Victoria, Australia-parents: consent to puberty blockers or be prosecuted

[NZdad]

Hi all,
I'm a dad from NZ. Hope that's OK on mumsnet?

Anyway, I have 2 little daughters who will be going to school soon. I've followed the puberty blockers / child transition issue for awhile and am pretty concerned, although I try to dismiss anything that seems like right-wing fever dreams.

But yesterday I saw this this is on an official governmental webpage of the Australian state of Victoria (southeast Australia) specifically their Human Rights Commission:

"Examples of illegal practices

Practices that would be considered illegal under the Act include:

[...]

a parent refusing to support their child’s request for medical treatment that will enable them to prevent physical changes from puberty that do not align with the child’s gender identity and denying their child access to any health care services that would affirm their child’s gender identity"

Source: "Have you experienced a change or suppression practice?" https://www.humanrights.vic.gov.au/change-or-suppression-practices/have-you-experienced-a-change-or-suppression-practice/

This literally says parents must provide consent, on pain of prosecution, to give their kids with puberty blockers, if the kid claims they want it. Normally parents are asked for consent even for field trips and the like! I've read about the health damage from Lupron etc. How can a government Human Rights Commission come up with a consent-or-jail policy - what does "consent" even mean here?

I know I'm in NZ, but my partner is from Victoria and we could move back to be closer to her family. Or a similar law could be passed here. I just keep telling myself it's low odds this would happen in my family, but who knows? There are a million stories of parents blind-sided by this stuff.

Is there something I'm missing that makes this less bad so I can sleep better?

I wish people would stop referring to these medical interventions as treatments. They are not treatments, which implies a physical problem which is susceptible to alleviation by intervention. They are physical impositions for a psychological problem.

these drugs do not ‘ block’ puberty, in the sense that once they are discontinued, ‘normal service will be resumed’. Children’s bodies are not radios, you can’t turn them off and expect the same programme to resume if you turn them on again.

the normal process of adolescence will have been halted, and normal progression may be irrevocably limited. The ‘side’ effects of such medication, sterility, osteoporosis, and probably other problems which we just do not have sufficient timescale data to understand are the result of puberty being not deferred, but cancelled or changed.

shame on the prescribers. Shame on the legislators. Shame on the ‘educators,’ and the campaigners. It will be required of you.

@Vitsyra , if you are a real person, your attitude to your daughter's toys is the sort of thing that got us into this mess in the first place.

I think they feel like they have hit the jackpot with this realisation to be honest.

They can pretend they are revolutionary whilst being completely homophobic, in plain sight and nobody can say anything about it.

The premise of this is incorrect. The legal ruling Re: Imogen means that puberty blockers cannot be given if there is disagreement between parents and it has to go to court. This is a federal family court matter. I do not believe the parent who does not want puberty blockers would in any way be deemed in contravention of any other law.

It's an interesting idea, how to nurture a healthy attitude towards gender stereotypes. Before gender ideology I really thought that's where we were going, it being cool for boys to play in Frozen dresses, girls being tomboys.

Will it make a difference nurturing play in children to embrace girl stuff and boy stuff, and have less gender stereotype hang ups? Who knows, but that's my approach.

describes Turing as "one of the first Gay men to go on estrogen."

That is so callous it takes my breath away. They're taking a man's tragic, homophobic persecution and trying to turn it into some kind of celebratory trans milestone. Absolutely abhorrrent. I see the same when Lily Elbe's tragic life is celebrated as the 'first womb transplant' (Lily died from the botched operation).

This all makes a lot of the 'gender affirmation' look disturbingly like 'conversion therapy' by any other name, as Necessary notes above.

This seems extreme

Also I am firmly GC but it’s important to me my dc can choose whatever they like without judgement. Be it dd with shoes with planes on or Ds choosing pink. The hyper gendering of toys and clothes is something I appreciate many have moved in from.

Maybe your dd would like to play with dinosaurs and wear something else

Hi- if you are serious, the foster care idea is crazy, you'd be abandoning the kid to the very thing you fear, ie hormones and surgery thrown at a kid.

You should put your anxiety into watching some of the YouTube interviews of detransitioners. They really explain the alienation that starts off the transition nightmare; a lot of it is internet obsession + experiencing abuse/harassment at school from other students who can be horrid.

The best suggestion I saw was to get kids off social media and into physical things- travel, camping, outdoor camps etc

Also, if it ever came to being prosecuted for refusing consent, you should: fight like hell! Go to the media, protest in public. This rule won't last if it is publicized and fought against.

As for bringing up children with strict gendered stereotypes - the effects are likely to vary given various different variables, but they're unlikely to be positive in any situation, I'd say.

It's not just the effect on the child itself, it's also how they then view the opposite sex. If a girl is told only boys play with cars and she is not allowed to then not only is she disempowered and her horizons lessened and her worldview narrowed, but she is also going to see males as further removed from her - mysterious entitities. Instead of humans with different biology who are nevertheless quite likely to share many interests and abilities with her.

On a societal level it could go some way towards creating various issues that we then have to try and unpick - which are probably harder the more entrenched they were in childhood. Male violence, women's socialisation, to name only two. I can see both of those issues as nascent tendencies in gender stereotypes. Of course not the only factors, but potentially feeding in or adding to them.

