First puberty blockers, now hormones: England’s NHS bans more gender-affirming drugs

This week, England’s National Health Service (NHS) threw up yet another roadblock to gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the UK.

On Monday, the NHS announced it was pausing new referrals for feminizing and masculinizing hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds suffering from gender dysphoria, citing a collection of studies commissioned by the health service after publication of the controversial Cass Report in 2024, the Guardian reports.

That study recommended “extreme caution” initiating hormone treatments, including estrogen and testosterone, and a “clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18.”

The new NHS report comes to a similar conclusion.

“Following the Cass review, NHS England commissioned an in-depth review of all available clinical evidence for using estrogen or testosterone either alone or with other medications to treat gender incongruence and dysphoria,” the report states. “This review has established that the available evidence does not support the continued use of masculinizing or feminizing hormones to treat gender incongruence or dysphoria for young people under 18.”

The Cass Review, which contradicted long-established guidance around the efficacy of gender-affirming care for trans youth, has already prompted the health service to halt prescriptions of puberty-suppressing drugs for trans youth, with an indefinite ban for trans minors enacted by the UK government in December 2024.

The UK’s Health Secretary cited an “unacceptable safety risk” for halting new prescriptions of the drugs, though puberty blockers are still prescribed for early onset puberty and other conditions for children not suffering from gender dysphoria.

Puberty blockers, or GnRH analogues, slow down or halt the onset of puberty in young people taking them, and have preceded and been accompanied by the use of estrogen or testosterone for gender transition.

The positive effects of that combination therapy were all but ignored in the new NHS review, say critics of the decision to halt new prescriptions.

The Dutch Protocol, the “gold standard” for transition care, “involves prescribing GnRH analogues (puberty blockers) first to suppress puberty, then adding hormones later,” writes trans journalist Erin Reed in a story questioning the report’s findings.

“When hormones are introduced, the GnRH analogues are sometimes continued alongside them — the blocker keeps suppressing the body’s natural hormones while the prescribed estrogen or testosterone does its work. This overlap period means patients are on both GnRH analogues and hormones at the same time. That is the ‘combination therapy’ the reviews claim to examine.”

But the reviews “inexplicably excluded every study” where GnRH analogues and feminising and masculinising hormones were taken in succession or combination. The review tossed out hundreds of such studies in favour of a “salami slicing” approach that examined the hormones in isolation.

NHS was explicit in its methodology.

“Any reference to GnRH analogues in the context of puberty suppression or used as puberty-suppressing hormones must be excluded,” the report states.

“NHS England’s own data, cited in the reviews themselves, confirms that 98% of its patients followed the very pathway every review was designed to exclude,” Reed writes.

She called the NHS evidence reviews “an extreme example of politically-manufactured science.”

Gender Plus, a leading private trans healthcare and education service in the UK, accused NHS England of ignoring clinical expertise and evidence provided by leaders in the field, including the Endocrine Society, which recommends introducing the hormones for trans youth once “persistence of gender incongruence has been confirmed and the young person has sufficient capacity to consent.”

“NHS England’s interpretation of the evidence is in contrast to every reputable expert body in the field of transgender healthcare,” said a spokesperson for the health group.

NHS said patients currently receiving hormone treatments can continue the therapy, “but this will need to be reviewed individually with their clinical team.”

“Banning new prescriptions of gender-affirming hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds is a profound attack on young people’s bodily autonomy,” said Tammy Hymas, policy lead at British advocacy organization TransActual, “with trans people yet again cruelly singled out by this government.”

March 17, 2026 0

Iowa Gov. touts new law banning local trans rights protections as “the right thing to do”

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Iowa’s Republican Governor just signed a new law banning protections for trans people at the city and county level.

Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 579 earlier this week, the Des Moines Register reports. The bill, passed by Iowa’s House of Delegates on March 5 in a party-line vote, prevents local governments throughout the state from adding categories of civil rights violations that are not included in the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

“A city or local government shall not enact any ordinance or other law which is broader or has different categories of unfair or discriminatory practices than those provided,” in the state civil rights code, the bill states.

As the Register notes, the law also bans nearly 20 local governments with existing trans protections in their civil rights laws from enforcing them.

