Cass Report: A Victory for Children With Gender Dysphoria

“Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person.”  

Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body, United States Catholic Conference of Bishops

A remarkable drama is unfolding in the United Kingdom over an issue of utmost urgency: the question of whether doctors should be able to prescribe powerful “puberty blocker” drugs to children suffering from gender dysphoria. 

According to news reports, the British Medical Association, the largest professional organization of doctors in the UK, is in an uproar. Numerous doctors have reportedly quit the union after its governing council voted to reject a government report calling for a ban on prescribing puberty blockers to children and teens.

The Cass Report Findings

The Cass Review was commissioned in 2020 by the National Health Services (NHS), the government service that oversees the delivery of healthcare across the UK. The report was spearheaded by Dr. Hilary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. 

The decision to commission the report came after a series of whistleblowers stepped forward to raise the alarm about how young people with gender dysphoria in the UK were being seriously harmed.  

Last year, the NHS shut down the Tavistock Clinic, which was the leading clinic that offered transgender procedures to young people. The decision to shut the clinic down came after whistleblowers within the organization testified that healthcare workers routinely prescribed powerful drugs or even surgeries after only the most cursory examinations of troubled children. 

After an extensive investigation, the Cass Report concluded that the scientific evidence does not support the practice of prescribing puberty blockers to children and young teens. Instead, the report called on UK healthcare services to provide a holistic approach to gender dysphoria, one that uses established medical practices to treat the whole range of underlying mental health issues that may be contributing to the gender dysphoria. 

In response, the NHS banned the prescription of puberty blockers and shuttered Tavistock. According to reports, as many as 1,000 families were set to sue the clinic over harms caused to their children. 

David Bell, the former president of the British Psychoanalytic Society, called the Cass report “the most extensive and thoroughgoing evidence-based review of treatment for children experiencing gender distress ever undertaken.” 

Bell was just one of many leading experts who welcomed the report as a long-overdue return to sanity. “The pendulum is already swinging towards a reassertion of rationality,” Bell wrote. “Cass’s achievement is to give that pendulum a hugely increased momentum. In years to come we will look back at the damage done to children with incredulity and horror.” 

BMA Rejects Reality

To most people, banning the prescription of powerful puberty blocking drugs to teens with gender dysphoria was just common sense. As the Cass Report carefully documented, prescribing these drugs was a highly experimental procedure, supported by no quality evidence. 

Furthermore, as the many whistleblowers had testified, healthcare workers were routinely ignoring significant underlying mental health issues in the teens presenting with gender dysphoria. Instead of taking the time to help these children heal, ideological workers were using them as puppets in their own ideological battle. 

The result was that they were prescribing drugs that pushed children down a path that in many cases was irreversible. Evidence suggested that many of these individuals would come to regret this decision, with all the many, severe health repercussions, including potential life-long infertility, and worse. 

Obviously, this was horrifically bad healthcare.  

But never underestimate the power of committed ideologues to stubbornly persist in defending madness. In July, the governing council of the BMA voted to reject the Cass Report. Even though the BMA represents some 195,000 doctors, the decision to reject the report was made by a small council of just a few dozen representatives. 

The resolution passed by the BMA council committed 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.”

We are Returning to Sanity

In a sign of how the pendulum is indeed beginning to swing back towards sanity, some 1,400 doctors signed an open letter urging the BMA to drop its opposition to the Cass Report. Others have reportedly handed in their memberships. And others have penned op-eds and letters to the editor, denouncing the BMA for committing itself to a “fringe” position. 

This development is extremely encouraging. 

Not so long ago, it had begun to look as if transgender activists had utterly swept the field. Perhaps the starkest sign of just how total the victory of the radical transgender activists seemed to be was just how many children were being “treated” with powerful drugs, or even undergoing permanent, mutilating surgeries.  

Despite the obvious horrors involved in this practice, media organizations routinely featured and celebrated the “gender transitions” of young children. It seemed as if no one in any position of authority was willing to speak up. 

And then, suddenly, the backlash began. Not, as you might expect, exclusively in socially conservative circles, but among mainstream medical professionals and in mainstream medical associations.  

Leading doctors have stepped forward to offer scathing critiques of the practice of subjecting children to powerful drugs and procedures that had little to no scientific basis, and that often led to catastrophic outcomes for those individuals. 

It’s not just the UK that banned puberty blockers for children. Norway, Sweden and Finland have also moved in the same direction. And there is reason to hope that more will soon follow suit.

UK Will Continue to Ban Puberty Blockers

One of the most encouraging aspects of this most recent controversy is that as powerful as the BMA is, it does not look as if it’s going to win this fight. If anything, it seems to have marginalized itself, undermining its position and authority. 

In response to the BMA’s decision to reject the Cass Report, key government bodies, including the NHS, have made clear their intention to continue to support the ban on puberty blockers for children and teens.  

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the BBC: “The Cass Review is a robust report backed by clinicians and firmly grounded in evidence. 

“NHS England will be implementing Dr. Cass’s recommendations so that children and young people get the safe, holistic care and support they need. We do not support a delay to vital improvements from the NHS to gender services.” 

In the end, the BMA is the only medical association in the UK that has opposed the Cass Report—just one more sign that the pendulum is indeed swinging back towards sanity.  

Dr. Jacky Davis, a member of the BMA, rebuked the BMA council for its decision. “This minority has voted to block the implementation of Cass, an evidence-based review which took four years to put together.” 

“The BMA now finds itself isolated in its opposition to Cass, and with its reputation and integrity damaged.” 

All I can say is, what a wonderful turn of events. Although the gender ideologues still have a strong foothold in our culture, it is deeply encouraging to know that countless thousands of children in the UK will no longer be pushed down a path that could leave them with a permanently mutilated body and in a lifestyle that brings with it so much heartache. 

However, my heart breaks for the thousands of children in the UK (and throughout the world) who were already harmed by extremist ideologues. We must pray for their healing and for the healing of all who suffer from the terrible condition of gender dysphoria, and who have not received the authentic medical and psychological help that they need.  

“The search for solutions to problems of human suffering must continue,” especially for those who struggle with gender incongruence, the U.S. Bishops say.  

But it should be directed toward solutions that truly promote the flourishing of the human person in his or her bodily integrity. As new treatments are developed, they too should be evaluated according to sound moral principles grounded in the good of the human person as a subject with his or her own integrity. 

For to do anything to the contrary, abandoning God’s wisdom for the foolishness of men, can be dark and dire indeed.