UK Petition to Halt Drug Trial Testing Puberty Blockers on Kids Passes 100,000 Signatures
A UK petition to cancel a clinical trial testing puberty blockers on children surpassed 100,000 signatures yesterday — a critical milestone which qualifies the petition for debate in parliament.
The Pathways Trial, which UK health authorities licensed, approved and agreed to fund in November, plans to test puberty blocking drugs on 226 transgender-identified children between 10 and 15 years old. The experiment will compare the bodies and brains of these children with those of children who don’t receive puberty blockers.
Therapist James Esses created the UK Government and Parliament petition to cancel the Pathways Trial on January 8, citing the known damage puberty blockers cause healthy children.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) banned doctors from administering puberty blockers to children outside of clinical trials in 2024 after The Cass Review, an evidentiary review of sex-rejecting medical interventions for minors, found insufficient evidence showing puberty blockers improve the wellbeing of children with sexual identity confusion.
“The government is aware of the potential irreversible impact (physical and emotional) of puberty blockers…,” the petition emphasizes. “Yet, hundreds of thousands of children are about to be given puberty blockers under a government-sanctioned trial.”
Petitions must receive more than 100,000 signatures in six months for parliament to consider debating them. The petition to stop the Pathways Trial reached 100,000 signatures in four days.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each and every one of you who signed my petition to safeguard vulnerable children,” Esses wrote on X.
“Next stop: parliament.”
The petition is part of a “multi-prong” effort to protect children from the Pathways Trial. In December, Esses and detransitioner Keira Bell sent a letter to the regulatory agencies responsible for approving the trial, arguing it fails to uphold the UK’s legal standard for experimenting on humans.
The letter initiated a judicial review of the Pathways Trial which, if successful, will allow a judge to determine whether the UK government erred in approving the experiment.
Esses and Bell argue the Pathways Trial violates at least three ethical requirements for clinical trials.
Ethical clinical trials prioritize the health and safety of their subjects over scientific inquiry. All available evidence shows puberty blockers permanently stunt children’s sexual development, causing reduced reproductive function, infertility and inability to breast feed in women.
New studies further link puberty blockers to problems with cognitive development, compromised bone health and cancer. Children who take puberty blockers generally go on to take wrong-sex hormones, which increases their chances of developing life-altering complications and disease.
Ethical clinical trials study drugs which are more likely to improve patients’ lives than harm them. But puberty blockers offer little — if any — benefit to children with sexual identity confusion.
Further, Esses and Bell argue the Pathways Trial contains significant design flaws which would compromise any positive results.
Most glaringly, the trial does not limit confounding variables. Every child will receive talk therapy and other social support in addition to puberty blockers, making it impossible to determine which intervention correlates with which outcomes.
Ethical clinical trials require subjects’ informed consent. No child can consent to permanent body modifications. Transgender-identified children, which suffer from higher rates of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, suicidality, self-harm and adverse childhood experiences, are arguably even less likely to understand the lasting implications of sex-rejecting procedures.
The letter also questions whether parents can give informed consent for their children to enter Pathways Trial after years of hearing scientists call puberty blockers “safe” and “evidence-based.”
“The expectations of children [seeking to enter the trial] and their parents have been significantly shaped by poorly evidenced narratives regarding the benefits of puberty blockers,” the letter argues.
The letter encapsulates Essen and Bell’s position using a passage from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ comprehensive report on sex-rejecting medical interventions for minors:
Evidence on puberty blockers suggests the drugs harm children with sexual identity confusion far more than they help. Each new piece of research seems to connect the drugs to new, serious complications. Injecting these chemicals into vulnerable children is textbook unethical human experimentation.
Happily, tens of thousands of UK residents understand the ethical dilemmas with Pathways Trial — and will speak up to stop the experiment.
Additional Articles and Resources
England’s NHS Stops Dispensing Puberty Blockers for Children — Not Safe or Effective
U.K.’s Review of Child Gender Policy Reveals Profound Failures That U.S. Still Defends
HHS Finalizes Report Finding Sex-Rejecting Procedures Harm Minors
HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors
New Paper Details ‘Emerging and Accumulating’ Adverse Effects of ‘Gender Affirming’ Estrogen
FTC Begins Investigating ‘Gender-Affirming’ Medical Community for Deception, False Advertising
