Health minister reinstates ban on puberty blockers

Parents of Trans Kids Speak Out | November 2025

Queensland’s Health Minister Tim Nicholls reinstated the ban on puberty blockers hours after the original ban was found to be unlawful. Despite the imminent repercussions on trans youths’ well-being, Nicholls claimed he acted in the public interest. But for reasons only he could know, he was so afraid of expert consultation he risked breaking the law a second time.

To date, Nicholls has cited only one source for his concerns: the UK’s Cass Review. But as the New England Journal of Medicine noted, the Cass Review suffers from a “substandard level of scientific rigor”. The Medical Journal of Australia noted the Review’s “poor understanding of the therapeutic role of puberty suppression”.

Trans youth who seek puberty blockers have one motivation: to prevent the irreversible physical changes accompanying puberty. For trans men, this means breast growth, necessitating chest reconstruction surgery. For trans women, it means facial and body hair, a deeper voice, Adam’s apple, etc, all of which may require expensive surgeries or therapies in adulthood and cause intense stress on individuals and their families. 

A 2020 US study showed “a significant inverse association between treatment with pubertal suppression during adolescence and lifetime suicidal ideation”.

A US survey of over 60,000 trans and gender-diverse young people found “a very sharp and statistically significant rise in suicide attempt rates” after the enactment of anti-trans laws. Among 13-17 year olds, the rate of attempted suicides was 72% higher than it had been before the law‘s passage.

Those who oppose gender-affirming care for trans youth say it is “risky” and “experimental”. The real risk is in denying that treatment to young people. Even the Cass Review admitted that there is no evidence supporting psychotherapy as a treatment for gender dysphoria, yet now, for trans youth in the public system, psychotherapy is the only treatment available.

Tim Nicholls is afraid of consultation because the evidence is against him.

Sources

Daniel G. Aaron and Craig Konnoth. The Future of Gender-Affirming Care — A Law and Policy Perspective on the Cass Review. New England Journal of Medicine (2025). https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2413747

Moore et al. Cass Review does not guide care for trans young people. Medical Journal of Australia (2025). https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2025/223/7/cass-review-does-not-guide-care-trans-young-people

Turban et al. Pubertal Suppression for Transgender Youth and Risk of Suicidal Ideation. Pediatrics (2020). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7073269/

Lee, Hobbs, Hobaica, et al. State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA. Natural Human Behaviour (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01979-5