UK's National Health Service bans puberty blockers for minors

The United Kingdom's National Health Service (NIH) on Friday announced that it will ban the use of puberty blockers and regulate gender transition treatments for minors.

Puberty blockers will remain permitted solely for the conducting of clinical trials. Instead, the service plans to "adopt a holistic, multi-disciplinary integrated approach to assessing and responding to an individual’s needs."

"We have previously made clear … the intention that the NHS will only commission puberty suppressing hormones as part of clinical research," the NHS said, according to the Washington Examiner. The NHS further "strongly discouraged" children and their relatives from "sourcing puberty suppressing or gender affirming hormones from unregulated sources or from on-line providers that are not regulated by UK regulatory bodies."

Children who have already begun such treatments will have their situations assessed on a case by case basis. The NHS further highlighted that a child adopting behaviors typically associated with the opposite gender is not a basis for diagnosing the child with gender dysphoria.

"Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis," the NHS report reads.

Other European nations have adopted some restrictions on gender treatments for minors. Numerous U.S. states have moved to restrict or outright ban gender treatments and puberty blockers for minors. Missouri became the latest U.S. state to do so this week when Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed into law a ban on male athletes participating in women's sports and forbid health care providers from offering gender surgeries to minors. Puberty blockers and hormone treatments received a four-year moratorium under the law.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.