ABC, SBS Muted on Child Transgender Treatment Developments
Several countries are abandoning unconditional support for the social and medical transitioning of children, yet, in Australia these huge policy changes go unreported by the publicly funded ABC and SBS.
Last February, an interim report by Dr Hilary Cass, former president of Britain’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, led to the announced closure of London’s Tavistock gender clinic, after it had transitioned 20,000 children. She documented the concerns of many medical professionals that the British National Health Service (NHS) was too quick to prescribe irreversible puberty-blocker medications to children.
The report followed legal action against Tavistock for medical damages by detransitioner Keira Bell. While her case failed on a technicality, the court warned clinicians to “be alive to the possibility of regulatory or civil action” over the transitioning of young people. That is now a reality, with law firm Pogust Goodhead announcing that about 1,000 families plan to join a medical-negligence class action against Tavistock.
Radio Silence
In August, Paul Barry’s Media Watch program indicated how the ABC had covered none of these major events. As a concession, a few days later, ABC Radio had a 20-minute interview and talkback session on Tavistock with Dr Philip Morris, president of the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists.
Apart from that interview, the ABC website search facility registers no reports of the Tavistock closure, the Cass Report, the Keira Bell case or any stories on people regretting and detransitioning back to their biological sex. Similarly with SBS.
Both are heavily funded by taxpayers. Federal funding for the ABC is about $1.1 billion annually (it employs around 4,180 staff) and $290 million for SBS.
On the other hand, the ABC site registers a number of stories favourable to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital (RHC) transitioning clinic, hundreds of items on transgendering and queer culture, and a number opposing so-called “conversion therapy” for gender-incongruent people.
In place of public commentary and open debate, the national broadcaster’s trans-cultural activism is indicated by the ABCQueer monthly newsletter sign-up form on its website and the very active ABCQueer Instagram page.
Worldwide Concerns
Following the Cass report, in October, the NHS issued new transitioning guidelines for minors. It adopts a “watchful approach” and asks doctors to spend time exploring all underlying health problems – including mental-health issues, family issues and conditions like autism – better to reflect the complexity relating to gender-identity development in children.
As a warning against medical intervention, the NHS guidelines state clearly that, in most prepubertal children, gender incongruence “may be a transient phase … [that] does not persist into adolescence”.
It warns that even social transitioning (wearing the clothes of the opposite sex, use of neutral-gender pronouns) should not be seen “as a neutral act”, but as an intervention in its own right with potential significance for a young person’s psychological functioning.
As for teenagers, the NHS guidelines say that it cannot be predicted which children will persist in dysphoria over the years, and which will desist and re-embrace their birth sex. Therefore, any consideration of transitioning treatments must be based on “consistent and persistent” gender dysphoria, not just gender incongruence, and the teenager must show full comprehension of the implications of transitioning.
Therefore, not one but a range of pathways are needed to support minors for a range of outcomes.
Florida’s Board of Medicine now prohibits use of hormonal and surgical interventions for children with gender incongruence or gender dysphoria. Texas is investigating the effects of puberty blockers. Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare now prioritises psychological support, to avoid hormonal treatment “except for ‘exceptional cases’”. Finland’s Health Authority has similar policies.
As well as the ABC giving no coverage of these major medical changes, open debate is being stifled by repeated activist complaints to the Press Council any time transgender ideology is challenged in mainstream media.
Compelled by the State
Not only do the RCH gender-clinic transitioning guidelines go largely unchallenged, there is little serious debate over draconian anti-conversion therapy laws. Under threat of heavy legal sanctions, these laws require clinicians, parents, counsellors and ministers of religion to unquestioningly support a gender-incongruent/dysphoric child to transition.
Following Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, Tasmania is planning to adopt recommendations from the state’s Law Reform Commission for a so-called anti-conversion therapy law.
Perhaps due to media censorship, Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff appears ignorant of the medical changes in other countries. He recently criticised as “rubbish” claims of those opposing the planned legislation.
Media censorship is leaving most Australians ignorant of fundamental changes to medical protocols overseas. It is letting down vulnerable children who deserve protection from damaging, irreversible medical procedures. It contributes to draconian laws being passed without serious debate. Ultimately, it may take regretters suing for damages to bring about new protections.
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Originally published at News Weekly. Photo by Victoria Akvarel.
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