Judicial Review challenging the legality of cross sex hormones in teenagers

Oestrogen and testosterone are still available to be prescribed to under 18s. A judicial review being brought by Sinclairs is soon to be heard.

Our Statement

BiM welcomes this judicial review that challenges the continued prescription of cross sex hormones to children and young people.

Cross sex hormones are harmful for all ages, but particularly for the developing body, and should not be prescribed in this age group. We support the aims of the judicial review to prevent any cross sex prescribing for young people under 18 years, but it doesn’t go far enough.

Women and men on cross sex hormones will face changes to fertility and sexual function as well as changes to the brain.

For transgender females - trans men - there are irreversible changes to the genital tract, also kidney damage, thickening of the blood and risk of heart attack, as well as the hair, skin and voice changes.

For transgender males - trans women - there are concerns about cognitive decline, increased rates of neurological disease, osteoporosis, blood clotting disorders and heart disease.

At BiM we are particularly concerned that gender questioning young people are almost exclusively same sex attracted, survivors of child abuse or neurodivergent. As a result of these interventions we are seeing the sterilisation and the shortening of lives of people who are already vulnerable or simply different. There are echoes here of the crimes we hoped were in the past such as sterilisation of ethnic groups and women seen as mentally unfit for motherhood.

**We call on GPs to stop prescribing cross sex hormones to all young people, not just to under 18s, given the harms they cause. Distressed young people should instead be directed to supportive holistic talking therapies that help them to become comfortable with their body and sexuality, allowing them to grow up into healthy adults.**