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?

Really? They must comb this site daily for content

But also agree with rest of your post

India Willoughby has already spotted your post and is having a field day.

I'm putting on my most shocked face.

Really? They must comb this site daily for content

Hardly have to comb when it's your chums posting it.

You’re likely right

I don’t do Twitter it’s probably a common tactic

It's outlined in a general guide on FWR from some time ago but it seems to be persisting.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3321127-public-service-announcement

If and when you see threads plopped into FWR, especially a curious repeat of well worn topics, maybe check for poster history before engaging.

There are a number of posts/posters/threads that are reproduced on Twitter or Facebook to foment controversy using screen shots & flagging to either MNHQ to have threads or posters deleted. Sometimes, it’s used to approach commissioning editors with ideas for articles. It’s a tiresome tactic that we’ve had several community disruptor posters who themselves post the comments that they then highlight elsewhere as purported evidence of racism, religious intolerance, anti-men sentiments, or transphobia.

The “conversion therapy” bill was pushed by a group headed by a man with two young trans children, who were both receiving cross-sex hormones. He was interviewed and, quite frankly, sounded desperate to be told he hadn’t made the wrong choice for them. All the lobbying was done secretly, and the fact the bill covered trans children was not discussed at all.

Australia is not an intensely religious country. It is very unusual for a political candidate to discuss their religion, unless they are a minority group.
Any weird evangelical group like Hillsong comes from America.

I could easily be wrong about Australian religiousness in general (am perhaps influenced by having some insanely Pentecostal relatives in Queensland and New South Wales) but it is a fact that Hillsong originated in Sydney.

Sure Hillsong started out in Baulkham Hills in Sydney. It has a much more diverse mix of ethnicities, from my experience it seems to draw disproportionately from families who are from the same ethnicity of the founders who are from New Zealand and other pacific nations, amongst others, but is very niche and much smaller perhaps than their voice.

It would be an error to draw any conclusion on religious affiliation based on that particular church.

There are also small pockets of Baptist and Latter Day Saints, Seventh day Adventists and so on. But again, such small numbers.

I've named changed for this post so I don't out myself. Let Toys Be Toys and Let Books Be Books were my introduction to Mumsnet back in the day. Indeed, they were the subjects of the first two Wikipedia articles I created.