Dear Doctor, In Australia, we have a clear template of the standard referral pathway. General practitioners refer to specialists, who refer to sub-specialists. Whenever we feel we need a more specialised opinion than our own we refer the patient to a colleague along this pathway. We can often choose to whom we refer; we may value a particular practitioner’s expertise on a particular matter, or we may know that someone may suit the patient best. This is most evident in the private system. There are also times when we don’t get a choice, a patient has to be referred to a general service in the public system. While this may have issues, there are often benefits, and there are many times when referring a patient to the local public hospital service is in their best interests.
Our daughter is one of those harmed by Australian doctors. We want them held accountable. We tried to stop it but she turned 18. She now regrets what was done to her. This is indeed a medical scandal of a scope I beleive not many people realise. Its hoffific.
I am so sorry to hear this. I am currently battling for my daughter and together with a mother for her daughter, and a friend, whose best friend has caught the bug... What helps is when detransitioners speak out. They will suffer the slings and arrows of the Trans-trance crowd, but may that be a badge of honor. Your daughter can h4eedlp others not make the mistake. I know that the detransitioner clips I have sent to my daughter have at least created doubt in her mind. And that is the first step.
I feel so sad for your daughter and your family. I hope she finds the healing she needs. It is such a painful and traumatic journey. My daughter is going through the same thing, I don’t know how to stop it because nobody will support me. She hasn’t yet been to the gender clinic. I feel that if I attempt to stop this, something bad will happen. Where do I find health professionals who will help us rather than harm my daughter?
:( so sorry. I hope one day your daughter can speak up publicly. There are so many detransitioners in the US and UK, but not many in Australia. I think they are the ones who will make the general public aware of what's really going on.
Thanks so much for your courage Dr Wilson. Australian doctor here, who agrees with you 100%. This has got to stop. Primum non nocere indeed. There are other health professionals and doctors who also agree but don't speak out for one reason - fear.
Too right! Wrong speak and thought un-orthodoxy over covid; led to many doctors of good conscience running to the hills. Those that held the line, ultimately ended up being suspended just for having " unpure" against the narrative thoughts. If the rest didnt speak out over that; then, I cant see many, putting themselves in the line of fire over this. The enmeshed governmental- medical entities, who now control a doctor's ability to practice, andearn a living, sadly now reign supreme
Yeah, I'm having trouble thinking of someone whose response to an existential threat to the foundational ethics of their profession is to "run to the hills" as "of good conscience".
Most of us are lucky enough to face few or none of the instances in life when our moral backbones are truly tested. For these doctors, this is one of them. Sucks, but it's time to step up, and earn some of that societal deference that they certainly don't "run to the hills" to get away from. If you can't defend your profession, you don't belong in it.
It is the way of the world, that's why change only ever comes as the result of the hard worn efforts of the small and righteous 1%. In this regard Doctors are no different to germans, soviets, or any other demographic of human being experiencing the crushing hand of an up and coming totalitarian regeime.
Most parents, including many, if not most of the highly educated healthcare professionals / parents like myself, have no idea what is going on until forced to investigate further when their own child who one day, APPARENTLY out of the blue, declares that they are either non-binary, pansexual, gender, transgender and/or a host of other labels.
Parents/professionals who hear this declaration, have already been primed by media coverage that equates trans-rights with human rights with gay rights and all the other rights. And we all believe in human rights and equal rights, especially in the health care industry. So nothing to see there.
The schools are on board, the professional associations are on board, the doctors are on board, and it is even enshrined in law (in Victoria at least), that health professionals must take the "gender-affirming" approach which is laid out under professional guidelines & code of ethics (would you believe!)
So not only "nothing to see" but also "nothing to do" unless you want to risk your career or even worse, have your child removed by the DHS for "abusing" your child, AKA as refusing to "affirm" your child's adopted gender.
This is groupthink par-excellence! How utterly terrifying!
I'm a PhD Physiologist and Developmental Biologist. This is a great letter using clear language and pointing out the Emperor has no clothes.
Increasingly we know the harms x-sex hormones do. Raised risks of atherosclerosis, heart and kidney disease. Trans men who retain their organs lose them as the atrophy and die.
