A UK High Court judge has dismissed a legal challenge seeking to halt a clinical trial of puberty-suppressing drugs for children, allowing research led by King's College London to move forward. The Pathways trial will begin recruiting more than 220 children aged 11 to 16 from 1 August, targeting young people already receiving NHS gender services who doctors believe may clinically benefit from the treatment. The ruling matters because it reopens a closely watched avenue of medical research into gender medicine in Britain, which had been left in a state of deep uncertainty after the NHS banned off-label puberty blocker prescriptions in 2024 following an independent review that found the evidence base for their use to be dangerously thin.