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Peak medical bodies have warned that doctors will stop legitimate care of children over “frightening” new state “anti-conversion” proposals.
Bodies representing doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists have told The Weekend Australian of their concerns that state laws went further than banning long-discredited therapies, and may criminalise appropriate care.
Their concerns include the censorship of discussing comorbidities and the benefits of waiting before “transitioning” with hormone blockers or surgery, which are forms of legitimate, appropriate care.
The National Association of Practising Psychiatrists was “very concerned” regulations may be viewed as prohibiting care that fails to facilitate a child to transition.
“The doctor must be convinced that the positives outweigh the negatives of the treatment on offer,” said association president Philip Morris. “If they don’t do that then they are not operating as an ethical doctor.
“Are doctors to be regarded as purely technical handmaidens of those who want to go in a certain direction? If that’s the case, we’re not operating ethically.”
Dr Morris told The Weekend Australian that some Victorian therapists are no longer treating children with gender dysphoria due to that state’s 2021 laws.
“We have had (Victorian) therapists who are doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists saying ‘it’s a bit too difficult now because it’s unclear as to what I should be doing and whether I could get caught up in this legislation’,” he said.
“Our concern is that good people who are providing good care for children will avoid this area because the grey areas could mean you get into difficulties.”
AMA Tasmania was also “concerned” doctors could stop treating children with gender dysphoria.
“Some doctors are so frightened of the regulatory bodies … that they just don’t touch what they judge to be ‘delicate issues’ and that is a problem,” said vice-president Annette Barratt.
Several top clinicians in Australia want children to have access to trauma-informed therapy, including the “untangling of gender dysphoria from co-morbid factors such as anxiety, depression and sexual abuse,” as explained by five children’s gender clinicians at The Children’s Hospital in Westmead.
The results of the 5-year study into 79 children, they said, strongly support a “biopsychosocial, trauma-informed model of mental health care” which is necessary to address “unresolved trauma and loss, the maintenance of subjective well-being, and the development of the self.” The study strongly suggests that a child with gender dysphoria will not receive the best care solely by affirmation of their desires.
Dr Philip Morris has told a related Queensland inquiry that, “The reality is that the majority of children who say they want to change their gender change their minds after puberty.”
Without chemical interventions, 70-98% of boys and 50-88% of girls who are gender-confused eventually accept their biological sex, according to the DSM Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.
The McGowan government has passed a bill in the lower house giving its Health Complaints office the power to fine and ban ‘unregulated health care workers’ who break the “code of conduct” (which is currently undisclosed to the public), or who service in an “unacceptable manner”, or an “unnecessary” service, or have been issued an interstate prohibition order (deemed to have broken Queensland, ACT or Victorian anti-therapy laws).
The Victorian legislation threatens fines and jail sentences for anyone offering ‘change therapy’ services to Victorians from outside of Victoria.