By Rachel Savage , Hugo Greenhalgh. LONDON Thomson Reuters Foundation - Children aged under 16 will need court approval in England and Wales to access puberty blockers after a landmark ruling on Tuesday amid a global debate about the age at which a child can choose to transition gender. Following the ruling, the National Health Service NHS England updated its guidelines to state that a court order must be sought for any new referral for such medication. Keira Bell, 23, brought the action against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust after regretting taking puberty blockers at the age of 16 that she feared may have damaged her ability to have children. A spokeswoman confirmed the Trust was in talks with lawyers. Previously in Britain under a court ruling, children under the age of 16 could consent to medical treatment if they were deemed to understand and fully appreciate the implications, in what is known as the Gillick competence test. Jolyon Maugham, a lawyer and director of the Good Law Project, a legal nonprofit that has worked on trans rights cases, said the new ruling could push families into taking children abroad for treatment. The ruling comes as rising numbers of adolescents globally seek to change gender, dividing those who fear doctors are too hasty in prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and those worried about access to medication they deem life-saving. The Tavistock has released figures showing a nearly fold rise in child referrals to the clinic in the past decade, to about 2, last year. Courts and lawmakers from Canada and the United States to Mexico and Brazil are weighing parental rights and the age at which someone can make medical decisions.


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This is not true," the ministry said in a Facebook post on Saturday Jan In a post on the SGExams Reddit page on Thursday, the student identified herself as a "male-to-female" transgender girl and said she had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria at the Institute of Mental Health IMH. The student, who is in her second year of pre-university education, said she was set to undergo hormone therapy as part of her treatment, but was stopped from doing so after the MOE intervened. Transgender individuals identify with a gender that does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender dysphoria refers to the psychological distress that results from this mismatch between one's sense of self and body. Referring to the student with the male pronoun, the MOE said: "We invite the student to approach the school to clarify and discuss how the school can support his schooling better. We are not in a position to interfere with any medical treatment, which is a matter for the family to decide on.
What Does Being Transgender Mean? The Fundamentals
The latest information about the Novel Coronavirus, including vaccine clinics for year-olds. When teenagers confide that they are transgender or uncertain about their gender identity, their parents may be unsure how to offer support. To find out what types of family support help transgender adolescents, a Stanford research team asked them. The actions teens valued most were among the simplest, according to the new study, which was published March 8 in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Teens said they most appreciated having parents use their preferred name and pronoun, as well as knowing that their parents were emotionally available and listening to their concerns. Aye spoke with science writer Erin Digitale about the new research. Set the stage for this study. What was previously known about the value of family support for transgender children?
Adolescence is a time of radical transformation. Teens develop physically, emotionally, intellectually, and socially. They form their own identities, distinct from their parents. They engage in an evolving, instinctive process of trial and error to learn about themselves and find their place in the world.