Irreversible damage to young lives shows danger of ‘conversion therapy’ laws

By Catherine Sheehan

Attendees at a recent forum held at Hobart’s Parliament House in opposition to proposed “conversion therapy” laws heard heart-wrenching stories from young people and parents who claim their lives were irreversibly damaged by trans ideology and the associated medical negligence.

Among them was mother Judith Hunter who was alienated from her 17-year-old mentally ill daughter because she opposed her daughter receiving medical treatment to transition to the opposite sex.

“We were put down by hospital staff in front of our daughter,” Ms Hunter said. “We were called unsupportive parents, transphobic, not inclusive, abusive. And we were threatened with the line, ‘Wouldn’t you rather have a live son than a dead daughter?’.”

Her underage daughter was encouraged by an adult trans activist to “get rid of” her “unsupportive family”, Ms Hunter said.

“She saw us as the enemy because we would not affirm her transgender identity.”

Ms Hunter claimed medical staff ignored a psychiatrist’s diagnosis that her daughter had borderline personality disorder and referred her immediately to an endocrinologist to begin testosterone treatment.

Ms Hunter refused consent for her daughter’s referral, however hospital staff wrote the referral stating she had consented.

According to Ms Hunter, after taking testosterone for 18 months, her daughter is now “extremely mentally unwell” and suffering the permanent effects of testosterone including a deep voice, receding hairline, changed genitals, atrophy of the uterus, facial and body hair.

“She doesn’t like how she looks, she regrets taking testosterone and she asked me how on earth did the doctors ignore her mental health history and give her a script for testosterone.”

“She’s told me she wants to die because she doesn’t want to live with the irreversible changes that testosterone has made to her body.”

“I cannot understand how the medical profession is doing what they’re doing to young people. And I certainly can’t understand how politicians would vote to outlaw proper therapy for young people.”

“It’s not conversion therapy. Our daughter has undergone conversion therapy.”

The forum, hosted by Liberal MP Lara Alexander, was held in response to the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute’s recent report on SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) “conversion practices”, which advises legislation be enacted to prohibit any practice aimed at changing what it refers to as someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The report disapproves of medical staff diagnosing someone as mentally ill based solely on their gender identity and encourages an affirmative approach to gender dysphoric young people who express a desire to transition.

The affirmative approach was used at the Tavistock gender clinic in the UK which was recently shut down after an independent inquiry found evidence of negligence, with children being fast-tracked down the path of medical transitioning without receiving proper diagnosis or psychiatric care.

The main plaintiff in the law suit against Tavistock, Keira Bell, also addressed the forum via pre-recorded video from the UK.

Ms Bell said she was only 16 when she first attended Tavistock and was quickly put on puberty blockers after she disclosed she was distressed by experiencing puberty and wanted to be a boy.

All discussions with staff were “very surface level” and “very superficial”, she said, and she didn’t receive any therapy or psychoanalysis.

After only four appointments she was put on puberty blockers and told “it was fully reversible”.

She was later put on to testosterone and eventually had a double mastectomy.

By age 22 she realised “there was negligence” in her treatment.

“I’ve got a lot of health issues now that I’m struggling with and I’m just trying to navigate my way through life now as an adult with these affects that are very clearly irreversible.”

Ms Bell said the affirmative approach to gender dysphoria, as promoted in the TLRI report, was dangerous and would be setting children up “for a lot of harm”.

“There’s just no way children can consent to this… They just have no idea of its affect on them socially, physically, emotionally. It’s just not a decision a child can make.”

Consulting psychologist and former professor of psychology at Sydney University, Dr Dianna Kenny, said the TLRI should be “thoroughly ashamed” for the approach it was advocating to gender dysphoria and that children were being “brainwashed” with gender ideology in schools.

“The legislation criminalising so-called ‘conversion therapy’ is utterly misguided and in need of urgent re-consideration as it will have the effect of undermining the application of evidence-based treatments for GD [gender dysphoric] young people,” Dr Kenny said.

Most young people with gender dysphoria had co-morbidities, she said, such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, and learning disabilities. They also often had a history of psychological disorders such as body dysmorphia, eating disorders, self-harm, suicidality, depression and anxiety.

Social and medical interventions should not be provided during childhood or adolescence, Dr Kenny said, and counselling and therapy “should be focused on reducing the child’s distress” in relation to gender dysphoria.

“Clinicians, politicians, teachers, parents, and society should not collude with the fantasy that the ‘embodied’ self can be altered or removed,” she said.

“The proposed legislation will do a great disservice to GD [gender dysphoric] children and their families.” She said the evidence-based approach she was advocating was “far from conversion therapy”.

“It is good clinical practice.”

“I hope that the members of the Tasmanian parliament can now discern the difference.”