THE mother of a Co Down teenager taking puberty blockers has said it was the right choice to protect their mental health.
Diane Mallon (48) spoke to the Irish News along with Eren Mallon (15), who identifies as male, and has been taking testosterone since May.
They joined over a hundred protestors who gathered outside Belfast City Hall on Tuesday as a ban on the private sale and supply of puberty suppressing hormones in Northern Ireland came into effect.
One chant from the crowd was directed at the Health Minister: “Mike Nesbitt hear us clear, we demand trans healthcare here.”
Last week, Stormont followed the UK’s “temporary ban” after the independent Cass review found there was “remarkably weak” evidence on treatments like puberty blockers, with young people caught in the middle of “a stormy social discourse”.
Mr Nesbitt agreed there was not enough evidence for children and their families to make informed choices, and that a UK-wide legislative approach would stop any potential loopholes being exploited in Northern Ireland.
The DUP and Sinn Féin have backed the move, with Alliance as the only Executive party voicing criticism.
People Before Profit and the Greens also objected to the ban.
Protest against ban on puberty blockers underway at Belfast City Hall. @irish_news pic.twitter.com/Uzk25I5tjB
— Allan Preston (@AllanPreston) August 27, 2024
Ms Mallon said: “I just think it’s terribly unfair, that cis kids (those whose gender identity is the same as their birth sex) get access to puberty blockers and trans kids don’t.
“It causes great mental distress to trans people not to be able to access this trans care and it seems this ban is more of a political statement than a medical one. Across Europe it’s widely available, it just seems to be the UK and we’ve jumped on the bandwagon whereas the Republic doesn’t have a ban enforced.”
With NHS England announcing that trials with puberty blockers will take place next year, Ms Mallon said she didn’t accept that more evidence was needed.
“They haven’t got any trials for Northern Ireland. The thing is, it’s been used consistently since the 1980s for precocious puberty in younger kids. If it’s safe for them, why isn’t it safe for trans kids?”
Asked about the potential risks of having the treatment at a young and impressionable age, Eren said: “I feel the regret would be bigger if you didn’t do it when you were younger and turned out to be trans, than the other way around.”
Describing the experience before starting treatment, Eren added: “It was really bad on my mental health, I was in a really bad place.”
Ms Mallon claimed the process of puberty blockers was “totally reversible” and that a ban would only push people into seeking the treatment from elsewhere.
“We’ve paid quite a lot of money to get access to treatment, now we’re probably going to have to look at getting treatment in the Republic.
“The psychiatrist fully supported what Eren needs, but unfortunately the government has other ideas.”
On weighing the decision to allow her child to take puberty blockers, she said: “For me it’s not complicated. At the end of the day I just want an alive kid, I don’t want a kid who feels they’re not accepted in society and can’t survive this way. The suicide rates among trans people is astronomical, so much higher than the general population. So for me, I don’t care if it’s male or female.
“As long as I have a child that’s happy, that’s all that matters.”
In July, an independent review found claims by campaigners of a large rise in suicides among young gender dysphoria patients at a London clinic was not supported by evidence.
Professor Louis Appleby, an experienced suicide researcher, had been asked by the Health Secretary Wes Streeting to examine data on suicides at the now-closed Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
Between 2018-24, he said there were 12 suicides, including half aged under 18.
Prof Appleby said the patients were all at different points in their care and had “multiple social and clinical risk factors for suicide.”
He did, however, acknowledge there had been a rise over a longer period as young people at risk had increasingly presented with gender dysphoria and referrals to Gids have risen - from 5,000 in 2021/22 to under 250 a decade earlier.
Critical of how the issue had been discussed on social media, he called it “insensitive, distressing and dangerous,” and going against guidance on the safe reporting of suicide.
“One risk is that young people and their families will be terrified by predictions of suicide as inevitable without puberty blockers – some of the responses on social media show this,” he said.
He said the claims “do not meet basic standards for statistical evidence”, adding that “to be reliable, evidence should be objective, unbiased and open to independent scrutiny”.
Calling for “a measured public discourse,” he said it was important “we do not stoke up prejudice or cause unnecessary alarm to the young people and their families.”
