After years of struggle, UK parents successfully lobbied the NHS to start prescribing gender-affirming medical treatments for minors under 16 in 2011. Their success, however, was short-lived.
In April, NHS England released the findings of a four-year inquiry into GIDS led by Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician with no experience treating adolescents with gender dysphoria. On the recommendation of the Cass Review, which was highly critical of adolescent medical transition, the NHS services in England, Wales and Scotland have stopped prescribing puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. The British government also banned private clinics from prescribing them, at least temporarily.
Though there is much more evidence now to support gender-affirming care than in 2008, there is also a much stronger anti-trans movement seeking to discredit and ban such care.
British media coverage has given that movement a big boost in recent years, turning the spotlight away from the realities that trans kids and their families are facing, and pumping out stories nitpicking at the strength of the expanding evidence base for gender-affirming care. Its coverage of the Cass Review followed suit.
US media, unsurprisingly, gave less coverage to the British review, but most of the in-depth coverage followed British media’s model. Underlying this coverage are questionable claims by people with no experience treating minors with gender dysphoria, and double standards regarding the evidence for medical and alternative treatments.