![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6976926.1721883767!/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.png)
AS IT HAPPENED Wildfire reaches Jasper Wednesday night, causes 'significant loss'
One of two wildfires threatening Jasper National Park reached the townsite Wednesday night and caused 'significant loss.'
England’s National Health Service (NHS) has stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, saying there is “not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness” of puberty-suppressing hormones.
NHS England said it made the decision, which was widely condemned by LGBTQ2S+ groups, after it “carefully considered” an evidence review it commissioned in 2020. It also reviewed evidence published since then, it said in a policy document published Tuesday.
Puberty blockers will now only be available to young people in clinical research trials and some private clinics, UK’s PA Media reported Tuesday. Fewer than 100 young people are currently on puberty blockers via the NHS and they will be able to continue the treatment, it added.
Puberty blockers will also available through some private gender identity clinics.
According to the NHS clinical policy, treatment for young people “focuses on psychosocial and psychological support.” Gender-affirming hormones and surgery may be available later or in adulthood.
Gender-affirming care for young people in England has faced legal and political scrutiny in recent years that has coincided with rising anti-trans rhetoric in the country, say LGBTQ2S+ advocates.
Some British politicians welcomed NHS England’s announcement. The UK’s Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said on X that “care that affects our children’s health and wellbeing so profoundly must always be based on clinical evidence.”
Health minister Maria Caulfield also welcomed the policy, calling it a “groundbreaking change as children’s safety and wellbeing are paramount.”
Stonewall, a LGBTQ2S+ campaign group in the UK, criticized Tuesday’s announcement, writing in a statement that “all trans young people deserve access to high quality, timely healthcare.”
“For some, an important part of this care comes in the form of puberty blockers, a reversible treatment that delays the onset of puberty, prescribed by expert endocrinologists, giving the young person extra time to evaluate their next steps,” it wrote.
“We are concerned that NHS England will be putting new prescriptions on hold until a research protocol is up and running at the end of 2024,” the charity added.
Mermaids, a charity that supports trans, non-binary and gender-questioning children and young people, said that the NHS announcement is “deeply disappointing, and a further restriction of support offered to trans children and young people through the NHS, which is failing trans youth.”
Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.
Puberty blocking is a noninvasive therapy that can be reversed. Doctors inject a compound or use an implant that mimics the actions of a puberty-stimulating hormone that is released in the brain known as gonadotropin-releasing hormone. The compound makes the pituitary gland less sensitive to that hormone and, in doing so, it essentially pauses puberty. Puberty starts again after the drugs are stopped.
In the US, where several Republican-led states have banned gender-affirmative healthcare for young people, every major medical association agrees that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults. This includes the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Gender-affirming care can include puberty blockers, which may not be a part of every association’s treatment.
The AMA and LGBTQ2S+ advocates stress that gender-affirming care can be a life-saving treatment for trans youth. In the US, transgender and nonbinary youth are twice as likely to have attempted suicide compared to their cisgender peers, according to a 2022 survey by the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ2S+ youth.
One of two wildfires threatening Jasper National Park reached the townsite Wednesday night and caused 'significant loss.'
Alberta has called in the Canadian Armed Forces to help assist with the worsening wildfire situation in the province.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a solemn call to voters to defend the country's democracy as he laid out in an Oval Office address his decision to drop his bid for reelection and throw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Staff at a Barrie child care centre say they are frustrated by what they call a local MPP's inadequate response after a car crashed through a window in one of the toddler rooms.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what appears to be the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
An analyst and an assistant coach with Canada Soccer are being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and 'sent home immediately,' according to the Canadian Olympic Committee.
After a handful of Australian water polo players tested positive for COVID-19 this week, questions have emerged around how the spread of the disease will be mitigated at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
A B.C. man who was hired to help a non-profit build a food hub but instead spent the money on personal expenses – including travel, restaurants, booze and cannabis – has been ordered to pay more than $120,000 in damages.
Two people are dead and two others suffered serious injuries following a shooting that police have described as a 'gun battle' outside a plaza in Scarborough, Ont. early Wednesday morning.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.
A well-known childhood prank known as 'nicky nicky nine doors,' or 'ding dong ditch,' has escalated into a more serious game that could lead to charges for some Surrey, B.C. teens.
It's been more than a month since their good friend was seriously hurt in an accident and two teens from Riverview, N.B., are still having a hard time dealing with it.
Halifax bridges have collected thousands of coins from around the world.