Something incredible happened this week.
The Australian mainstream media broke its deafening silence on one of the greatest medical scandals of our generation.
'De-Transitioning' documentary
7NEWS Spotlight’s documentary ‘De-Transitioning’ exposed the harms of medically ‘transitioning’ gender confused children, and it was both powerful and heartbreaking.
Interviewed were detransitioners, parents, and medical professionals, all of whom bravely spoke out about the irreparable damage being done to children under the guise of ‘gender affirming care’.
Queensland paediatrician, Dr Dylan Wilson, one of the few doctors in Australia willing to speak publicly about what he calls a “medical scandal”, was scathing of the harm being wrought on children by the medical profession, driven by trans activists.
Dr Wilson told Spotlight host Liam Bartlett:
“It makes no sense when we are told by the transgender community that gender can be fluid, so someone can be gender fluid, but we’re supposed to accept that these children’s gender identity is fixed at the age of 10 and this is how their gender identity will be for the rest of their lives. How can something be both fluid and fixed in a 10-year-old?”
“In Australia, hundreds if not over a thousand children who have been commenced on this pathway, whose puberty has been stopped and they’ve progressed onto treatments with cross-sex hormones and surgery. Those children’s bodies have been irrevocably changed and harmed for the rest of their lives. There’s no other word for it in my view – it’s a medical scandal.”
“A lot of these children are promised something that cannot be achieved. It is not possible to be the opposite sex. It’s just a fact. Queensland is currently trying to expand the number of people available to prescribe puberty blockers across the state. At the same time, the NHS in England has announced that puberty blockers will only be administered in a research trial or in extremely exceptional circumstances across the entire country. It makes no sense as to why we’re going in opposite directions.”
Another brave doctor, child psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer, who is currently suspended from Queensland Children’s Hospital for questioning the ‘affirmation model’ of care for gender confused children, also shared her perspective.
Dr Spencer explains in the documentary:
“We need to take a different approach towards children with gender dysphoria. We need to be able to say to them, ‘we understand that you’re in distress and that you’re feeling really uncomfortable in your body, and we want to do everything we can to support you through it, but we know that the risks and long-term consequences of transition are so serious that we can’t just assume that that’s the right way forward...’”
“There’s no evidence that social transition, or puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones reduce the suicide risk in children with gender dysphoria. Any health professional that tells a parent that they’re more likely to lose their child to suicide if they don’t affirm them, is wrong.”
“I see this as a really serious child protection issue, and as a 45-year-old woman and as a mother and as a child psychiatrist, I could not hold my head up if I didn’t speak about this. It’s too important. What we’re talking about is the wellbeing of children and their health across the lifespan, including things that most people find very important in life, such as fertility and sexual functioning and general health. We want kids to grow up and be happy. We don’t want them to have regrets and serious health problems.”
Spotlight interviewed several brave detransitioners, all of whom were young women, including well-known American teenager Chloe Cole who was allowed to start transitioning when she was just 12-years-old, and Australian women Courtney Coulsen and Mel Jeffries.
From left to right: Courtney Coulsen, Chloe Cole, Mel Jeffries.
The story of Mel Jeffries, a detransitioner whose desire to be a man and escape womanhood was fuelled by her experience of sexual assault, was particularly heartbreaking to watch. While Mel has ‘detransitioned’, the damaging impact of masculising hormones and the surgical removal of her breasts cannot be undone.
“I’m never going to be over it. They’re wounds, they’re not even scars, I’m still bleeding. I’m still processing and grieving. I’ve literally been violated by the medical industry.”
Spotlight also interviewed Newcastle parents Jude and John, who shared the devastating story of their daughter being led down the harmful transitioning pathway by medical professionals and school staff without their consent – and at the beginning, even their knowledge. They are sadly not the only parents to have experienced this.
Jude and John.
Victorian Liberal Democrat MP David Limbrick shared the stories of more parents, as well as his concerns about the criminal sanctions under Victoria’s laws for parents and medical professionals who try to guide children away from the harmful ‘gender affirmation’ pathway.
David Limbrick MP.
Protecting more children from irreversible damage
Last week, we launched our campaign calling on Members of the NSW Parliament to reject Independent MP Alex Greenwich’s proposed anti-women, anti-children reforms.
As in Victoria, Greenwich’s 'Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill' will criminalise care that doesn’t just simply affirm a person’s ‘gender identity’, making transitioning the only option for vulnerable, gender confused children.
If you haven’t already, please sign and share our petition, calling on NSW MPs to oppose the criminalisation of care for those with gender dysphoria in NSW, so that what has happened to Chloe, Courtney and Mel, doesn’t happen to more children.
For more information, you can also read the submission we recently made to the NSW Government’s private consultation on this issue.
“The number of adolescents presenting with gender dysphoria has been rising rapidly since 2004, with young women and girls being significantly overrepresented in those presenting at gender clinics.”
“Along with social contagion, the rise in gender dysphoria in young women and girls needs to be considered in light of the unique pressures they face in the areas of sexual violence, objectification in porn, entertainment and advertising, and the more general body image issues...which can cause them to hate their bodies and indeed being female.”
“We encourage the NSW Department of Communities and Justice and NSW Ministry of Health to consider the mounting medical evidence against the ‘affirmation only’ approach to gender dysphoria, the phenomena that have given rise to the rapid increase in gender dysphoria, the regrets of detransitioners, and the harms resulting from medical transitioning.”
As our CEO Rachael Wong has aptly noted in the past: "Human beings cannot change sex. Any attempts to deny that incontrovertible reality will always fail and cause further suffering to those experiencing gender dysphoria. Real care addresses the trauma that gave rise to their dysphoria in the first place. Real love tells the truth.”
In addition to signing our petition to protect women and children in NSW, we highly recommend you watch 7NEWS Spotlight's brilliant documentary for yourself. You can access it here if you’re in Australia, or here, if you’re overseas.
We know that it took courage to cover this issue, and we are incredibly grateful to 7NEWS for shining a light on the harms of gender ideology to children and giving detransitioners a voice. You can send them a message of support here.
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.
| I’ll stand with women ▷ |