And pituitary tumours. Abuse an organ like that and you will cause inflammation which if chronic is a cancer risk.
So many important questions raised in the above article. I'm a Registered Nurse and counsellor/psychotherapist and have started a public Facebook page for people concerned about these issues called Active Watchful Waiting Australia https://www.facebook.com/WatchfulWaitingOz. It also has a link to a private, confidential facebook group for health professionals under the same name but separate and private. We hope to ultimately have enough numbers to have a conversation about calling for a government inquiry. Anyone interested please message me via the Fb page or via WatchfulWaitingOz@outlook.com
Just to clarify, anyone interested, whether a health professional or not, is welcome to follow the public page https://www.facebook.com/WatchfulWaitingOz You can comment there and I will see your comments. We've only restricted the private group of Active Watchful Waiting Australia to health profs or similar, for security reason, given the McCarthyite times we live in.
Thank you so much for having the courage to speak out. I'm a mum who's daughter has been caught up in the trans agenda.
We went through the gender clinic in our local city when my daughter was 16. Before she'd even met with the therapists there, we were offered puberty blockers. When I asked them why they'd offer blockers considering she was already well and truly into puberty already, the nurse offered testosterone instead.
The consent forms the clinic went through are absolutely laughable. They explain nothing! I discussed this with my local GP recently and she was shocked to learn that our local Gender Clinic boasted 100% success rate. When the GP asked what they meant by success, I said in transitioning children. She was horrified. She said that if they were doing their job properly, the 'success rate' should be 1% or less. I hope it's made her reconsider referring any other children there.
Oh my God, I am so thankful to finally see a doctor speak out so strongly in Australia! Thank you a thousand times over. I am a parent of a trans-deluded child. This is the most distressing, disempowering and destructive thing I have ever exerienced. My child got completely brainwashed by the trans cult. No early life indication of gender issues, just a wish to belong to a group, after being socially ostracised. The current international focus on the improper medicalisation of trans ideation predominantly focuses on children. Unfortunately it the medical malpractice only becomes harder to combat after they reach 18 years old. I knew to keep them away from psychologists, but then they reach 18. After we get the public to understand this is wrong for children, we need them to understand from where this all springs. There have always been a small number of transsexuals who wanted to quietly live their life in an opposite sex presentation and seemed to benefit from that. The internet-generated phenomenon we are now witnessing is so far away from that and is driven by a variety of forces. Detransitioners are now emerging daily telling their stories- scarred physically and mentally. As parents, most of us cannot be public about this as we try to maintain contact with our children. Please stay strong - you have a massive amount of support, and it will only grow. I will be sending your letter to doctors.
Dear Jenny, you are not alone in this. I have been thinking a bit about contacting some of the affirming youth friendly organisations and communities who have an online presence and asking them about how they might offer my child some factual information about de-transitioning as this can be such an isolating experience for those kids too, who may also be wondering if they can still belong to this "welcoming affirming" community that was/is important to them. The inclusion of factual information would be welcome rather than only their persuasive messages. Surely these organisations (some of which are government funded) must be well aware of their influence - it is well documented. I wish you ,your child and family well. Your child is lucky to have such a thoughtful and concerned parent.
Sadly, I'm not sure that they will be interested because according to many in the "trans" movement and their child victims, these pesky "detransitioners" "were never really trans".
I did not find out until after my daughter turned 18. They are deliberately advised online not to talk to families, generally told that their family will desert them if they do. Schools are complicit in this and are REQUIRED (so I am told) to not inform parents. It is deliberate policy to exclude parents in the discussion.
Thank you Dr Wilson, as parents of identifying children we need courageous professionals to speak out. I very quickly learnt where NOT to take my child. I had a damming letter full of untruths sent to my GP from my daughters psychologist stating I was putting my daughters life at risk for not affirming my daughter and for not allowing my then 13 - 14 year old a chest binder and access to testosterone. I was reported to NSW mental health because I expressed to another health professional my desire for an exploratory approach and to consider my daughters autism and other mental health issues as there was no indication of any gender dysphoria until being introduced by another child who was in the process of transing and my daughter immersing herself online on with everything trans. I was told by a govt organisation to stop educating myself and to stop reading and trust the governing medical and govt organizations. I was encouraged to attend a headspace parent group that promoted affirmation and questioning gender ideology was not tolerated. For 19 months my life was hell but with massive effort to remove as much trans stimulus as I could (limited and filtered internet) and minimizing contact where I could with individuals encouraging my daughter in her thinking she gradually and naturally desisted to growing her nails, wearing makeup, and female clothing. She now regards herself as non binary. She is much happier within herself and no longer self harms. I also found a psychologist who was willing to explore whom greatly helped my daughter. Again thank you for standing up we need more super hero doctors such as yourself. I hope we can prevent many children from what could be the biggest regrets of their lives.
