The British Medical Association (BMA) is calling for puberty blockers to be prescribed to teenagers with gender dysphoria, despite a ban on the medication.
The doctors’ union has now passed a motion criticising the Cass review, which had called for an end to such prescribing for under 18s, warning that children should not be rushed into treatment they may regret. The Telegraph has the story.
The review by the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in April had been widely welcomed by experts in the field, with Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, backing the continuation of a ban which had been introduced in the last days of the Tory government.
But the BMA has announced that its council has voted in favour of a motion which asked the union to “oppose the implementation of the recommendations made by the Cass review”.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the union said it was “critical of proposals to ban the prescribing of puberty blockers to children and young people with gender dysphoria” and called for more research.
The union said it would undertake its own evaluation of the Cass review, calling for a “pause” to implementation of its recommendations, until the BMA came to its own view.
Sex Matters, gender-critical group, said it was “scarcely believable” that the doctors’ trade union had backed a motion making “baseless claims” about methodological weaknesses in the Cass review. It urged the Health Secretary to “stand firm” and continue with the recommendations.
Until now, the BMA had refused to say whether the motion on Cass held at a private meeting had been passed.
Last week, the union disclosed that the motion passed had called on the union to “publicly critique the Cass review” and to “lobby and work with other relevant organisations and stakeholders to oppose the implementation of the recommendations made by the Cass review”.
The motion also saw the union “condemn the increasing political transphobia which is ostracising transgender people and discriminating against them by blocking their access to healthcare”.
The union said it held the discussions after doctors and academics in several countries, including the UK, voiced concern about weaknesses in the methodologies used in the review and problems arising from the implementation of some of the recommendations.
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