Puberty blockers do not improve mental health
Helen Joyce said:
“The evidence showed that they didn't do any of the things they were promised to do. Obviously, they block puberty, but they don't make the children function better mentally and they're harmful.”
Citing 'the evidence' gives this the ring of a settled scientific finding, and the Cass Review is widely reported as having reached a negative conclusion, so a viewer who has seen those headlines would take this as a fair summary.
The Cass Review found that many of the studies on psychological outcomes were of low methodological quality and called for better research, which is a real and fair concern. That is not the same as finding that puberty blockers demonstrably fail to help, and it is certainly not the same as finding that harm has been established. The Dutch research that originally developed this protocol did show improvements in psychological wellbeing for the young people treated, and the question of bone density and neurological effects remains genuinely under investigation rather than settled in the negative direction. Treating an evidence gap as a proven harm is a distortion, and the consequence of that distortion is that young people and their families walk away believing something has been ruled out for them when it has not, which shapes real decisions about real lives.
What I said at the time:
“The options for young people who can't have puberty blockers, the ones that are banned which are the GnRH analogues, is that they can take other medicines to suppress their natural hormone production or the effects of their natural hormones.”
Young trans people and their parents who are told the treatment has been proven not to help them, making them less likely to seek or advocate for care that may be appropriate for them.