BRASÍLIA, Brazil (AFP) —Brazil on Wednesday raised the legal age for transgender people to receive hormone therapy from 16 to 18, becoming the latest country to deny the treatment to minors who do not recognise their birth gender.

Brazil’s CFM medicines council had authorised the therapy for people 16 and older in 2019, but on Wednesday published a resolution saying hormone treatment will henceforth be “prohibited before the age of 18.”

It also banned the prescription of puberty blockers for “children or adolescents” with gender dysphoria, which is when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

The CFM raised the minimum age for sexual reassignment surgery “that involves a potentially sterilising effect” from 18 to 21 years.

Several bills seeking to impose prison sentences on doctors providing hormone treatment to minors are under review in the Brazilian Parliament, which has a conservative majority.

Brazil’s move was the latest blow for transgender rights after Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the legal definition of a “woman” is based on a person’s sex at birth.

Elsewhere in Latin America, Argentina in February banned gender transition procedures for minors, part of President Javier Milei’s war on what he calls “woke ideology”.

Supporters of hormone therapy argue it alleviates the suffering of minors with gender dysphoria by allowing their bodies to develop in line with their gender identity.

But it is the subject of growing scientific and legal debate in many countries.

Transgender people have become a flashpoint in the culture wars spearheaded by the United States, which under Donald Trump now only recognises two sexes, male and female, as defined at birth.

Half of US states prohibit hormone treatment for minors. The conservative-leaning Supreme Court is to rule by June 2025 on minors’ access to such therapy.

Several other countries that had authorised hormone treatment for transgender minors have recently stepped back as a precaution.