The gender issue deserves urgent and open debate

Parenting has never been easy and the onslaught of competing pressures vying for the attention of impressionable young minds makes it more difficult still. For many, navigating the highly charged terrain of puberty represents a high-water mark in the parental challenge. As we now know, a potent new factor has been added to the mix.

Gender identity is a mainstream issue for children around the world. The number of children claiming to experience gender dysphoria is rising in Australia and in comparative societies including Britain and the US. To date, those offering support have tended to favour an affirmative model that encourages a young person to follow their feelings. Increasingly, this approach is being challenged.

As we reported on Tuesday, a top Victorian family law barrister, Belle Lane, has warned authorities risked contributing to the “worst medical scandal in 100 years”. A paper presented to the Family Court argues the legal fraternity should reconsider how it inserts itself in such cases in the best interests of the child, particularly regarding the landmark case Re Kelvin (2017). In that case, the court found when there was no dispute between the child, their parents and their treating doctors, hormone treatment could be prescribed, eliminating the need to apply to the court for approval.

The issue is made more complex given the rise in the number of children seeking help, the trauma being experienced by families involved and the lengths to which affirmative model supporters will go.

Hundreds of teenagers around the country are being treated with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones at gender clinics in children’s hospitals as they medically transition gender. The Australian has published details of the harrowing ordeals faced by families, who all say they want what is best for their children. We also have detailed what others say has been a positive experience of transition. But in many cases, exasperated and bewildered parents and children say they regret the advice they have been urged to take and feel powerless about what to do. In one instance school authorities had encouraged a young girl to use a boy’s name in the classroom and transition, without having any contact with parents about what was going on. This is clearly unacceptable. Melbourne mother Anna said the more she looked, the more it was clear that people were not making evidence-based decisions; they had been captured by ideology and anyone who spoke out against it was labelled a bigot and a transphobe. Anna said even to propose having a conversation about it was also considered transphobic.

This culture of secrecy and lack of transparency are making a difficult situation worse. Certainly the issue is being widely discussed by a new generation of children who are encouraged to view the issue as pertaining to rights. Parents must catch up, and school and legal authorities must be alive to the scope of the problem that is emerging.

Attention must be given to the medical treatment options available to children who are suffering and in distress; to the legal situation pertaining to those treatment options and the rights of children and their parents in selecting them, and; to the corrosive culture of silence that has surrounded the debate.

These discussions can be difficult for gender-diverse persons and their families. But appropriate treatment of gender dysphoria in teenagers needs to be debated and scrutinised. We do not claim to have all the answers but will continue to present the facts, to encourage debate and to hold to account those whose actions are affecting the lives of vulnerable young people and their families. A culture of silence must not be allowed to prevail.