Reynolds told reporters Wednesday that signing the bill “was the right thing to do.”

“We just believe that the locals should follow the state laws, especially when it comes to civil rights, otherwise we have a mismatch of rights out there,” she said, according to the Register.

Last year, Reynolds signed a law repealing civil rights protections for transgender people from the state’s civil rights law, making Iowa the first state in the U.S. to repeal anti-discrimination protections for a previously protected class of people.

State Republican lawmakers made it clear that the point of the 2025 repeal was to ensure that Iowa’s anti-trans bathroom and sports bans and a law banning gender-affirming care for minors could survive potential court challenges, according to the Register.

“It does have an impact on protecting girls’ sports and making sure that we’re protecting girls in safe spaces, in restrooms and in lockers,” Reynolds said Wednesday of Senate File 579. “And so that was at jeopardy if we have a hodgepodge of mixed laws within our state.”

LGBTQ+ rights group One Iowa’s executive director, Max Mowitz, blasted Reynolds’ decision to ban trans protections at the local level, noting that the bill is one of only two pieces of legislation the governor has signed this year.

“Republicans acted as quickly as possible to remove any semblance of rights remaining for transgender Iowans, and took local civil rights commissions down with them,” Mowitz said in a statement, according to the Register.

“With all the issues facing Iowans at this moment, from cancer rates to water quality, Iowa Republicans can’t seem to agree on anything other than taking away civil rights,” he said. “Gov. Kim Reynolds’ legacy will be having removed more civil rights protections from her constituents than any other governor in history.”

March 13, 2026 0

Ken Paxton rolls out “bathroom bill” snitch line allegation ahead of heated Texas US Senate run-off

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The aggrieved mother of a Texas high school student has submitted what’s being described as the first formal complaint lodged over failure to comply with the state’s draconian “bathroom bill” enacted in December, and Senate candidate Ken Paxton is making the most of it.

In a letter to the Office of Texas Attorney General, the woman, whose name was redacted by Texas Values, the right-wing anti trans organization who coached her complaint and published the letter to Paxton, claims that her daughter, a student at Austin High School, informed her that a “biological male” student “has been using the female restrooms and private spaces at Austin High School.”

The woman notified the school on January 10 of the “violation of the recent law passed by the Texas legislature that requires students to use the private facilities based on their biological sex.”

After receiving no response from the school after a second complaint, the woman contacted Texas Values, which provided her with a form letter threatening the school. Administrators ignored that correspondence, as well, the woman claims.

Texas Values describes itself as “the largest statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to standing for faith, family, and freedom in Texas.”

A week later, at Texas Values’ urging, the woman wrote her rudimentary complaint with multiple misspellings and sent it to the AG’s office.

“I hope that the parent and her daughter can find some relief and put a stop to this or else the school must face consequences for not following the Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” said Mary Elizabeth Castle, Director of Government Relations for the organization, in a blog post advertising the letter they coached her to write, headlined, “Breaking! Parent Files Formal Complaint Against Austin ISD for Breaking Texas Women’s Privacy Law.”

On Friday, Paxton notified the Austin Independent School District of a citizen complaint via a state tip line alleging the violation of Senate Bill 8, also known as the Women’s Privacy Act. The snitch line was launched shortly after the bill took effect in December “to ensure that state entities are not allowing mentally ill men to invade women’s spaces,” according to the AG’s office.

Paxton’s office did not confirm whether the complaint urged on by Texas Values was the same as that referenced in the AG’s announcement; whether the complaint was verified; or if an official investigation is under way, the Texas Tribune reports.

Paxton’s notification is a statutory prerequisite for filing a lawsuit against Austin ISD. The school district was advised it’s subject to a $5,000 penalty for every day that the violation continues. They have two weeks days to cure the “bathroom bill” breach, the letter warned.

“The law is clear that political subdivisions in Texas must not allow biological men to use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms,” Paxton said in the statement. He said his office would explore every legal avenue available.

Paxton, a culture-warring MAGA favorite now in his third term as Texas AG, has overcome multiple scandals and survived an impeachment effort in 2023. Now he’s facing a heated U.S. Senate primary runoff with incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, after Paxton’s admission of infidelity last year and an impending divorce.

