New Zealand’s High Court has temporarily blocked the government’s plan to ban puberty blockers for young people experiencing gender dysphoria. The ban was supposed to go into effect on 19 December. The ruling was made on 17 December following the Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA) filing for an urgent injunction and a judicial review of the matter, arguing that a ban would be “illegal and unethical”. The ban was initially announced by health minister Simeon Brown on 19 November. In a statement, he said: “These changes are about ensuring treatments are safe and carefully managed, while maintaining access to care for those who need it." The High Court in Wellington found that there was a reasonable argument that the planned regulations were "unlawful in a judicial review sense" and that the negative effect on mental health that the ban might cause was a “far more immediate concern”. Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith said: "There is also no evidence of a pa...