OP unfortunately we do get posters trying to disrupt and make feminists look bad on here. So I would take some posts with a pinch of salt. If it sounds like an outrageous and extreme take, it may well not be in good faith.

Yeah you're right. This article is terrifying-and it's about the side effects on people who were given puberty blockers temporarily to treat actual physical conditions, and not followed by cross-sex hormones: khn.org/news/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems/

I've heard something like this too - but it doesn't solve all problems. If what you say is true, then how in the hell could the Victorian government's own official Human Rights Commission get their publicly-posted legal advice so catastrophically wrong?!!?!

And, what is the effect going to be on parents, teachers, doctors, therapists etc who have read the Victorian Human Rights Commission webpage, but don't know about this court case?

Finally, just think about the number of people, educated professionals in government, who must have had to review and sign off on the text posted on the website. How many similar people are now at the federal level after the Australian election gave Labour a majority?

Some Australian doctors are concerned. Hopefully they are/will be in the majority.

drdylanwilson.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-australias-doctors?s=r&utm_medium=web

Ah I see thanks

Labor is going to be totally beholden to the Greens. www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2022/results/senate

The greens have. O interest in the safety of women and children coming first.

'how in the hell could the Victorian government's own official Human Rights Commission get their publicly-posted legal advice so catastrophically wrong?!!?!'

If it's anything like the UK, they get it wrong because civil servants have been 'stonewalled' at work on inclusion and diversity courses. One of their policies is to state the law as they want it to be rather than as it actually is. Even our EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) was giving misleading information until the personnel at the top were changed by the same Conservative Government.
We have been fighting back in the UK against a deliberate misinterpretation of our existing laws across the board in the NHS, schools, employment especially in Universities. Even UK Trade Unions have gleefully thrown out women's sex-based rights in favour of gender identity ideology. Women and others who care about this have been funding legal cases to clarify law which was clear in the first place. It is a long and slow process and I fear concerned parents in NZ and Australia are going to have to do the same thing. Or at least campaign to raise awareness of the dangers around child safeguarding. See www.transgendertrend.com/ for ideas.
Over here the only political party willing to start rolling things back has proved to be the Conservatives who are in power in the UK. All this happened over the last decade 'on their watch'. In the devolved countries e.g. Scotland they are currently trying to pass laws which would be in conflict with overarching UK Law but instead of stopping this, the UK Government lets things run its course and they don't get slapped down as being 'beyond their powers' until millions of taxpayers' money has been wasted.
Good luck it now feels like the UK has resisted the most in the English-speaking western liberal democracies.

I try to keep up here
m.youtube.com/c/TERFTalkDownUnder
www.facebook.com/Coalition-for-Biological-Reality-Public-Page-107062111256295
substack.com/profile/65544694-bernard-lane

@Vitsyra in the nicest possible way, you should try and get some help. Your thinking is not rational. Not least as others have said because if anything it is quite likely to push your daughter to want to play with trucks and dinosaurs! You want the best for your daughter, the message should be you, and girls in general, can play with whatever they want to.

I have come late to this 'dystopian' idea that all these 'gender identity ideology' forces are coming together to drive profits for drugs companies with a large side helping of 'eugenics' i.e. if lots of autistic, adhd, homo-sexual people are affected you have actually helped prevent them from pro-creating? Can it really be as organised as this? Could Stonewall really knowingly put their name to such an evil agenda?
It still doesn't make sense and I think I find it easier to believe the anarchic/marxist disruption to western society theories with the drug companies happy to oblige for profits.

I genuinely believe that this poster posted to get some screenshots about how mental mumsnet is. I don't even care how disablist that statement is, there is no other way to describe it.

I genuinely hope so anyway. Otherwise...

I wouldn’t be so down about that. Labor have been given a clear message that the environment is a priority and they will work with independents and greens on that and still have room to push back on other stuff they don’t like, they don’t need the greens at all in house of reps and will be horsetrading. Obviously it’s a concern but greens are also clear the electorate is voting for them to fix the environment not do whatever the hell they want and they will be out of favour very quickly if they are blocking things for woke issues- teals have shown there’s an alternative to vote for to indicate you want climate change action.

I genuinely believe that this poster posted to get some screenshots about how mental mumsnet is

I agree. Mumsnet was the seedbed for Let Toys Be Toys, Let Books Be Books, and similar campaigns that call for an end to gender stereotypes and critique them.

www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/about/our-story/

No idea, usedtobeinnz. It's pretty clear that gender affirmation treatments are going to be profitable for various people - they create lifelong medical patients - beyond that I just don't know.

I was thinking the same.

My children have been encouraged to wear whatever they like, play with all the toys and be interested in whatever interests them.

They're also very clear that it's not possible to change sex.

@Vitsyra you sound insane. Or like a troll who is writing stuff like that to whip up a frenzy on the internet. India Willoughby has already spotted your post and is having a field day. If you’re real, I feel for your daughter. Oh and if you are trying to push “girly” stuff on her and taking away toys based on how masculine they are, you are not gender critical.