Example set on gender medicine

The Queensland government has done the only responsible thing by freezing controversial hormone treatment services for new patients under 18 years of age following shocking revelations about a lack of proper care. The new LNP state government has set an example that others must follow. The experience in Queensland, and in other parts of the world, shows there is an urgent need for much greater oversight and transparency in what is a controversial and poorly regulated field of medicine worldwide.

The Queensland freeze was introduced following allegations that puberty blockers were prescribed to adolescents without proper medical support or parental consent. Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the Cairns Sexual Health Service had provided treatment to 42 paediatric gender services patients without parental and medical consent, 17 of whom were prescribed stage one (puberty blockers) or stage two (hormone therapy) care.

A rise in the number of young people seeking gender therapy has alarmed governments around the world. Regulations have now been tightened in France, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The British government has changed legislation to restrict the prescription and supply of puberty blockers to children following a scandal over practices at the Tavistock Clinic, which had become the model for treating trans people around the world. When the Tavistock scandal erupted in 2022, we editorialised that noted psychiatrist Ian Hickie had made an obvious point that the treatment of young people questioning their gender and sexuality was no place for ideology or fighting culture wars.

Yet state health ministers resisted calls for an independent review into gender clinics and their use of puberty blockers. The Victorian, Queensland and Tasmanian health ministers stood by their states’ gender clinics, saying they operated to “stringent safety standards”.

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced an indefinite ban on puberty-blocker drugs, apart from a proposed clinical trial, in December 2024. A review of treatment data had found puberty blockers might lock in gender distress and be a one-way path to lifelong medicalisation.

The revelations from Queensland add further weight to calls for caution in Australia. The evidence is the duty of care to vulnerable young people has been breached. A new approach in Queensland is welcome, and it is one that must urgently be followed by other jurisdictions.