Children who question their gender can still be powerful puberty blockers for the taxpayer despite the NHS ban.
Campaigners, including former First Minister Liz Truss, have now urged ministers to close the “loophole”.
NHS England withdrew use of the drugs last month after a review found a lack of evidence on their “safety or clinical effectiveness”.
Puberty blockers stop the physical changes of adolescence, such as breast development or facial hair growth.
Experts have been concerned for years about its possible side effects.
Campaigners, including former Prime Minister Liz Truss, are calling on the NHS to close this “loophole”. Mrs Truss pictured here in February.
Puberty blockers, known medically as gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs, stop the physical changes of puberty in adolescents who question their gender. An example of these medications, called Triptorelin, is shown in the photo.
Although they are banned by the NHS, health service doctors can still hand them out to gender-questioning young people under a “special circumstances” clause.
NHS doctors can get around the ban by making what is called an “individual funding request” to have medicines given to a child who questions their gender.
This is not a policy exclusive to puberty blockers. These requests can be made for any medicines that are not routinely available on the NHS.
Campaigners say such a policy for puberty blockers violates the spirit of the NHS ban and in these circumstances the loophole should be closed.
Mrs Truss said The Telegraph: ‘In schools, hospitals and courts, extremist activists have exploited legal loopholes time and again.
“Without primary legislation, the practice of prescribing puberty blockers to children will continue, despite evidence that it has harmful consequences.”
The former prime minister is campaigning for a complete ban on prescribing puberty blockers, including in private “cowboy clinics”.
Dr Caroline Johnson MP, a pediatrician and Conservative member of the health select committee backing Ms Truss’ call, added: “If the NHS plans to allow them for children through individual applications, the question is how high the benefit threshold is What must be met? How well must the risk be understood? What is the burden of proof?
Campaign group LGB Alliance, which has long campaigned on the risks of puberty blockers, told MailOnline that more must be done to stop private clinics stepping in to fill the gap left by the NHS ban.
The calls come ahead of the publication of a long-awaited report on the sector.
LGB Alliance chief executive Kate Barker said: ‘The LGB Alliance is calling for a complete ban on a treatment that NHS England rightly considers unsafe.
“We have written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, urging her to follow best practice, not private practice.”
Dr Michael Biggs, professor of sociology at Oxford University and board member of the charity Sex Matters, added: “Private gender clinics are a law in themselves and should be banned.”
“These cowboy clinics should not be allowed to continue giving children drugs for which NHS England says there is insufficient evidence to support their safety or clinical effectiveness.”
Puberty blockers, technically called gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues, were previously much easier to distribute by the NHS to gender-questioning young people.
The now-defunct NHS guidance states that its use allowed children suffering from gender dysphoria to “explore their developing gender identity” before potentially starting more permanent forms of treatment, such as sex hormones.
Dr Hilary Cass’ final report on NHS care for gender issues to be published this week
Doctors working in trans care touted the medications as reversible and safe to use.
But other specialists questioned these claims and highlighted fears about how the powerful drugs could affect adolescent development.
An interim 2022 review led by pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass gave substance to fears about the long-term use of puberty blockers, particularly in children’s brains.
“To date, very limited research has been conducted on the short-, medium-, or long-term impact of puberty blockers on neurocognitive development,” he wrote at the time.
Dr Cass added that the NHS had not collected routine, consistent data on the use of medicines, “meaning it is not possible to accurately track the outcomes and routes that children and young people take through the service”.
This finding led the NHS to ban the new use of puberty blockers in the NHS last month outside of a planned clinical trial.
Dr Cass’s final report on the NHS’s care for gender issues will be published this week.
It is also expected to look at recommendations on children’s “social transition”, where they are treated to match their new gender identity, such as using a new name or buying them clothes of the opposite sex.
It comes amid a growing body of research into the potential dangers and irreversible changes that puberty blockers could have on children.
Last week, US experts warned that the drugs can shrivel testicles, cause infertility or cancer in children who take them.
And earlier this year, a world-renowned expert discovered that drugs can harm children’s IQ.
University College London neuropsychologist Professor Sallie Baxendale alarming study highlighted cases where the young women apparently lost between seven and 15 IQ points while taking the drugs.