While in any other scenario he’d already have President Trump’s endorsement, a Paxton win could give Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico an edge in November. So far, Trump has stayed on the sidelines.

Texas Values, despite endorsing the aggrieved high school mom’s bathroom complaint, has yet to endorse either Republican in the Senate race, as well.

“Candidates must be able to demonstrate a firm commitment to protecting religious liberty, marriage and family, and innocent human life,” the group says in their “Faith & Family Voter Guide.”

March 12, 2026 0

Trump admin directs prisons to wean trans inmates off of hormone therapy in defiance of court order

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Recent guidance from the Trump administration requires federal prisons to begin reducing transgender inmates’ hormone therapy treatments.

Medical experts warn that the move will have dangerous medical and psychological consequences for incarcerated trans people, while legal experts say the guidance violates a federal judge’s preliminary injunction in a case challenging the administration’s anti-trans prison policies.

As Advocate reports, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) issued the new guidance in February. It not only bans prisons from providing hormone therapy to inmates who were not receiving it prior to incarceration, but also orders prisons to develop plans for tapering off treatment for those already receiving it.

Dr. Carl Streed, a Boston-based researcher specializing in transgender health, describes the guidance as “alarming.”

“It’s essentially saying that a form of evidence-based care will no longer be provided to people under the purview of the Bureau of Prisons,” Streed told Advocate. “That means the policy runs counter to best practices and arguably probably the law in terms of providing care to inmates because it’s setting up a different standard for them versus the standard out in the community.”

According to Streed, trans inmates receiving hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria will experience a range of adverse health effects stemming from the drop in hormone levels if their treatment is decreased, including changes in cognition and mood, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and metabolic issues. For those who have already undergone surgeries as part of their gender-affirming care, the risks are even more serious.

“They no longer produce adequate endogenous hormones to a level that would be good for their health if we were to take away their exogenous hormones,” Streed said. “Now we’re going to take away hormone therapy for them — they are put at much greater risk than anybody else.”

As Just Detention International communications director Jesse Lerner-Kinglake said in a statement, the new policy will almost certainly exacerbate the already dangerous conditions for trans inmates. Data from the Department of Justice indicates transgender inmates are 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than straight prisoners, and multiple court cases have found that housing transgender women in men’s facilities and denying gender-related healthcare are violations of the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment.

But on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping anti-trans executive order, which, among other directives, instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure that trans women are housed in men’s detention centers and that “no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

Trans inmates, Lerner-Kinglake said, “already had a bullseye on their back — and the federal government knows it. The rates of sexual abuse facing the transgender community were astronomical before these new policies. It’s hard to imagine this already abysmal situation getting worse. And yet it will.”

The administration has already been blocked from implementing its ban on gender-affirming care in prisons. Last year, three transgender people currently incarcerated in federal custody filed a class action suit against the administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons challenging those policies. In June 2025, a federal judge granted a temporary injunction requiring the BOP to continue providing gender-affirming care to trans inmates as the case proceeds.

It’s unclear whether the administration believes that merely weaning trans inmates off hormone therapy represents a legitimate workaround. But Shayna Medley, senior litigation staff attorney at Advocates for Trans Equality, told Advocate that the new BOP guidance violates that injunction.

“The February 19 guidance from the Bureau of Prisons directing tapering of hormone therapy for transgender people in custody is a direct violation of the injunction in Kingdom v. Trump, which requires the BOP to continue providing hormones to people in custody with a gender dysphoria diagnosis,” Medley said. Advocates for Trans Equality’s position, she said, is that the guidance “is currently enjoined by the existing injunction in the Kingdom v. Trump litigation.”

“Implementation would be in direct violation of the federal court’s order to continue providing hormone therapy to transgender people in BOP custody with a gender dysphoria diagnosis.”

March 12, 2026 0

New Hampshire House advances transgender bathroom bill, breaking with New England

Supreme Court forces California to allow teachers to out trans kids

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The Supreme Court yesterday blocked a law in California that bans teachers from outing trans kids to their parents from going into effect. The decision was 6-3, with the six Republican appointees opposing trans rights and the three Democratic appointees taking the side of trans kids.