You have to have hope going through the challenges presented when your child declares themselves trans and every part of your being knows they are not! Particularly when your child is psychologically vulnerable and the influence the trans narrative has is massive! I wish you all the best on your journey ❤️
Thank you so very much for speaking out! My child desisted from a trans identity after a year. My child was tanner stage 2 and would have been placed on puberty blockers if I had gone anywhere near a gender clinic.
Thank you, Dr Wilson, for your comprehensive review of the medical situation for these kids - I had hoped that after Ms Deves comments there would be more ongoing discussion. Sadly she was not supported by colleagues and heavily criticised throughout most media!
I think our medical colleges, and associations have been remiss in not evaluating these issues before supporting the "affirmative model", though at least AMAQ did argue against the Conversion Therapy legislation in Qld.
Australia needs a coalition of health professionals to act as a strong lobby on this. None of my individual outraged letters to the ABC on their reporting can have any effect - we need people with "authority" to be commenting persistently. How to organise?
Gather numbers, and put out public letters/press releases like Wilson did? In the US, the center/left media mostly ignores us right now, but the right-wingers will pick it up. Does the right wing give you the creeps? Use them anyway, they reach people, and that's what we need right now. Eventually it'll get big enough and loud enough that the left can't ignore it, but we gotta start somewhere.
As a psychologist, family therapist, and university educator and supervisor, who has worked with adolescents and their deeply distressed and concerned parents, and also being a parent of a 14 year old daughter who has been "swept up" in all of this, I thank you for your courage and humanity and your provision of clear factual information and research evidence. There is much we all need to think through, question, thoughtfully consider, research, and discuss. I am about to approach my professional association, asking them to review the emerging and more recent multi-disciplinary Australian (eg. Westmead) and International research findings and statistical data/information, and also to provide me and others in our field with the research evidence (and the basis/rationale for the selection and exclusion of this evidence) that informs their current guidelines for working with this population – children, teenagers and their families. I am extremely thankful that my family has a medical practitioner who is well versed in the facts and evidence. I have also been very fortunate to have found some parents, and a group of concerned professionals who have been a very important source of support, personally and professionally. Several of my colleagues have for a number of years been discussing our concerns about this increase in young girls in particular presenting for help and trying to make sense of how this has all emerged, and then how to best support them and their families. Several of my concerned colleagues, since the passing of recent legislation in some states, have felt that either they need to speak up and have this matter fully and openly discussed with thoughtful consideration, or have felt unable to continue to do the very important work that they do, and some even opting to move into early retirement, disenchanted with the response of our field, our government, and the adults in society. I have also made an appointment with our daughter’s school principal to discuss our state governments guidelines to schools relating to “gender diverse students”, and the research evidence that informs these guidelines. We hope to discuss this with him and seek to understand how our child's school has translated these policies and guidelines into their well-intended processes, and the impact of these on our 2 children and family. In doing so I wish to keep my child and other children safe, and help them to reach decisions about how to trust and rely on the adults around them. Thank you again Dr Wilson.
I’m deeply sorry for what your family is going through & that you have the professional background you do, speaks volumes to how insidious this ideology is. How can regular people escape it, when a trained psychologist (& educator no less) can not?
