Send the puberty-blocker trial back to the research ethics committee, Wes!

Last year, together with other groups, Sex Matters wrote to the secretary of state for health urging him to rethink the planned trial of puberty blockers following the Supreme Court judgment on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act. We said:

“Now that the Supreme Court has ruled out the use of opposite-sex spaces, no promise can be made that medical treatment will enable a person to fit in or go unnoticed while using opposite-sex facilities. The use of these drugs on children too young to understand this is ethically untenable.”

We have now written to him again, following two new legal developments:

• Confirmation by the High Court that the Equality and Human Rights Commission was correct to say that lawful separate-sex facilities are provided on the basis of sex.

• New statutory safeguarding guidance which confirmed that children cannot lawfully be permitted to use opposite-sex facilities at any time during their school career.

We have asked him to send the study back to the Research Ethics Committee to reconsider the legal context for children and schools.

Streeting has previously defended the trial, saying that it was developed “with the strongest safeguards possible” and is “led by the evidence, not ideology”. However, it was not based on a proper understanding of the law, and it is now clear that the expectation that children can undergo “social transition” in school is in direct contradiction with both case law and the proposed statutory guidance on safeguarding.

Undertaking medical interventions based on an unachievable goal that encourages unlawful behaviour and undermines children’s access to safe education is unethical and likely to be unlawful.

The governance standards for the Research Ethics Committee says that “it must not give a favourable opinion where it knows the research will break the law” and that “it may advise the researcher, sponsor or host organisation whenever it considers that legal advice might be helpful to them”.

The Research Ethics Committee did not consider whether expectations for “social transition” in school were lawful when it gave this study the green light. We are asking the Secretary of State for Health to send the study back for a second expert opinion.

Read the letter.

Join us to lobby your MP

There will be a Westminster Hall debate on the puberty-blocker trial on Monday 9th March. Then, together with Women’s Rights Network and LGB Alliance, we are organising a lobby day of Parliament on Tuesday 10th March.

Register for the lobby day with the Women’s Rights Network.