The case involves teachers from Escondido Union School District who claim that their Christian faith requires them to out trans kids to their parents. They argue that their “right to exercise [their] own religious beliefs” is being violated by the district policy, which was established in response to 2016 legal guidance from the California Department of Education advising districts not to out students.

Trans and nonbinary youth can be put at risk of parental rejection and homelessness if outed to their parents.

The teachers, who were later joined by several parents in their lawsuit, won their case in a lower court in December, where Bush-appointed Judge Roger Benitez said that California should “trust parents to do the right thing for their child” and let teachers out trans kids to their parents, even in cases where the child fears abuse, neglect, or homelessness as a result. Trans and nonbinary youth are much more likely to experience homelessness compared to cisgender youth.

In early January, a panel of judges on the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay to Benitez’s injunction, allowing California to enforce its trans youth protections as appeals work their way through the legal system.

But the teachers appealed to the Supreme Court, which sided with them and granted their emergency request for a stay.

The Court issued an 18-page unsigned ruling that said they believe that the parents are “likely to succeed on the merits” of their religious freedom claim, which was that there is a “right of parents to guide the religious development of their children” that also implies a right to know how their children are presenting their gender at school. The Court said that not outing kids to their parents is an even “greater… intrusion on the parents’ free exercise rights” than schools letting kids read books with LGBTQ+ characters, which the Court also ruled schools couldn’t do in its Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling last year.

In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that this case shows how the “emergency docket can malfunction” because the case involved “novel legal questions” that the Court is ruling on with “inadequate briefing.”

“The Court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly,” she wrote, noting that the federal appeals court hasn’t even ruled on the appeals in the case yet.

On the more substantive issues, Kagan wrote that the Constitution makes no mention of parental rights and that the conservatives on the Court relied on the Due Process Clause, which they usually read narrowly. She pointed out that the idea that women have a right to control their own bodies elicits “outright hostility” from her conservative colleagues when it’s suggested to be part of the Constitution’s due process protections. But now the same conservatives found that that clause gives parents the right to know how their children are presenting their genders at school.

She added that parents’ rights have to be balanced against the “critical interests in the care and education of children” that the state has, and that they needed to follow “ordinary processes” to address that balance.

Outing trans youth to their parents puts them at increased risk of homelessness, according to the Williams Institute. Not only that, they might still be exploring their identities and need to exercise control over their coming-out process.

“Transition isn’t a flick of a switch; it’s a complex, gradual, weaving journey of identity,” Connie Walden, a trans woman, wrote to the New York Times in 2023.

“My own transition started in high school. At what stage between my experimenting with makeup now and then to asking specific friends to call me Connie would I have officially, suddenly, socially transitioned? When should I have been robbed of the right to come out to my own family, to decide when to include them in my own process?”

“I recognize the pain of well-meaning parents who feel that their child kept such a large ‘secret’ from them. Yet with transition being a gradual process of experimentation, there is no big secret. There’s only kids slowly figuring out who they are, like all other kids.”

March 3, 2026 0

Republican TX AG sues chest binding company & claims its making “a fortune by hurting kids”

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Texas Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton (R) is suing a New York-based company for marketing chest binders to minors.

Paxton has accused trans and nonbinary-inclusive youth undergarment brand Lola Olivia of violating his state’s consumer protection laws banning false, misleading, or deceptive advertising. The company, he claimed in a February 20 press release, sells chest binders “to Texas girls as young as nine-years-old to ‘transition’ them” without “informing them that they could be subjected to no less than twenty-eight different medical conditions.”

According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) 2022 Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, trans masculine young people who bind their chests — described as a reversible, nonmedical practice that involves “compression of the breast tissue to create a flatter appearance” — report benefits including “increased comfort, improved safety, and lower rates of misgendering.” Risks such as back/chest pain, shortness of breath, and overheating are common. However, more serious risks, such as those Paxton cites in his lawsuit, like skin infections, respiratory infections, and rib fractures, are rare and more common among adults.

WPATH does recommend that healthcare professionals provide trans and gender diverse adolescents with “accurate and reliable information about the potential benefits and risks of chest binding,” and recommend the use of binders specifically designed for gender diverse people.

