Peta Credlin: Voters will demand clarity on trans activism posing as education

Pressure is on the Victorian government and opposition as families want an end to radical trans activism masquerading as education and “care”, writes Peta Credlin.

How can minors be regarded as too immature to buy alcohol, smoke cigarettes, vote, get married or drive a car, yet be thought more than capable of deciding whether they’re trapped in the wrong body and demanding life-altering drugs and surgery? Indeed, even encouraged to think that the usual struggles and insecurities of adolescence could be alleviated if girls become boys and vice versa?

Victorian schoolchildren as young as five are now being taught that their body parts may not match their gender as part of a gender-fluidity program masquerading as an anti-bullying one. The so-called Respectful Relationships program’s revised curriculum for children in the first year of primary school id not get a good match for their body parts, and they do not want to be called a boy or a girl but something that is right for them.”

Victorian schools are incorporating lessons on transgender issues into their curriculum. Artwork: Frank Ling.

This has concerned a group called Parents of Adolescents with Gender Distress, one of whom has claimed that “when a child presents, particularly at school, with gender distress, gender confusion, the default position of the education department, in our experience, seems to be that the child must be affirmed, more often than not without parental consent”.

But when confronted late last week with these parental concerns, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan attacked reporters and accused them of driving transgender kids to suicide.

She dismissed claims that Victorian schools were fostering gender confusion as “disgraceful nonsense” and claimed, repeatedly, that transgender kids needed to be supported because they’re “15 times more likely to kill themselves”.

Other countries, such as Britain, have abandoned “gender-affirming care” after a major study found “the evidence does not adequately support the claim that gender-affirming treatment reduces suicide risk” and that the evidence base for medical interventions such as puberty blockers was “remarkably weak”.

Politicians should not use the “trans suicide narrative” to close down discussion on what’s best for troubled kids. Psychological support should always come first rather than a fast-track to gender medicine and surgery.

And parents must always be involved rather than deliberately kept in the dark, as would appear to be the case yet again in Victoria.

With a state election due next year, the Victorian Liberals will not be able to dodge this issue either. Voters are demanding clarity, so the pressure is on the opposition too as families want an end to radical trans activism masquerading as education and “care”.

THUMBS UP

The Remuneration Tribunal for finally banning first-class overseas travel by federal public servants – a decade after the Abbott government banned it for ministers and their spouses.

THUMBS DOWN

The ACTU’s push for a four-day work week, for five days’ pay. And two days of that as ‘work from home’. We’ve lost the plot.

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Originally published as Peta Credlin: Voters will demand clarity on trans activism posing as education