Table of Contents
Summarised by Centrist
When the government moved to ban new prescriptions of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria in minors, the Professional Association of Transgender Health Aotearoa, PATHA, moved to challenge the decision.
In a brief High Court hearing, the organisation secured interim relief, with Justice Wilkinson-Smith directing the Crown not to enforce the ban until a judicial review in 2026.
The ruling paused enforcement of the ban after accepting evidence that a prohibition would cause harm to affected young people.
However, researcher Fern Hickson argues that the court accepted claims of increased suicide and self-harm risk despite a lack of credible evidence showing such outcomes when puberty blockers are unavailable.
“The judge heard the same old discredited claims of puberty blockers being reversible, giving children time to think, improving their mental health, and being agreed best practice for ‘gender-affirming care’ among experts,” Hickson said.
Hickson describes PATHA, along with its related organisation WPATH, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, as a “self-selected groups of activists and gender clinicians who support the belief that medical transition to ‘pass’ as the opposite sex is a human right, even for very young children.”
Hickson notes that neither the Cass Review in the UK nor the 2025 US Health and Human Services report found reliable evidence that puberty blockers improve mental health outcomes.
She also notes that the HHS report concluded that “the perception of professional consensus is driven primarily by a small number of specialised committees, influenced by WPATH,” adding that dissenting views had often been suppressed.
Hickson further states that the Cass Review was similarly blunt, stating that WPATH’s guidance “lacked developmental rigour” and that “the circularity of this approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus despite the evidence being poor.”
