Thread by @LibVoice4Women

Delighted @angusmacdlibdem spoke up as a @LibDems MP for child safeguarding yesterday on the puberty blocker trial. “I believe that as Members of Parliament, we have an overriding moral responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in our society, especially children.” 🧵

The front bench LD statement read by @AlisonEBennett. She didn't allow any interventions. She said “We will listen to the experts and the clinicians” but sometimes external scrutiny's required – medical scandals exist – from infected blood to thalidomide

Then @cajardineMP talked about “children who have a genuine fear of what puberty will bring” but of course the answer to that is not to chemically prevent the natural process of children becoming adults but to support them with talking therapies.

In addition Christine said “Too many young people are committing suicide” however thank goodness for @Rebecca_SPaul who spoke about the need to be responsible and Prof Appleby’s work into just this that found no such evidence.

Our chair @hollowood_zoe spoke in Dec against the trial. “Earlier this week I asked a colleague, a medical doctor, what he thought of this proposed trial. His response was blunt. He called it an “unethical experiment on children that’s politically driven.””

Zoe’s speech goes onto address many of the reasons people have reached for to justify this trial including children accessing banned drugs overseas (which who knows this trial may inadvertently increase due to adding seeming ‘legitimacy’ to puberty blockers).

Prioritising the data linkage study to provide more evidence about the safety and efficacy FIRST is important to ‘first do no harm’ to children who may otherwise be unnecessarily exposed to irreversible treatments that prevent them developing into healthy adults.

This is still consistent with accepting the Cass Review but with the knowledge that implementing some of the recommendations should be sequenced from a medical ethics and safeguarding standpoint.

The @LibDems have never formally accepted the Cass Review. When asked their answers are often vague. In 2024 they said the Cass Review shouldn’t be used to ‘restrict access to high-quality healthcare’. What they consider high quality healthcare is not spelled out but we know puberty blockers have a very weak evidence base of benefit and emerging evidence of harm. libdems.org.uk/conference/pap…

Whilst it is good that it’s normally the Health spokesperson @HelenMorganMP now who addresses these issues (unlike the years when @libdemdaisy was in health and passed it over to Women & Equalities to deal with - Christine Jardine) the Lib Dem line is still confused.

In a 2015 motion that passed Lib Dems said to follow WPATH guidelines and give puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones. This motion has not being rescinded or superseded despite our best efforts.

In 2025 there was an opportunity to sort this out when Lib Dems passed the ‘Free To Be Who You Are’ motion. However conference accepted an amendment calling for ‘gender affirming care’ and decided not to debate an amendment on Cass.

Whilst the Health team now repeatedly emphasise the need for talking therapies – which is a big step forward – the @libdems are also being briefed that such therapies may in fact be conversion therapy by TransActual (Dir Lib Dem councillor Helen Belcher.)

So yesterday marked an important step forward to have a Lib Dem MP willing to call out the issues with this trial and we remain thankful to Angus for being willing to put his head above the parapet. It is unknown whether the Lib Dem front bench will ever be able to say anything meaningful on this due to the internal division of opinion that exists on this topic that they frantically continue to try to paper over.