A High Court judge in the United Kingdom on Monday upheld the government’s emergency ban on puberty blockers due to high risks to children.

The court’s ruling defended the Cass Review, conducted by Dr. Hilary Cass, which found that children placed on puberty-blocking drugs were prone to permanent neurological issues. The Cass Review recommended that puberty blockers should only be prescribed as part of clinical research.

“A further concern is that adolescent sex hormone surges may trigger the opening of a critical period for experience-dependent rewiring of neural circuits underlying executive function (i.e. maturation of the part of the brain concerned with planning, decision making and judgement),” The Cass Review stated in a 2022 letter, presented in the court ruling. “If this is the case, brain maturation may be temporarily or permanently disrupted by puberty blockers, which could have significant impact on the ability to make complex risk-laden decisions, as well as possible longer-term neuropsychological consequences.”

The ruling throws out a challenge to the ban from transgender activist group TransActual.

The government’s emergency ban in May prohibited the private prescription of puberty blockers for minors. Both England and Scotland stated in March and April that they planned to stop puberty blocker treatments for those under the age of 18 due to known side effects and unknown implications.

NHS Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he welcomed the ruling, The Associated Press reported. He also said that the NHS would work to begin clinical trials for puberty blockers.

“Children’s healthcare must be evidence-led,” Streeting told The AP. “We must therefore act cautiously and with care when it comes to this vulnerable group of young people.”

The ban prohibits providers from selling or supplying the blockers to minors to treat gender dysmorphia. The ban applies to “gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues – medicines that consist of, or contain, buserelin, gonadorelin, goserelin, leuproelin, acetate, nafarelin, or triptorelin.”

The court ruling refers to gender dysmorphia as “discomfort or distress that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity (how they see themselves regarding their gender) and that person’s sex assigned at birth and the associated gender role, and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics.”

Under the emergency ban, minors who have been on puberty blockers for at least six months before June 3 will be able to continue receiving the prescriptions.

(Featured image credit: Flickr/Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office)