Gender-Affirming Care for Minors

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (15:41): I rise to address a grave concern that challenges the very integrity of our healthcare system, and that is the aggressive promotion of gender-affirming care for minors. Damning findings from the Cass review necessitate a complete re-evaluation of these practices within our own country. After four years of investigation, including eight independent systemic reviews of global literature, the review found a lack of reliable evidence of key interventions, including social transitioning, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. It follows a trend in other countries like Finland and Sweden, which have now banned puberty blockers.

The review's main conclusion is as powerful as it is obvious: life-altering treatments should not be used on children without evidence of benefit. Dr Andrew Amos of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, shared his views on the Cass review in The Australian only yesterday. Dr Amos calls out the two big lies that gender-affirming care zealots are telling us; that is, that the services here are so different from England's that there is no lesson for us to learn from the Cass review, and, second, that a gender diverse identity does not involve mental illness.

Dr Amos ridicules these plainly absurd arguments. The Cass review, in fact, specifically evaluated the Australian endorsed guidelines and found them to be amongst the lowest quality of all international practices. They lack rigour and researchers warn that Australia's transgender guidelines are unacceptable as they did not follow rules that guard patient safety. This is a damning finding, as is the revelation, also from The Australian just this week, out of our country's most populous state.

FOI applications from New South Wales Labor MP Greg Donnelly revealed that Maple Leaf House, the largest provider of transgender health services in that state, has no data whatsoever on how many children they are treating with hormone therapies or even what their sexes are at birth. Mr Donnelly is quoted as saying, 'Maple Leaf House's operational procedures make the UK's failed Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic look good.'

Despite concerns being raised in 2006 about the Tavistock Centre, they treated thousands of gender-confused children and received referrals from kids as young as three years old. The Tavistock Centre is now being shut down and faces mass legal action from the families of children who claimed they were misdiagnosed and rushed down unquestioning gender-affirmation paths.

Dr Jillian Spencer, a senior psychologist at Queensland Children's Hospital, who was stood down for going against the trans lobby zeitgeist, had a 20-year unblemished record with Queensland Health, and she had this to say:

I am concerned Australian gender clinics are providing a standard of care significantly worse than the Tavistock Clinic on several measures.

Indeed, where Tavistock was criticised for rushing children onto hormonal interventions after just as few as four to six sessions, Australian clinics do so after merely three or four sessions. Cross-sex hormones are being prescribed from around a child's 16^th birthday in the UK, but here routinely it occurs at just the age of 14. Where the UK does not allow gender surgery on minors, the Australian Family Court has greenlit adolescents who have decision-making capacity to go under the knife since 2018.

A senior lawyer in this state has expressed to me grave concerns about future damages claims which could result from our approach in this country. We are at a juncture where continuing down this path would not only be irresponsible but also unethical, where political activists rather than medical science has greater sway. It is a stark departure from the principle of 'first, do no harm'. That should guide all medical treatment.

A moratorium and inquiry is desperately needed. We must protect our youth from irreversible harm at a time they are most vulnerable. We must ensure that any intervention not only withstands the scrutiny of robust scientific inquiry but also aligns with the highest ethical standards of care. This is not about ideology, this is about safeguarding the health and future of our children. We cannot afford to be complicit in a practice that may very well be remembered as one of the most significant medical missteps of our time.