Australia has a shocking history of paternalistic medical professionals and welfare agencies arrogating decisions to themselves and chasing faddish “theories” which do immense damage to the vulnerable, children especially. Despite the media left’s self-flagellating fantasies about an Aboriginal “stolen generation”, the truth is that far more white children were removed from their parents – usually at birth. Then there are the shocking cases such as the Institution for Boys Tamworth, which produced some of Australia’s most notorious, violent criminals, or the Chelmsford hospital “Deep Sleep Therapy” scandal, which devastated the lives of mostly young adults and children for nearly two decades.
Too often, the shocking truth of these official abuses is only exposed decades after the events, usually following a trail of deaths and suicides. The Morrison government is determined to nip the latest outbreak of officially-endorsed child abuse in the bud.
A national inquiry into the safety and ethics of medical treatment for the rising number of transgender-identifying children and adolescents will go ahead with the backing of Health Minister Greg Hunt […]the independent RACP [Royal Australasian College of Physicians] has agreed to do the inquiry and said it had “received correspondence in relation to treatment of gender dysphoria (discomfort in biological sex) in children and adolescents, and we are seeking advice from our relevant expert groups to inform our response”.
At least one state government is joining the push back against radical “transgender” ideology.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has flagged the possibility of national standards […]It has emerged that the [current] “Australian standards” document for treatment in this contentious field — issued by Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital gender clinic — has uncertain status across the country and does not carry endorsement as a national standard from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
It’s a shocking sign of the insidious reach of the Long March Through the Institutions that a once gold-standard facility like the RCH has been invaded by such a dangerous ideology founded on such shaky – in fact, mostly nonexistent – evidence.
Mr Hunt and the RACP [have] been alerted to the child-welfare concerns of a group of clinicians and researchers including Western Sydney University professor of paediatrics John Whitehall, clinician and former Sydney University psychology professor Dianna Kenny and health sociologist Geoff Holloway with support from paediatrician and 2019 Senior Australian of the Year Sue Packer. A little-understood surge in adolescent girls suddenly declaring they are boys is causing growing international disquiet.
This surge in “transgender boys” is particularly alarming. One hospital’s caseload was 61% biological female. This is a startling turnaround. Previously, “transgender” cases leaned heavily – almost overwhelmingly – to biological-men-turned-“transgender women”. Such a sudden and dramatic reversal suggest that the reasons are almost certainly social. Indeed, “social contagion” is strongly identified as a factor in gender dysphoria. In other words: it’s mostly a fad.
A very dangerous fad.
In a rare case, the Family Court in January approved a double mastectomy for a 17-year-old girl who identified as the boy “Ryan”. His mother and experts supported “top surgery” but his father was against it.
The judge said: “It is possible, as the father fears, that Ryan will regret his decision, although on the evidence it seems highly unlikely. It is part of the human condition to regret decisions taken at earlier stages of life.”
theaustralian.com.au/nation/inquiry-to-assess-sex-change-concerns
The insouciance of the judge here is astonishing. Not only is the judge flat-out wrong (the evidence for “transition regret” is overwhelming), but airily dismissing an adolescent girl getting her developing breasts hacked off, almost certainly because of a stupid fad, as just “part of the human condition” is dangerously reckless. Piercings and tattoos may be regretted at leisure and reasonably easily reversed. A double-mastectomy is devastating, as any breast cancer survivor can attest.
We can only hope that the government and “dissident” medical professionals pursue this inquiry with steely resolve against the inevitable tide of hysterical abuse and threats from the unhinged fringe radicals of “transgender” activism. We can only hope that the activists, medicos and other authorities such as the judge above are brought to account in short order. This is an abuse which must not be allowed to fester unchallenged for decades until those responsible are long beyond being held to account.