender-related services to be consistent with other healthcare standards provided by the NHS.
The pediatrician behind Wednesday's report, Dr. Hilary Cass, said doctors were also affected by the “toxicity” of public debate about transgender identities.
“There are few other areas of health care where professionals are afraid to discuss their views openly, where people are vilified on social media, and where name-calling reflects the worst bullying behavior. This must stop,” she wrote.
In response to the review, NHS England said it had already made significant progress in making the changes.
It also announced a separate review of sex-related services for adults, and instructed adult sex clinics to temporarily stop offering new appointments to under-18s.
Ms Atkins wrote in The Telegraph that she welcomed the pause and said an urgent update on the practice of hormone prescribing must now follow.
“I am extremely grateful to Dr. Cass's dedicated team for their detailed and thoughtful work in such a controversial area of health care.
“I commend those brave voices who have spoken out to raise the alarm about how treatment to date has deviated from guidance.
“A culture of secrecy and ideology at the expense of evidence and safety. Today I say ‘enough’.”
“We simply do not know the lifelong impact of these medical interventions on young minds and bodies to be clear that they are safe,” she wrote.
Hormonal interventions, or puberty blockers, work to stop the physical changes of puberty and are prescribed to children who are questioning their gender as a way to stop physical changes such as breast or facial hair growth.
Dr Cass said in her report that she was “disappointed by the lack of evidence on the long-term effect of taking hormones at an early age.”
Watch: Dr. Hilary Cass discusses gender care for children
Writing in The Telegraph, the Health Secretary also called on adult gender clinics to share data on patients who received gender therapy as children.
The publication of Dr Cass's report revealed that six out of seven adult clinics refused to take part in the study – meaning that findings for nearly 9,000 people transferred from children's services to adult care were not included in the report.
Dr Cass said this was “very disappointing” because these people's experiences would be valuable in studying the long-term effects of hormonal treatments.
Reasons given by adult clinics for not participating included ethical considerations and concerns about funder motives and political interference.
Many of the children were treated at the Tavistock Clinic, the only specialist gender clinic for children and young people in the NHS in England. The center was closed last week, four years after it was rated “inadequate” by inspectors, and is being replaced by new regional centres.
Ms Atkins described the lack of participation as “disgraceful” and added: “There can be no further delay regarding their full participation.”
The Cass review called for clinics to share their data so that these patients' subsequent healthcare journeys could be tracked.
Image source, James Anderson/BBC News
The new clinics are set to replace the existing gender identity service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London.
Also speaking to The Telegraph, former health secretary Sajid Javid called for a “no holds barred government investigation” into obstruction of the research.
Javid introduced legislation in 2022 that would allow CASS to access certain medical records.
He said: “Despite the unanimous will of Parliament, it is clear that vested interests have deliberately thwarted the important data access legislation I introduced to support Dr Cass’s review.”
“An unbidden government investigation must be opened into this blackout, the documents recovered, and, if necessary, the individuals held accountable for their failure to provide records.”
Labour's shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, also expressed anger at some clinics' refusal to take part in the research.
Speaking more widely on The Sun's Never Mind the Ballots programme, Mr Streeting was asked if he believed trans women were women, and said he was newly aware of the “complexities” of trans identities.
“If you had asked me a few years ago… I would have said trans men are men, trans women are women. Some people are trans, get over it, let's move on, it's all disproportionate.” He told the newspaper's political programme.
“And now I sit and reflect and think about reality, there are a lot of complexities,” he concluded, adding that he realizes that “ugly rhetoric” is directed towards transgender people.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also responded to the review, saying the findings “highlight” the need to be “extremely careful” when it comes to children's gender care.