Paxton’s complaint includes multiple misrepresentations of medical research. Them notes it cites WPATH’s acknowledgement of certain risks associated with chest binding, but fails to note the infrequency of those risks among young people or the benefits when done properly.

The lawsuit also cites research published in the International Journal of Sexual Health last year, which found a “significant number of negative health implications” reported among trans and nonbinary people who bind. However, researchers also noted that “some studies also found positive effects on dysphoria, life satisfaction, and mental health,” and noted that several studies indicated a lack of knowledge about binding among healthcare providers. Researchers recommended further research “on long-term effects, safer methods, and promoting education” on chest binding.

The complaint also cites the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent interpretation of chest binders as Class I medical devices under section 201(h) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because they are “intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or to affect the structure or any function of the body.” Under this interpretation, Paxton alleges Lola Olivia is in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by not registering its products with the FDA. But the Dallas Voice notes that the FDA has said class 1 medical devices, which include items like manual stethoscopes and bedpans, “are generally exempt from premarket notification and approval.”

In his press release, Paxton falsely described “transitioning” minors as “child abuse” and accused Lola Olivia of making “a fortune by hurting kids.”

The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order, injunctive relief, and over $1,000,000 in monetary relief, including civil penalties.

March 3, 2026 0

Republican TX AG bans “radical” mental health workers from affirming trans youth: It’s “child abuse”

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has declared that it is illegal for mental health care providers licensed by the state to affirm trans youth and that doing so is child abuse.

The virulently anti-trans official issued the opinion on Monday to explain that the state’s gender-affirming care ban applies to mental health care as well. In a press release, Paxton’s office referred to the practice of affirming someone’s gender as “‘transitioning’ our kids.”

“Any radical facilitating the ‘transitioning’ of our kids is committing child abuse,” Paxton said in a statement. “The law is clear that these radical procedures are illegal and in no world should Texans’ tax dollars be used to permanently harm children. This opinion should send a clear warning there will be consequences for any medical professional, whether a doctor or a therapist, who is illegally ‘transitioning’ Texas kids.”

Trans news site Transitics said the opinion can be interpreted as essentially requiring mental health professionals to either refuse to see young trans patients or else engage in conversion therapy. The opinion states that therapists have an obligation to help children with “overcoming” an “underlying… condition,” which in this case is gender dysphoria.

“Even if they want to, they can no longer affirm a trans kid’s identity, offer alternatives in another state, or encourage parents to accept their kids for who they are,” Aleksandra Vaca at Transitics explained. “Under Paxton’s opinion, doing anything other than push a child to accept being their assigned sex at birth will result in providers losing their license and/or being imprisoned. This is conversion therapy, which is recognized by the United Nations as being tantamount to torture.”

Paxton has spent his tenure as attorney general terrorizing the trans community. In 2022, he issued a non-binding opinion calling gender-affirming health care a form of child abuse, which led Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to order the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate for child abuse any parents who allow their trans children to access gender-affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors.

In a post at the time, Paxton called gender affirming care and puberty blockers – which have been shown to reduce lifetime suicide risk for transgender people who have access to them before puberty – “monstrous and tragic.”

Paxton has also argued it should be legal to discriminate against trans people at work, and he once tried to force a school to cancel its Pride week. He has sued for the right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, sued a group that highlighted the rise in hate speech on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, and sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to force it to inspect every athlete’s gender before allowing them to play.

He has also said consensual encounters between consenting same-sex adults should be illegal, and that state workers can deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Paxton was previously impeached by the Texas House in 2023 for 16 counts of bribery but was later acquitted by the Texas Senate. The FBI also investigated him for years for securities fraud, but the Department of Justice eventually dropped its investigation. He also settled a state securities fraud case against him, paying $300,000 and participating in community service to avoid legal charges.

In July, it came to light that his wife filed for divorce from him due to adultery.

Paxton told his staff about an extramarital affair in September 2018 while holding hands with his wife, The Texas Tribune reported. But while he recommitted to their marriage during that confession, he continued to cheat on her, the publication reported, even going through great lengths to hide affairs from her: using burner phones, secret email addresses, and secret rideshare accounts to meet with his mistress.