I am a current Psych student (very mature age ;-) ) and I am horrified at what we are being taught on this topic. The field of Psychology has abandoned everything it knows from a hundred plus years of research into Lifespan Development & human psychology, to jump head first into a dystopian perversion of Rogers “unconditional positive regard”. As a student we challenge this nonsense at our peril, being told in no uncertain terms that the penalty for “bigotry” is being marked an “unsafe” “unethical” person who will be rejected from the program. Who exactly *are* the people in the professional associations who agreed to go along with this agenda, why did they do it, and why on earth haven’t registered members & educators referred back to their training & experience & challenged this obvious breach of professional ethics? I am forlorn at the notion I’m going to have to compromise myself to get through my training & be powerless to do anything to rectify the damage being wrought once I am qualified. I sincerely hope the current custodians of the profession, currently sharing quiet dissent behind closed doors, can find the courage to step into the the light & force authorities to stop the rot.
As a clinical psychologist, my experience as you describe above is identical to yours.
I have drafted a letter to send to The APS president and I am waiting for a response regarding the correct email to send it to so as to ensure it lands on her desk!
I will also be making contact with my kids school principal, the school having taken on with gusto the "gender affirmation" approach. OMG.
History provides us with only too many horrifying precedents whereby the most highly educated amongst us have been blindly swept up by a propaganda machine with horrific consequences.
As someone who works in health I found it shocking that *none* of these approaches to gender dysphoria have been subject to a randomised controlled trial. There is literally no evidence that these interventions are effective compared to other interventions or non-intervention.
The argument against such research is now entirely circular:
"Just a reminder: it's basically impossible to do an RCT on trans medicine these days because:
1. The benefits of access to health care are already so well established
2. No IRB will sign off on a RCT where suicide is potentially the biggest side effect"
We can't study this because we know that these interventions work compared to other interventions or non-intervention, despite having no evidence of the relative benefits or harms of these approaches. And we can claim that suicide means that any study involving non-intervention can never be undertaken. This is despite a recent study (Biggs, 2022) finding that 0.03% of children being treated by the Tavistock clinic actually completed a suicide. Each is a tragedy, and this is indeed 5.5* the rate in the population of the same age and sex composition. But it is nowhere near the 50% that activists falsely claim.
Like most people, I support interventions that cause "harm" if they prevent greater harm. We conduct surgery, which is an insult to the body, because it prevents death or other harms. Limbs, appendixes, and tumors are removed. ECT is provided to severely anorexic individuals. In this area of medicine the claim that interventions other than chemical and surgical affirmation equals death seems to have been accepted wholesale, without any attempt to determine whether this is true.
Biggs, M. Suicide by Clinic-Referred Transgender Adolescents in the United Kingdom. Arch Sex Behav 51, 685–690 (2022).
Thank you for this letter. I am in the US, where we are hopelessly lost, with every major medical organization blindly (or not so blindly) supporting affirmative care along with the Biden administration. I wait in vain for some brave clinicians to speak up — surely there must be many who know and do not agree. It seems that we'll need to find that courage elsewhere, and when the evidence mounts and the number of young people damaged can no longer be denied, just maybe we'll be able to turn this nightmare ship around.
Yes, well aware — like most parents of trans-identifying kids, I’m ready for my dissertation in all things trans. But SEGM is a grain of sand on a beach of clinicians. I’ve seen a handful of physicians speaking up but nowhere near what you’d expect given the absurdity of the assertions and the tremendous harm to young people. There should be widespread outcry but there isn’t. I know doctors who think this is nutty but would never take a professional stand. They’re not built that way. I expect a “greater good” philosophy, but what I see is more of a “not my problem” philosophy.
Doctors, please join Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine-- https://segm.org/. This has to stop. My kid's pediatrician here in the US just referred her to the gender clinic based on our request that she get help managing her period and that she is using "They." My daughter has an ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. There is little help for those conditions but for gender its a red carpet!
Our daughter is one of those harmed by Australian doctors. We want them held accountable. We tried to stop it but she turned 18. She now regrets what was done to her. This is indeed a medical scandal of a scope I beleive not many people realise. Its hoffific.
I'm so sorry for your family 😢
I am so sorry to hear this. I am currently battling for my daughter and together with a mother for her daughter, and a friend, whose best friend has caught the bug... What helps is when detransitioners speak out. They will suffer the slings and arrows of the Trans-trance crowd, but may that be a badge of honor. Your daughter can h4eedlp others not make the mistake. I know that the detransitioner clips I have sent to my daughter have at least created doubt in her mind. And that is the first step.
