The public health service confirmed the evidence review and several others in a report published as part of an upcoming public consultation into proposed changes to NHS youth gender services.
The Equality and Health Inequalities Impact Assessment (EHIA) report was published after NHS England announced the decision to ban new masculinising and feminising (MAF) hormone prescriptions for under-18s, claiming the evidence for the medication’s benefits are “really weak.”
Transgender teenagers aged 16-17 are gradually given MAF hormones such as testosterone or oestrogen after they have been on puberty suppressant hormones for a sufficient period. MAF hormones do not include puberty blockers, which remain inaccessible under directives from the Health Department.
MAF hormones are the primary medication given to trans adults, alongside hormone blockers, as part of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
According to a recommendation submitted in the EHIA report, NHS England is “separately reviewing the evidence for the use of MAF in adults with gender dysphoria” with the aim of launching a consultation on its findings in late 2026.
A separate section clarifies that its ban on new prescriptions will only apply to youth gender services, adding that the NHS will continue to prescribe hormones for adult patients in its gender identity clinics (GICs).
This is what all transgender people have been fearing: more discrimination by a government that during the General Election promised we would be treated with dignity and respect, but has gone against every word.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has already banned puberty blockers for transgender youth, even though they are still being prescribed to young people who have precocious puberty. When I was a child, I wish I could have got puberty blockers; it would have saved a lot of heartache, discomfort, cost, and distress in my later life.
The CASS report, which this current government is basing most of its transgender healthcare policy on, has been debunked by almost every professional health body in the transgender healthcare world as flawed. The report ignored 98% of studies that have been peer-approved supporting HRT for trans youth, and is now putting that same logic to adult trans healthcare.
I would like to know what gives them the right to tell me, as a 50-year-old trans woman, to say I should not take HRT as it is bad for me. I have been on HRT for almost two years now, and I have NEVER been happier in my body as I am now.
NHS England says there will be a consultation by the end of 2026 on healthcare for transgender adults. How can we, the transgender community, trust any consultation after what happened after the CASS report, and the basically scrapping of the trail they put forward, as recommended by the flawed report they have been following, for transgender youth?
The transgender community has basically NO TRUST at all with the NHS, or with this current government, to do the right thing when it comes to our healthcare.
They said the NHS will continue to prescribe HRT for those in the GIS system, but the waiting list to get into the GIS system for some regions is over 200 years. In my region, in the north of England, it’s already at 14 years and climbing every year. Since I went on the waiting list to Leeds GIS, the waiting list has grown by over 2,000 people. They are currently seeing people from October 2019, 5 years ago when I joined, they was seeing people from June 2019.
I am currently getting shared care via GenderGP and my local GP. I have nothing but praise for my GP, and even they have noticed how much happier I am in myself when I go for the blood tests. I am now worried, as I am sure a lot of other transgender people are, about what happens if that stops. I cannot afford to go 100% private, that would cost over £200 per month.
The only thing I know for certain, and I am sure a lot of other transgender people think this way as well, if they stop the HRT from me, I will not be on this Earth much longer.
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