In the face of decreasing numbers of referrals to the Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Hospital gender clinics, the Victorian Labor Government have announced extra funding for GP training for affirmative approach on gender transitioning. Both the government and the hospitals refused to comment or give further information, despite the fact that the public health system in Victoria is under-resourced.
Victorian State Director of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), Jasmine Yuen, said, “Victorian taxpayers deserve to know whether their money is well spent, particularly when it comes to health. If, as has been reported, there is a drop in demand on gender transitioning in the gender clinics, why is the government splashing more money to train GPs to provide a declining service? Do they want more children to be guided into the lifelong medical path of transitioning? The decline in referrals mirrors a change in best treatment for children who are not happy in their body, both here in Australia and globally in countries such as the UK, Denmark, Finland and more, who are moving to ban affirmation treatment for minors.
“It would appear that the Victorian government’s efforts to expand the number of GPs trained to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones to teens is more ideologically driven than meeting a health need. The increased funding will only serve to further strain an over-burdened health system and push more gender confused children into the conveyor belt of harmful medical gender transitioning.”
The ACL urges the Victorian Labor Government to support an inquiry into amending the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Law in order to once again allow GPs to provide global best practice to their patients and allow psychologists to provide proper care for people confused about their sex without pushing them into harmful and irreversible gender transitioning treatments.
