On 19 December 2025 the Medicines (Restriction on Prescribing Gonadotropin-releasing Hormone Analogues) Amendment Regulations 2025 (LI 2025/256) came into force. A same-day-period No 2 instrument (LI 2025/302, made 1 December 2025) confined the new limit to children and adolescents after an adult restriction in the first instrument was treated as inadvertent.
What the instruments say. They restrict new prescriptions of specified gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues for puberty suppression in a child or adolescent with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence. Patients already being treated are carved out. Other indications, including precocious puberty, remain outside the new restriction.
Court pause. Two days earlier the High Court had already declared that the Crown should take no steps to enforce the regulations pending judicial review — see the 17 December 2025 post. The Court of Appeal later recorded that this order has, in effect, suspended enforcement ([2026] NZCA 8, 5 February 2026).
Official sources
- LI 2025/256 (whole): legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2025/0256/latest/whole.html
- LI 2025/302 No 2 (whole): legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2025/0302/latest/whole.html
- High Court [2025] NZHC 4045 (PDF): courtsofnz.govt.nz
- Court of Appeal [2026] NZCA 8 (PDF): courtsofnz.govt.nz