Michelle O’Neill calls Mike Nesbitt’s puberty blocker trial pause ‘disgraceful’

First Minister Michelle O’Neill has criticised the health minister’s pausing of a puberty blocker trial in Northern Ireland as “disgraceful” and “unfortunate”.

She also said Mike Nesbitt’s approach served as evidence that he viewed the issue as “a culture war battle within unionism”.

Campaigners have launched legal action against the UK Government to attempt to halt the trial led by researchers at King’s College London that is being undertaken following a recommendation by the Cass review.

The Cass review into children’s gender care led to a ban on puberty blockers due to “a very weak evidence base” for the benefits of the drugs for young people with gender dysphoria, but “given that there are clinicians, children and families who believe passionately in the beneficial effects, a trial was the only way forward”.

In a statement, Mr Nesbitt said that due to the ongoing judicial review he had decided “to suspend Northern Ireland’s agreement to participate in the UK-wide trial until the legal process has concluded”.

In a social media post announcing the move on Saturday, the Ulster Unionist Party wrote: “While others try to revise their history the facts speak for themselves.”

The post then highlighted that Northern Ireland’s first specialist children’s gender service was opened in August 2014 when the DUP’s Edwin Poots was health minister.

Speaking to reporters at Stormont, Ms O’Neill said the health minister had taken an “unfortunate route”.

She said: “He chose to announce this over the weekend and you only have to look at the Ulster Unionist Party’s social media that shows you that it’s more about inter-unionist rivalry.

“It’s about a better, maybe, approach, from their perspective, than the DUP.

“That’s disgraceful, that’s actually to turn their head against those people out there in the trans community that are really, really anxious right now.

“This should have been handled in such a much more sensitive way. I really regret and I distance myself completely from the approach that he has taken.

“This is about a political battle, an electoral battle, a culture war battle within unionism.

“It’s not actually about the interest of the trans community out there that just need compassion and support and fairness.

“Mike made this commitment last year. He’s now reneged on that commitment.”

Ms O’Neill said the discussion “should have” taken place around the Executive table.

Speaking in the assembly chamber on Monday, Mr Nesbitt said that in addition to the issue of the judicial review, he made the decision to halt involvement due to his “political sense we were on the cusp of an issue developing into another Executive row”.

“Gender identity is too sensitive and too important an issue for me to wish to see those young people and the parents of those young people and the many others on both sides of the debate have the issue dragged through the courts or subjected to the lowest form of debate,” he said.

“As such, our participation is now paused and will remain paused.

“Should the trial ultimately be given the green light to proceed, I shall take the views of Executive colleagues before any potential lifting of that pause.”

The health minister also pushed back on comments made by TUV MLA Timothy Gaston who asked if he agreed “that children should never be guinea pigs for an ideology”.

Mr Nesbitt replied: “I don’t think there’s anybody in this House who is out to treat children as guinea pigs or to bring them to any harm.

“The member and I disagree on many, many things, and that is fair enough, but more important to me than what the member thinks, is being sensitive to these young people, to their families and to their communities.”

Deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly said previous decisions on the use of puberty blockers in Northern Ireland “didn’t come anywhere near the minister”.

“It was not a ministerial decision so we won’t be distracted by smoke and mirrors,” she told reporters at Stormont.

She added: “I do believe, and I’ve said this many times, that this will be one of the biggest public health scandals of our time.”

Ms Little-Pengelly said “it’s absolutely right” for the health minister to pause Northern Ireland’s participation in the trial, urging Mr Nesbitt to “go a step further and indicate very, very clearly that we will not be participating in that”.

She added: “I get very frustrated with people dismissing really important and serious issues simply as a culture war issue, it’s not.

“This is an issue impacting on real people’s lives, real children’s lives, and we should always step forward and make sure we’re doing everything that we can to protect children.”

Puberty blockers are not prescribed on the NHS to children for the treatment of gender dysphoria after a ban earlier in 2024 was made permanent in December of that year with the agreement of devolved governments across the UK.

Launching the trial last year, researchers said the youngest patients involved will typically be 10 to 11 for girls and 11 to 12 for boys, with a maximum age of consent at 15 years 11 months.

A King’s College London spokesperson has previously said: “We strongly refute the claim that this carefully-designed study is scientifically unsound or that it bypassed the ethics process and we can confirm that the study has completed all the necessary ethics and approvals processes.