This article was originally published by the Star Observer. You can find the original article here.
One Nation senator Pauline Hanson is calling on the Australian government to issue an immediate ban on puberty blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria in children.
This comes just hours after the United Kingdom’s announcement to ban puberty blockers indefinitely.
In a media statement posted to X on Thursday afternoon, Hanson said that the Albanese government could not ignore the “growing evidence of risks to Australian children being treated with puberty blockers.”
“It is sickening that Anthony Albanese places more importance on promoting intolerant, hateful gender ideology than he does on children’s safety,” Hanson said.
“This followed a targeted review by the UK’s independent Commission on Human Medicines, which took evidence from clinical experts and patient representatives – including ‘trans’ patients – and concluded these drugs posed an unacceptable safety risk to children.”
Hanson demanded a high-level review of the UK commissions’ findings, as well as an inquiry into the “real causes” of the rapid increase in Australian children presenting with gender dysphoria.
“I’ve tried to refer puberty blockers to a Parliamentary inquiry on five occasions. Each and every time it’s been blocked by Labor, the Greens, cross benchers and some of the Coalition. Why? I strongly suspect they’re blocking it because they know what’s being done to our kids by these gender clinics is indefensible.
“This issue isn’t going away. Those who refuse to face it and refuse to act in the best interests of Australian children will be held accountable in the long run.”
Hanson also appeared on Sky News on Thursday evening, where she claimed puberty blockers were “experimental medicine… without any high quality data.”
“Then they start taking these hormone treatments and puberty blockers. They’re on it for the rest of their lives. So it can cause diabetes, bone density, libido, sexual function, the whole lot.”
When Hanson was questioned as to why Senators were not more concerned about children’s safety when it came to puberty blockers, she stated “because it’s the LGB, I, TQ, plus all the other letters that go with it… There’s been the fight over the years, whatever it’s been, you know, gay marriage, all the rest of it, so they feel they have their right about this.”
Royal college of GPs deem denial of treatment for trans teens “cruel and unethical”
The Australian Professional Association for Trans Health, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and the Australian Endocrine Society all endorse access to puberty blockers for trans young people and adolescents.
In a response to the Cass Review in 2021, the RACGP Specific Interests Transgender and Gender-Diverse Healthcare Chair, Dr Michelle Dutton, said that the consequences of not supporting young people the way they needed to be included school refusal, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. She also called for more data, a sentiment echoed in the Sax Review.
“Data is currently limited because trans healthcare research was not given the funding it deserved until relatively recently,” said Dr Dutton. “But to then use this as a reason to deny trans people access to certain treatments is cruel and unethical.”
An editorial published in The Lancet in 2021, emphasised that those pushing the agenda of puberty blockers as “experimental treatment” were factually incorrect.
“This stance wilfully ignores decades of use of and research about puberty blockers and hormone therapy: a collective enterprise of evidence-based medicine culminating in guidelines from medical associations such as the Endocrine Society and American Academy of Pediatrics. Puberty blockers are falsely claimed to cause infertility and to be irreversible, despite no substantiated evidence.”