I feel so sad for your daughter and your family. I hope she finds the healing she needs. It is such a painful and traumatic journey. My daughter is going through the same thing, I don’t know how to stop it because nobody will support me. She hasn’t yet been to the gender clinic. I feel that if I attempt to stop this, something bad will happen. Where do I find health professionals who will help us rather than harm my daughter?
Try Dr Dianna Kenny or Dr Roberto D'Angelo. Don't go anywhere near a gender clinic.
:( so sorry. I hope one day your daughter can speak up publicly. There are so many detransitioners in the US and UK, but not many in Australia. I think they are the ones who will make the general public aware of what's really going on.
Thanks so much for your courage Dr Wilson. Australian doctor here, who agrees with you 100%. This has got to stop. Primum non nocere indeed. There are other health professionals and doctors who also agree but don't speak out for one reason - fear.
Well, Wilson just did the hardest part. He could sure use some company. Are you and the others you mentioned going to join him? Primum non nocere...
Too right! Wrong speak and thought un-orthodoxy over covid; led to many doctors of good conscience running to the hills. Those that held the line, ultimately ended up being suspended just for having " unpure" against the narrative thoughts. If the rest didnt speak out over that; then, I cant see many, putting themselves in the line of fire over this. The enmeshed governmental- medical entities, who now control a doctor's ability to practice, andearn a living, sadly now reign supreme
Yeah, I'm having trouble thinking of someone whose response to an existential threat to the foundational ethics of their profession is to "run to the hills" as "of good conscience".
Most of us are lucky enough to face few or none of the instances in life when our moral backbones are truly tested. For these doctors, this is one of them. Sucks, but it's time to step up, and earn some of that societal deference that they certainly don't "run to the hills" to get away from. If you can't defend your profession, you don't belong in it.
It is the way of the world, that's why change only ever comes as the result of the hard worn efforts of the small and righteous 1%. In this regard Doctors are no different to germans, soviets, or any other demographic of human being experiencing the crushing hand of an up and coming totalitarian regeime.
Well, I’ve seen Nazis invoked in order to criticize before, but not to excuse lack of moral courage 😬
I guess being imperfect myself, Im more understanding of the human condiiton.
Not only doctors, but psychologists, psychotherapist, social workers and lawyers. All scared. By whom?
"Fear" may be overly generous. It presupposes one knows what the right thing to do is, but is held back from doing it.
It could also be just being primarily focused on their professional prestige, reputation and future advancement.
Most parents, including many, if not most of the highly educated healthcare professionals / parents like myself, have no idea what is going on until forced to investigate further when their own child who one day, APPARENTLY out of the blue, declares that they are either non-binary, pansexual, gender, transgender and/or a host of other labels.
Parents/professionals who hear this declaration, have already been primed by media coverage that equates trans-rights with human rights with gay rights and all the other rights. And we all believe in human rights and equal rights, especially in the health care industry. So nothing to see there.
The schools are on board, the professional associations are on board, the doctors are on board, and it is even enshrined in law (in Victoria at least), that health professionals must take the "gender-affirming" approach which is laid out under professional guidelines & code of ethics (would you believe!)
So not only "nothing to see" but also "nothing to do" unless you want to risk your career or even worse, have your child removed by the DHS for "abusing" your child, AKA as refusing to "affirm" your child's adopted gender.
This is groupthink par-excellence! How utterly terrifying!
testing
Are you on facebook? Please message the watchful waiting group.
Please contact us at Genspect Australia aus@genspect.org
We are trying to build a network of doctors to get weight of numbers so that they feel confident and not alone in speaking out.
Hi Anne, we publish regularly on this subject. Might you email us so we might speak with you for an article?
I'm a PhD Physiologist and Developmental Biologist. This is a great letter using clear language and pointing out the Emperor has no clothes.
Increasingly we know the harms x-sex hormones do. Raised risks of atherosclerosis, heart and kidney disease. Trans men who retain their organs lose them as the atrophy and die.
And pituitary tumours. Abuse an organ like that and you will cause inflammation which if chronic is a cancer risk.
So what are you going to do about it? Wilson is showing you the way.
