Thread by @Bernard_Lane

In Australia, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the "affirmative" model of medicalised gender change for under-18s has outsourced its media management to the public broadcaster @abcnews @ABCaustralia

Last night @ABCmediawatch was on task again, implying that only Christians are worried about the global spike in atypical cases of gender dysphoria among adolescents, mostly girls.
abc.net.au/mediawatch/epi…

Professor of paediatrics John Whitehall was one of my first contacts. I read his Quadrant articles. Since 2015 he has immersed himself in the literature on youth gender dysphoria. He happens to be Christian, but that cannot negate his medical arguments.
quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/…

I've reported the views of clinicians who have treated dysphoric youth, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, medico-legal experts & so on. If they offer legitimate arguments their religious faith or lack of it is irrelevant. Media Watch ignores this diversity.
genderhq.org/blog/2020/3/17…

They ignore Sweden's world-class neuropsychiatry researcher Christopher Gillberg & Oxford's professor of evidence-based medicine Carl Heneghan who also say lack of data means trans hormonal treatment of minors is "experimental".

https://twitter.com/Bernard_Lane/status/1176737847451238400?s=20

blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotligh…

They ignore the UK's landmark High Court ruling in favour of detransitioner Keira Bell, now 24, whose lawyers argued that at 16 she simply could not give informed consent to puberty blocker drugs that put her on a one-way path to further medicalisation.
segm.org/Keira_Bell_rul…

As far as I can tell, the ABC's first mention of Bell's internationally significant victory against the NHS Tavistock youth gender clinic came in May's @AustralianStory tribute to gender doctor Michelle Telfer -- 6 months after judgment was handed down.
abc.net.au/austory/a-bala…

The program made a fleeting reference which failed to give viewers any account of the judges' reasons in this, the first serious medico-legal test case on the puberty blocker drugs used around the world, including at the gender clinic of @RCHMelbourne with kids as young as 10.

Media Watch purports to champion standards yet its first moral panic about my gender clinic coverage, back in August 2019, relied uncritically on a media statement from the gender clinic lobby @AusPathorg -- a statement with an undisclosed potential conflict of interest.

Few taxpayers would realise that over several years the ABC has devoted a series of high-profile programs including @4corners & @AustralianStory to evidence-free showcasing of "affirmative" drug treatments & surgery for young people who identify as transgender or non-binary.

Indeed, a peer-reviewed 2020 paper found spikes in new referrals to the @RCHMelbourne gender clinic & the Tavistock clinic after media coverage which in my opinion has glossed over the risks, potential harm & weak evidence of benefit.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Public broadcasters in the UK (@BBCNewsnight) & in Sweden (@granskning) have carried out sustained investigative scrutiny of youth gender clinics, while the ABC carries on with its "gender affirming" publicity.

2020 thread --

https://twitter.com/Bernard_Lane/status/1338227092912160770?s=20

ABC viewers have been denied serious reporting of the international shift towards more cautious, less medicalised responses to the vulnerable children & adolescents who make up gender clinic caseloads.
2020 thread

https://twitter.com/Bernard_Lane/status/1293804565196754945?s=20

That wave of caution has reached Australia, with a major children's hospital gender clinic now under review amid great secrecy. For legal reasons, the state that has taken this step cannot be identified.

To be fair, some news of this shift away from the "affirmative" medical model has been belatedly published by the ABC. @AustralianStory uploaded this statement from me -- abc.net.au/austory/statem…

As for my reporting -- about 80 articles since August 2019 -- it's behind a paywall, so online activists can denounce a caricature of the coverage, knowing not many people will read my articles & realise that concern about gender clinics cuts across social & political divides.

This is one reason why I'm grateful to @clairlemon for inviting me to talk about the gender clinic debate on the @Quillette podcast, which is freely available here --quillette.com/2021/05/10/pod…

But when will the ABC begin to devote serious, factual & independent coverage to the global debate over gender clinics? Its claim to be Australia's "most trusted" news source may have implications that ABC management has not yet considered.

In May, a biological scientist (not in a health field) got in touch because as a researcher & parent he was worried by an ABC youth program which he felt was "providing de facto medical & psychological advice by way of an activist, that was not challenged or balanced in any way".

He wondered if minors who come to "regret puberty blocking treatments as adults would have good cause to hold the ABC (legally) responsible for apparently factual advice received on the programme".
abc.net.au/radio/programs…

He suggested this uncritical advice might "influence parents to authorise & condone a course of action using puberty blockers upon the request of their child, concerned that they may otherwise be perceived as bigoted and ‘transphobic’ should they not".

The stakes are high. Open debate is necessary to work out if the "affirmative" hormonal drugs & surgery help or harm vulnerable young people diagnosed with the bodily distress of gender dysphoria.