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It was close to 9 a.m.; it was an ordinary workday.

But instead of being at work, I was on the train home.

I had been stood down by the hospital.

I called my sister; we didn’t know what to say to each other.

As I approached our house, I had no idea how I would explain being stood down from work to my husband or children.

I’m Dr Jillian Spencer, a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

After twenty years of working for Queensland Health, I spoke out because I saw kids, as young as 12, distressed about their gender, thinking they are trans, being fast-tracked to dangerous and irreversible medication.

The system is set up to instantly agree with the child, affirm the child’s claimed gender identity, and medicate the child.

This medication isn’t like an aspirin. These are puberty-blocking drugs (to stop normal puberty) and then opposite-sex hormones (to change how their bodies develop so that they look like the opposite sex).

The system did not allow us to stop and ask why these children were distressed, or to properly assess their mental health. We couldn’t even investigate whether medical conditions or past trauma were shaping their state of mind.

Warnings Silenced

So, I warned that these drugs carry permanent risks and that children are too young to make such decisions.

I was looking at it clinically and knew that if anyone was to proceed with this treatment, it should only be after careful, whole-child assessment and long, honest consultation, because the stakes are huge: infertility, loss of sexual function, and lifelong medical problems.

These treatments are irreversible.

But the hospital didn’t debate the evidence; it moved to silence dissent.

I was given a “lawful direction”: always affirm the child, use their preferred pronouns, and refer them to the gender clinic (where they would be medicated).

Where I could, I complied, using names to avoid pronouns, but clinically, I couldn’t in good conscience let it go.

Then, after a single 20-minute review with a distressed teenager, a complaint landed.

In April 2023, I was stood down as “a danger to trans and gender-diverse children“.

What followed was a barrage: four separate show-cause notices, investigations for speaking out, and, now, as of last month, a letter with a disciplinary plan of termination from my role as a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Queensland Children’s Hospital.

Along the way, I’ve been accused of being a danger not just to patients, but to colleagues, for criticising them for providing healthcare according to a model that I believe harms children.

I’ve been told to keep quiet.

But I want you to know the truth in plain words:

• This is not about professional freedom in the abstract.
• This is a child protection issue.

I spoke up because vulnerable, lonely, mentally unwell kids were being funnelled into life-altering interventions without being properly assessed.

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You can donate to Dr Jillian Spencer’s legal fund here.

Republished with thanks to Dr Jillian Spencer. Image courtesy of Adobe.