Ex-trans charity boss vows to CONTINUE helping children get access to puberty blockers despite ban

A transgender healthcare organisation led by former Mermaids CEO Susie Green has vowed to continue helping children access puberty blockers – defying the UK’s permanent ban on the treatment for under-18s.

Anne Trans Healthcare has announced it will maintain its services facilitating access to the drugs through overseas doctors, despite Labour’s decision to make the temporary prohibition indefinite.

The organisation’s stance comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting told MPs he was making the ban permanent in May, describing the previous use of puberty blockers as a “scandal”.

The ban received backing from Baroness Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Cass’s report earlier this year concluded that the field of gender medicine was “built on shaky foundations”.

The decision followed a consultation and advice from the Commission on Human Medicines, with Streeting stating that allowing access to puberty blockers posed an “unacceptable safety risk”.

Several Labour and Green Party MPs opposed the move, arguing it represented an attack on transgender children and a “breach of young peoples human rights”.

In a defiant Instagram post aimed at trans youth and their families, Anne Trans Healthcare declared it would continue facilitating access to puberty blockers.

The organisation stated: “We offer a legal, compassionate, and supportive routes to accessing puberty blockers with medical oversight from experienced endocrinologists.”

“Our team will guide you through every step of the process, ensuring you feel reassured and supported,” the post continued.

The group says it has established a “legal route” for young people to access the medication through doctors based outside the UK, with prescriptions sent to EU destinations for collection.

Green, 56, was dismissed from her role as Mermaids chief executive in 2022 following a loss of trust in her leadership, according to a Charity Commission report.

She subsequently established Anne Trans Healthcare in 2023 alongside entrepreneur Lizzie Jordan, an HIV advocate and founder of LGBT youth support organisation Think2Speak.

The organisation, named after Jordan’s aunt, promotes itself as offering “evidence-based” and “gender-affirming” care for transgender people of all ages.

Anne Trans Healthcare requires parental or guardian support for under-18 patients, charging £150 monthly for a “standard youth membership” plus a one-off £200 fee.

The organisation estimates that under-18s can access puberty blockers within approximately four months of registration.

The process involves prescriptions being issued by overseas endocrinologists and doctors, circumventing the UK ban.

Patients must personally collect their medication from an EU destination, with only the person named on the prescription permitted to bring it back to the UK.

Green confirmed to The Times that Anne Trans Healthcare would continue “supporting people to access legal routes to gender-affirming healthcare”.

“We will continue to do so despite a UK-wide ban. We do it because to do otherwise would be morally and ethically wrong,” she stated.

Baroness Cass expressed concern about “misinformation” surrounding the puberty blocker debate.

Speaking to The Times, she specifically challenged claims that denying access to the drugs could lead to suicides.

“What is worrying is when people say that if children don’t get these drugs, they will die, because clearly that’s not true,” Cass stated.

Evidence has suggested that puberty blockers do not improve mental health, contradicting some arguments made by treatment advocates.

Green criticised Labour’s handling of the ban, expressing disappointment in Streeting’s decision.

She claimed to have “seen the positive impact that access to puberty blockers has on young peoples lives”.

The former Mermaids CEO highlighted that 59 per cent of consultation responses had opposed the ban.

“I truly believed that the Labour Government would not take this ban forward following the consultation process,” Green said.

She added: “Parents reported that they had told him of the anguish caused by the ban and Wes Streeting stood there and told those young people and their families that he heard them. Yet he walked away and chose to ignore them.”

Puberty blockers are medications that suppress sex hormone release, halting physical puberty changes such as facial hair growth.

These changes typically occur between ages eight and 14.

The drugs had been used “off-label” at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust’s gender identity clinic in London since 2011.

The clinic had been prescribing these medications to treat children experiencing gender dysphoria.