So many important questions raised in the above article. I'm a Registered Nurse and counsellor/psychotherapist and have started a public Facebook page for people concerned about these issues called Active Watchful Waiting Australia https://www.facebook.com/WatchfulWaitingOz. It also has a link to a private, confidential facebook group for health professionals under the same name but separate and private. We hope to ultimately have enough numbers to have a conversation about calling for a government inquiry. Anyone interested please message me via the Fb page or via WatchfulWaitingOz@outlook.com
Thank you Jenny. I run a support group in Australia for parents who don't automatically affirm. I'd love to join your group.
Actually I'm already on your page lol. There's lots around now!! Thank you for your work too.
Hi again TROGDMum, Ignore previous message, the public page is still up. See you there. :-)
Oh good! 🙂
Just to clarify, anyone interested, whether a health professional or not, is welcome to follow the public page https://www.facebook.com/WatchfulWaitingOz You can comment there and I will see your comments. We've only restricted the private group of Active Watchful Waiting Australia to health profs or similar, for security reason, given the McCarthyite times we live in.
Thank you
Thank you so much for having the courage to speak out. I'm a mum who's daughter has been caught up in the trans agenda.
We went through the gender clinic in our local city when my daughter was 16. Before she'd even met with the therapists there, we were offered puberty blockers. When I asked them why they'd offer blockers considering she was already well and truly into puberty already, the nurse offered testosterone instead.
The consent forms the clinic went through are absolutely laughable. They explain nothing! I discussed this with my local GP recently and she was shocked to learn that our local Gender Clinic boasted 100% success rate. When the GP asked what they meant by success, I said in transitioning children. She was horrified. She said that if they were doing their job properly, the 'success rate' should be 1% or less. I hope it's made her reconsider referring any other children there.
Oh my God, I am so thankful to finally see a doctor speak out so strongly in Australia! Thank you a thousand times over. I am a parent of a trans-deluded child. This is the most distressing, disempowering and destructive thing I have ever exerienced. My child got completely brainwashed by the trans cult. No early life indication of gender issues, just a wish to belong to a group, after being socially ostracised. The current international focus on the improper medicalisation of trans ideation predominantly focuses on children. Unfortunately it the medical malpractice only becomes harder to combat after they reach 18 years old. I knew to keep them away from psychologists, but then they reach 18. After we get the public to understand this is wrong for children, we need them to understand from where this all springs. There have always been a small number of transsexuals who wanted to quietly live their life in an opposite sex presentation and seemed to benefit from that. The internet-generated phenomenon we are now witnessing is so far away from that and is driven by a variety of forces. Detransitioners are now emerging daily telling their stories- scarred physically and mentally. As parents, most of us cannot be public about this as we try to maintain contact with our children. Please stay strong - you have a massive amount of support, and it will only grow. I will be sending your letter to doctors.
Dear Jenny, you are not alone in this. I have been thinking a bit about contacting some of the affirming youth friendly organisations and communities who have an online presence and asking them about how they might offer my child some factual information about de-transitioning as this can be such an isolating experience for those kids too, who may also be wondering if they can still belong to this "welcoming affirming" community that was/is important to them. The inclusion of factual information would be welcome rather than only their persuasive messages. Surely these organisations (some of which are government funded) must be well aware of their influence - it is well documented. I wish you ,your child and family well. Your child is lucky to have such a thoughtful and concerned parent.
Sadly, I'm not sure that they will be interested because according to many in the "trans" movement and their child victims, these pesky "detransitioners" "were never really trans".
I did not find out until after my daughter turned 18. They are deliberately advised online not to talk to families, generally told that their family will desert them if they do. Schools are complicit in this and are REQUIRED (so I am told) to not inform parents. It is deliberate policy to exclude parents in the discussion.
