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South Australia’s Premier Peter Malinauskas has killed off a landmark gender dysphoria inquiry. His excuse is as cowardly as they come.

Cowardice has won the day in South Australia — for now at least — with Premier Peter Malinauskas withholding a conscience vote from his Labor party room members that would have allowed for Australia’s first ever parliamentary inquiry into gender dysphoria.

As reported by The Australian:

The push to hold the nation’s first parliamentary inquiry into the treatment of young people with gender dysphoria has been killed off after South Australian Labor refused its MPs a conscience vote on the issue.

Several members of the more socially conservative South Australian branch of the ALP were ready to support the motion by independent MLC Frank Pangallo for an inquiry amid a major increase in the number of young people transitioning in SA.

It is the third time in a year that an inquiry into the issue has been killed off, with the push by Pauline Hanson federally and ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming in Victoria both failing to win parliamentary support.

The Cowardice of Peter Malinauskas

The excuse Mr Malinauskas gave for his decision is a now-familiar one: A desire not to get caught up in the “culture wars”.

The Australian continues:

Mr Pangallo’s push for an inquiry was effectively dead when Premier Peter Malinauskas finally showed his hand on the issue on Tuesday, saying he feared that the inquiry could become a vehicle for “culture wars” arguments.

His comments have been labelled “a cop-out” by Mr Pangallo and proof that Labor remained “beholden to the Hard Left” on the issue…

“I am not too sure if a parliamentary inquiry that would be highly political in nature and that would only seek to perpetuate the culture wars is the best way to do a proper examination of medical policy,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“These are questions of science in terms of best practice and medicine as distinct from a political forum for people to prosecute the culture wars which I think people know I’m not particularly keen on.”

The gaps in Mr Malinauskas’ logic are almost too many to number.

The medicalisation of childhood gender distress is now a multi-billion-dollar global industry, buoyed by a radical political movement and spread by social contagion among the most vulnerable.

Powerful vested interests have every reason to keep the so-called “gender affirming care” gravy train flowing. It takes immense naiveté — or worse, dishonesty — for a political leader to label this is a question of pure “science” or “medicine”.

Any procedure that permanently altars a child’s sexual organs and reproductive capacity before they have reached the age of consent cannot be walled off from questions of ethics, sociology, ideology, worldview or, indeed, politics.

Recognising this scandal for what it is requires listening to children who fell prey to it and are now speaking up — like Californian teenager Chloe Cole, who recently testified on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.

Why the “Culture Wars” Excuse is a Cop-Out

The greatest flaw in the Premier’s excuse-making, however, is his “culture wars” cop-out. It is a tried and tested strategy — a perennial favourite of progressive policy makers especially. But it is equal parts deflective, deceitful and dastardly.

First, it cheapens the issue. Chloe Cole and countless others like her will live their entire lives with missing body parts, permanent unnatural physiological changes, and probable infertility.

For them and their families, it is not a culture war but a war on their minds, bodies, relationships, hopes and dreams.

Though the phrase “culture wars” is recent, the sentiment is not. In the antebellum era, countless cowardly politicians dismissed the topic of slavery as a “controversy” they would rather avoid. All the while, the people they should have been defending suffered.

Second, it’s self-righteous. Politicians, pastors and other leaders who use the “culture wars” cop-out care more about keeping their reputation intact than protecting young people in harm’s way.

Just like the Pharisees before them, they “outwardly appear righteous to others” (Matthew 23:28) but “have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).

In fact, the “culture wars” cop-out is actually a double betrayal. It clothes cowardice in virtue, all the while accusing of vice the brave few who are standing up to defend the vulnerable.

Third, it’s pure projection. Chloe Cole didn’t start the culture war. The Canberra Declaration didn’t start the culture war. Everyday, sane Australians who want justice for victimised young people didn’t start the culture war.

Radical Queer Theorists, along with their medical and political apologists, started the culture war — and they started it very recently — when they began promising distressed children and fearful parents that puberty blockers, hormones and genital mutilation was the ticket to freedom. In reality, their Frankensteinish cocktail delivers nihilism and despair.

Now, the rest of us are in trouble for noticing.

The issue got so out-of-hand that we are belatedly speaking out against it — and now we’re the ones accused of engaging in the “culture wars”.

The barbarians are storming the gates. We’re defending truths about sex and gender that are thousands of years old and that have been upheld by every culture under the sun. And we’re the ones guilty of starting a culture war?

Nice try, Mr Malinauskas, but we’re not buying it.

It’s time to stop projecting and to start protecting those who need it.

History will judge so-called “gender affirming care” the way we judge lobotomies today. And you, Mr Malinauskas, will be remembered as one of the late, great defenders of barbarism.

It’s not too late to do the right thing.

The world is watching.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.