Des Houghton: It’s time Premier David Crisafulli acts on gender issue

A courageous psychiatrist who dared question the “affirmation model” should be reinstated immediately and deserves a public apology, writes Des Houghton.

Have we gone too far in the search for affirmation, asks Des Houghton.

A courageous Queensland Health psychiatrist who was suspended for daring to question the “affirmation model” at the Queensland Children’s Gender Service says she now feels vindicated.

Dr Jillian Spencer should be reinstated immediately, and the new Health Minister Tim Nicholls should offer her a public apology.

So should Shannon Fentiman, who championed transgender rights as health minister and minister for women in the last government.

Spencer believed many young people complaining of gender-related distress or “gender dysphoria” may in fact be suffering from autism spectrum disorder or have hidden traumas or distress due to family breakdowns or bullying and exclusion at school.

In England, a landmark four-year study by Dr Hilary Cass exposed the “shaky foundations” on which the National Health Service allowed the growth in gender identity services. Cass, a Baroness and a pediatrician, said children had been “let down” by the lack of reliable evidence on how safe transitioning was for children. She said the service could do more harm than good.

Dr Jillian Spencer should be reinstated, according to Des Houghton.

The NHS has now banned puberty blockers for those under 18.

In the US, the American Society of Pediatricians has called for gender clinics to stop using puberty blockers. And it has called for an end to social affirmation and trans support programs like those still operating in Queensland state schools.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to defund gender clinics and ban puberty blockers.

Yesterday, a Queensland Health website was still promoting them as an option to begin treating gender dysphoria.

LNP MPs are believed to be universally in favour of banning puberty blockers so it’s time for David Crisafulli to act.

We don’t need another costly inquiry, Mr Premier.

Cass said the “toxicity of the debate” in the UK caused doctors who had grave doubts about puberty blockers to stay silent. I know doctors here fear similar hysterical trans activism.

The parliamentary wing of the Labor Party was completely won over by activists.

The gender clinic won tens of millions in funding in the Palaszczuk-Miles era.

Earlier this year Fentiman told parliament: “I want to be clear that I define a woman as someone who identifies as a woman and that the Queensland government defines a woman as someone who identifies as a woman.

“Queensland Health is dedicated to supporting trans and gender-diverse Queenslanders.”

She was “so excited” to work with the gender clinic team and pledged a funding boost.

“I am committed to working with groups like Transcend and PFLAG to reduce wait times for young people so they can access gender-affirming care sooner.’’

Question marks remain over the research into puberty blockers.

In the same parliamentary session the LNP’s Fiona Simpson said while Labor was boasting about women’s rights, it should not be forgotten that it closed 37 maternity services.

Simpson now has her hands full as Minister for Women and Women’s Economic Security, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships and Minister for Multiculturalism.

The Queensland gender clinic opened at the Queensland Children’s Hospital in 2016 using the controversial Dutch “affirmation model” that has since been shown to be flawed.

The model encouraged “social transition” offering a child support in adopting an opposite sex name, changing personal pronouns and codes of dress to present as a member of the opposite sex.

Spencer, 47, who had an unblemished record at Queensland Health for two decades, was suspended on full pay 19 months ago after she drew criticism for not fully accepting the “affirmation model” – well before the Cass report was released.

Spencer refused to drink the Kool-Aid. In response she was directed to use children’s preferred personal pronouns.

Spencer points to earlier studies showing young people with cross-sex identification problems usually grow out of them as they progress through adolescence.

“If you block puberty they don’t grow out of it,” she told me.

Spencer was also admonished by Queensland Health for speaking to Peta Credlin and Rita Panahi on Sky News and for appearing on Four Corners on the ABC.

She worries about the side effects of medications including sterility and loss of sexual function.

A Dutch model on gender dysphoria that began in 2000 was flawed and has since been rejected in five countries that initially adopted it.

Spencer said it wasn’t right from the start.

Instead of going into proper trials “they just rolled it out”, she said

Cass questioned the long-term impact of puberty blockers.

The original rationale was to give children “time to think” about transitioning but became a means to “change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development”, her report says.

Cass suggested children had been led to drug treatment and surgery most did not require.

Spencer said the Cass report confirmed her fears. Spencer wants the clinic shut, and that funding be redirected to broader child psychiatric services.

She said adolescence hit some children harder than others.

“Some think, wow! I don’t want to be an adult. I don’t like my sexual characteristics. Some of them are scared. Some of them are traumatised, and some are getting caught up in a peer contagion,” she said.

“We are now seeing teenagers with sudden onset gender dysphoria that tends to occur after exposure to other kids in person or online.

“Identifying as trans or non-binary becomes something that is popular and associated with something special and different. It’s trendy.

“Often, they have a touch of autism or something like that and say I feel like I have never fitted in and have always been different and this is a way to connect. The vast majority have other problems and if they are given counselling and treatment for the depression and allowed to go through puberty you wouldn’t have to have these really severe interventions.”

There may be more harm than good for young people in the gender debate,

RISE IN NUMBERS AT CLINIC

There was a massive jump in the number of people attending the Queensland Children’s Hospital gender clinic in recent years, Dan Purdie told parliament earlier this year.

Speaking then from the opposition benches, the new Police Minister said: “The sex ratio has also changed dramatically. It is now predominantly teenage girls who report gender dysphoria, which is evidence of a social contagion.”

“In 2022 the Queensland Children’s Gender Service engaged with 922 children. There were 616 new referrals, 80 children were placed on puberty blockers, with 102 children placed on cross-sex hormones.

“In stark contrast, the number of children in Queensland administered puberty blockers in 2014 was two.”

Shane Knuth from Katter’s Australian Party was blunt in his opposition to gender reassignment surgeries. He told the house: “In Queensland, children with gender dysphoria are treated using this model, which involves immediately accepting the child’s stated gender identity, encouraging social transition and the prescription of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and then gender-affirming surgeries.

“Under Queensland Health’s policy, they are butchering our children by automatically setting these kids on a pathway to unproven harmful gender treatments.”

CLAIM FOR HER RIGHTS

In documents filed with the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, psychiatrist Jillian Spencer alleges that her human rights were breached when Queensland Health stood her down for her gender-critical beliefs.

In three other cases she is asking the QIRC to give her whistleblower status.

One document reveals she took umbrage with signage and flags in the clinic “that promoted the affirmation of transgender identity”.

“Such promotion of the affirmation of transgender identity amounted to promotion of a political cause,” her affidavit read.

“(The clinic) should be a neutral political space that does not promote political causes.”

She took them down.

Spencer annoyed her superiors again in mid-2022 when she sent many child psychiatrists and paediatricians in southeast Queensland a copy of a book, Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, that addresses harms to children seeking treatment for gender dysphoria.

IRRITANT OF THE WEEK

The poor showing by the Matildas, smashed 3-1 by Brazil at Lang Park. It seems to me they have started to believe their own publicity.

Originally published as Des Houghton: It’s time Premier David Crisafulli acts on gender issue