Trans sex hormones are permanently damaging a growing number of children, but despite some recent attempts to restrict their availability in the UK, black market sales mean the problem is getting worse. The good news is that the UK Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has cracked down on two websites illegally selling cross-sex hormones used by those who identify as the opposite sex.
The Government agency warned domain registrars to suspend two websites providing the “criminal supply of illegal” products, which present “a real risk of harm to public health in the UK”.
In response, Google has withdrawn one of the websites from search results viewable in the UK, but the other remains accessible.
According to investigations by The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday, several online pharmacies in different countries offer similar drugs to UK customers without a prescription. Some substances cost as little as ten pounds.
Although certain websites are targeted at adults, there are reportedly little safeguards protecting children from purchasing the drugs.
One undercover journalist, who pretended to be a teenage girl, was able to obtain a prescription-only medicine usually used for prostate cancer. Reddit users have pushed boys to use it, claiming “it’s pretty effective at basically making testosterone useless”.
One mother told The Guardian that her teenage daughter, who bought testosterone online before obtaining them from a drug dealer, later detransitioned.
She explained: “The thing is, my daughter has been left with permanent physical damage from the testosterone that she took illegally off prescription – permanent damage that will never resolve, that she’s got to live with for the rest of her life.”
Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid commented: “These powerful drugs were never designed to be available on demand but this investigation makes clear thousands of children are at risk. We must be relentless in stopping this trade.”