While lawyers in the Tennessee transgender care ban case were slugging it out in court last week, the UK was putting the finishing touches on a “holistic” approach to pediatric transgender care—one that has broad, bipartisan support and is grounded in mental health protocol rather than risky, unproven drugs.

On Wednesday, the left-leaning Labour government announced that puberty blockers for minors with gender dysphoria would be banned indefinitely across the UK, except for use in clinical trials.

The announcement follows an emergency ban that extended to private providers beginning in May 2024, after the landmark Cass Review on children’s gender care found there was insufficient evidence to show these drugs were safe. It was a temporary measure enacted by the then-Conservative government and later upheld against a challenge in court, as we reported here. //

In October, Cass told The Times she attributes the report’s ongoing success to broad, cross-party support that kept it from becoming “a political hostage to fortune.”

So far, Cass—now Baroness Cass of Barnet to us—seems to be right. The UK did what the US failed to do: take the politics out of children’s medicine.