Thank you Dr Wilson, as parents of identifying children we need courageous professionals to speak out. I very quickly learnt where NOT to take my child. I had a damming letter full of untruths sent to my GP from my daughters psychologist stating I was putting my daughters life at risk for not affirming my daughter and for not allowing my then 13 - 14 year old a chest binder and access to testosterone. I was reported to NSW mental health because I expressed to another health professional my desire for an exploratory approach and to consider my daughters autism and other mental health issues as there was no indication of any gender dysphoria until being introduced by another child who was in the process of transing and my daughter immersing herself online on with everything trans. I was told by a govt organisation to stop educating myself and to stop reading and trust the governing medical and govt organizations. I was encouraged to attend a headspace parent group that promoted affirmation and questioning gender ideology was not tolerated. For 19 months my life was hell but with massive effort to remove as much trans stimulus as I could (limited and filtered internet) and minimizing contact where I could with individuals encouraging my daughter in her thinking she gradually and naturally desisted to growing her nails, wearing makeup, and female clothing. She now regards herself as non binary. She is much happier within herself and no longer self harms. I also found a psychologist who was willing to explore whom greatly helped my daughter. Again thank you for standing up we need more super hero doctors such as yourself. I hope we can prevent many children from what could be the biggest regrets of their lives.
Thank you Deb, your story is inspirational! You give the rest of us hope.
You have to have hope going through the challenges presented when your child declares themselves trans and every part of your being knows they are not! Particularly when your child is psychologically vulnerable and the influence the trans narrative has is massive! I wish you all the best on your journey ❤️
Thank you so very much for speaking out! My child desisted from a trans identity after a year. My child was tanner stage 2 and would have been placed on puberty blockers if I had gone anywhere near a gender clinic.
Thank you, Dr Wilson, for your comprehensive review of the medical situation for these kids - I had hoped that after Ms Deves comments there would be more ongoing discussion. Sadly she was not supported by colleagues and heavily criticised throughout most media!
I think our medical colleges, and associations have been remiss in not evaluating these issues before supporting the "affirmative model", though at least AMAQ did argue against the Conversion Therapy legislation in Qld.
Dr Cary Breakey, Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist
Australia needs a coalition of health professionals to act as a strong lobby on this. None of my individual outraged letters to the ABC on their reporting can have any effect - we need people with "authority" to be commenting persistently. How to organise?
Gather numbers, and put out public letters/press releases like Wilson did? In the US, the center/left media mostly ignores us right now, but the right-wingers will pick it up. Does the right wing give you the creeps? Use them anyway, they reach people, and that's what we need right now. Eventually it'll get big enough and loud enough that the left can't ignore it, but we gotta start somewhere.
As a psychologist, family therapist, and university educator and supervisor, who has worked with adolescents and their deeply distressed and concerned parents, and also being a parent of a 14 year old daughter who has been "swept up" in all of this, I thank you for your courage and humanity and your provision of clear factual information and research evidence. There is much we all need to think through, question, thoughtfully consider, research, and discuss. I am about to approach my professional association, asking them to review the emerging and more recent multi-disciplinary Australian (eg. Westmead) and International research findings and statistical data/information, and also to provide me and others in our field with the research evidence (and the basis/rationale for the selection and exclusion of this evidence) that informs their current guidelines for working with this population – children, teenagers and their families. I am extremely thankful that my family has a medical practitioner who is well versed in the facts and evidence. I have also been very fortunate to have found some parents, and a group of concerned professionals who have been a very important source of support, personally and professionally. Several of my colleagues have for a number of years been discussing our concerns about this increase in young girls in particular presenting for help and trying to make sense of how this has all emerged, and then how to best support them and their families. Several of my concerned colleagues, since the passing of recent legislation in some states, have felt that either they need to speak up and have this matter fully and openly discussed with thoughtful consideration, or have felt unable to continue to do the very important work that they do, and some even opting to move into early retirement, disenchanted with the response of our field, our government, and the adults in society. I have also made an appointment with our daughter’s school principal to discuss our state governments guidelines to schools relating to “gender diverse students”, and the research evidence that informs these guidelines. We hope to discuss this with him and seek to understand how our child's school has translated these policies and guidelines into their well-intended processes, and the impact of these on our 2 children and family. In doing so I wish to keep my child and other children safe, and help them to reach decisions about how to trust and rely on the adults around them. Thank you again Dr Wilson.
I’m deeply sorry for what your family is going through & that you have the professional background you do, speaks volumes to how insidious this ideology is. How can regular people escape it, when a trained psychologist (& educator no less) can not?
