A new policy in the United Kingdom to restrict the medical treatments available to trans and gender-diverse young people has raised fresh questions about Australia’s approach in one of the most sensitive areas of medicine and prompted a fierce defence from LGBTQ advocates.
The rationale for using drugs to suppress puberty in children who say they are transgender “remains unclear” and the effects of the drugs are unknown, her report states.It’s often argued that puberty blockers are urgent and necessary to prevent mental health harm, up to and including suicide. But Cass also found the evidence was weak regarding their impact on mental health conditions and gender dysphoria – a feeling of distress that your gender identity does not match your physical form.
In response to the report, Australian governments and health services backed their existing approach. The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, which runs Australia’s largest children’s gender service, did not respond when asked if it would reassess the evidence for gender-affirming treatment of children in the wake of the policy change in the UK.
A spokesperson for Australian Health Minister Mark Butler backed comments from LGBTQ groups and several experts that the system for the treatment of transgender children was different in Australian compared with the UK, but nonetheless dubbed the Cass report “significant”.
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