Scotland’s only gender clinic for minors is formally pausing the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone medications that are designed to facilitate gender transitions for children after a review commissioned by the English government questioned the efficacy of those practices.
This announcement effectively ends the practice of providing sex-change drugs and hormone medications to children in Scotland — just one month after England instituted the same ban.
Per the new policy formalised on April 18, new patients in Scotland must wait until they are 18 years old to access those drugs or hormone medications. However, patients who are under the age of 18 and have already begun such remedies to facilitate a gender transition will not be forced to stop.