I am a current Psych student (very mature age ;-) ) and I am horrified at what we are being taught on this topic. The field of Psychology has abandoned everything it knows from a hundred plus years of research into Lifespan Development & human psychology, to jump head first into a dystopian perversion of Rogers “unconditional positive regard”. As a student we challenge this nonsense at our peril, being told in no uncertain terms that the penalty for “bigotry” is being marked an “unsafe” “unethical” person who will be rejected from the program. Who exactly *are* the people in the professional associations who agreed to go along with this agenda, why did they do it, and why on earth haven’t registered members & educators referred back to their training & experience & challenged this obvious breach of professional ethics? I am forlorn at the notion I’m going to have to compromise myself to get through my training & be powerless to do anything to rectify the damage being wrought once I am qualified. I sincerely hope the current custodians of the profession, currently sharing quiet dissent behind closed doors, can find the courage to step into the the light & force authorities to stop the rot.
Hello JA
As a clinical psychologist, my experience as you describe above is identical to yours.
I have drafted a letter to send to The APS president and I am waiting for a response regarding the correct email to send it to so as to ensure it lands on her desk!
I will also be making contact with my kids school principal, the school having taken on with gusto the "gender affirmation" approach. OMG.
History provides us with only too many horrifying precedents whereby the most highly educated amongst us have been blindly swept up by a propaganda machine with horrific consequences.
We can not afford to sit silent about this.
As someone who works in health I found it shocking that *none* of these approaches to gender dysphoria have been subject to a randomised controlled trial. There is literally no evidence that these interventions are effective compared to other interventions or non-intervention.
The argument against such research is now entirely circular:
"Just a reminder: it's basically impossible to do an RCT on trans medicine these days because:
1. The benefits of access to health care are already so well established
2. No IRB will sign off on a RCT where suicide is potentially the biggest side effect"
We can't study this because we know that these interventions work compared to other interventions or non-intervention, despite having no evidence of the relative benefits or harms of these approaches. And we can claim that suicide means that any study involving non-intervention can never be undertaken. This is despite a recent study (Biggs, 2022) finding that 0.03% of children being treated by the Tavistock clinic actually completed a suicide. Each is a tragedy, and this is indeed 5.5* the rate in the population of the same age and sex composition. But it is nowhere near the 50% that activists falsely claim.
Like most people, I support interventions that cause "harm" if they prevent greater harm. We conduct surgery, which is an insult to the body, because it prevents death or other harms. Limbs, appendixes, and tumors are removed. ECT is provided to severely anorexic individuals. In this area of medicine the claim that interventions other than chemical and surgical affirmation equals death seems to have been accepted wholesale, without any attempt to determine whether this is true.
Biggs, M. Suicide by Clinic-Referred Transgender Adolescents in the United Kingdom. Arch Sex Behav 51, 685–690 (2022).
Doctors using the term AFAB makes my blood boil. Of course the kids think they can change sex if their trusted doctors use terminology like that.
What does AFAB means?
Assigned Female At Birth
That makes no sense, the sex of the infant does not depends on the doctor, it depends on DNA.
A brilliant summation of the issues. Thalidomide 2.0 must be stopped. Now.
Yes. This is playing out exactly the same.
Thank you for this letter. I am in the US, where we are hopelessly lost, with every major medical organization blindly (or not so blindly) supporting affirmative care along with the Biden administration. I wait in vain for some brave clinicians to speak up — surely there must be many who know and do not agree. It seems that we'll need to find that courage elsewhere, and when the evidence mounts and the number of young people damaged can no longer be denied, just maybe we'll be able to turn this nightmare ship around.
Some are. Check out the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM)
Yes, well aware — like most parents of trans-identifying kids, I’m ready for my dissertation in all things trans. But SEGM is a grain of sand on a beach of clinicians. I’ve seen a handful of physicians speaking up but nowhere near what you’d expect given the absurdity of the assertions and the tremendous harm to young people. There should be widespread outcry but there isn’t. I know doctors who think this is nutty but would never take a professional stand. They’re not built that way. I expect a “greater good” philosophy, but what I see is more of a “not my problem” philosophy.
Doctors, please join Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine-- https://segm.org/. This has to stop. My kid's pediatrician here in the US just referred her to the gender clinic based on our request that she get help managing her period and that she is using "They." My daughter has an ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. There is little help for those conditions but for gender its a red carpet!