Family First NZ is welcoming an overdue turnaround in the Ministry of Health’s policy on puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria.

Up until last week the Ministry of Health stated that “Puberty Blockers are a safe and fully reversible medicine that may be used from early puberty through to later adolescence to help ease distress and allow time to fully explore gender health options.”

But last Friday that advice was quietly changed by the Ministry. “Safe and fully reversible medicine” has been removed and replaced with “Blockers are sometimes used from early puberty through to later adolescence to allow time to fully explore gender health options.”

Medical professionals and medical groups – including The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) – recently sounded growing international concern around the use of puberty blockers to treat young people with gender dysphoria because of the low certainty of benefits but the significant potential for medical harm.

Britain’s NHS recently withdrew a claim that the effects of puberty blockers are “fully reversible”

Sweden’s leading gender clinic - Stockholm’s Astrid Lindgren children’s hospital – recently ended routine treatment of minors under the age of 18 with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones,

Finland revised its treatment guidelines in June 2020, prioritising psychological interventions and support over medical interventions, particularly for youth with post-pubertal onset of gender dysphoria.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US recently issued a warning label about the risk of puberty blockers

The UK’s Tavistock transgender clinic was shut down by the NHS after a review found it is "not safe" for children, and that there is insufficient evidence to recommend puberty blockers.

Professor Christopher Gillberg, an expert in child and adolescent psychiatry, and who gave expert evidence in the British High Court regarding Keira Bell’s harmful transitioning believes prescribing drugs to delay puberty is a scandal and tantamount to conducting ‘a live experiment’ on vulnerable children. He said “In my years as a physician, I cannot remember an issue of greater significance for the practice of medicine. We have left established evidence-based clinical practice and are using powerful life-altering medication for a vulnerable group of adolescents and children based upon a belief.”

Family First is calling on the government and the Ministry of Health to pause the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and operations for minors while further research is undertaken.

It's time we put first-do-no-harm medicine and credible research ahead of ideology and an agenda to push gender fluidity indoctrination. It’s time we had watchful waiting, therapy, and healing of the mind rather than chemicals and castration

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