Thread by @Bernard_Lane

Paediatrician Dylan Wilson: “I have direct evidence of children treated at [Queensland's gender clinic] who have reported that they genuinely believed they would become the opposite sex. The lack of genuine consent for this is likely to form the basis of future legal action." /1

On Monday, The Australian reported Dr Wilson's call for an immediate halt to any new treatment with puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones at the Brisbane-based clinic. The hospital defends its "evidence-based care" by citing low-quality WPATH & RCH treatment guidelines. #AusPol

Gender clinics in Australia face mounting pressure. England has decided to confine puberty blockers to a formal research setting. Sweden & Finland have also restricted routine use of medicalised gender change. The evidence base is very weak & uncertain.
open.substack.com/pub/genderclin…

Dr Philip Morris, of the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, says Dr Wilson has seen European countries decide that minors should only get blockers or hormones in a controlled clinical trial, whereas in Australia these are routine treatments.

In a letter to the head of Children's Health Queensland, Dr Wilson says:
“These children have healthy bodies at the start of this process [at the gender clinic, where they get blocker drugs & synthetic hormones]. They have no endocrine disease that needs correcting.

“But by the time they leave [the clinic], they have had endocrine disease iatrogenically induced by your service. This comes with a number of harms, short-term, long-term and unknown," Dr Wilson says.
More info here drdylanwilson.substack.com

“Assessment & exploration of children’s mental state is poor. For example, I have direct evidence of a child being recommended for puberty blockers after two appointments [at the clinic]," Dr Wilson says in his letter to Children’s Health Queensland chief executive Frank Tracey.

“Puberty blockers are not a pause. Nearly every child who commences puberty blockers progresses to cross-sex hormones [according to international data]. Puberty blockers are the start of a lifetime of medicalisation.
open.substack.com/pub/genderclin…

Dr Wilson says: “It is evident to most that children cannot consent. Children cannot, at the age of 11, for example, understand the loss of their future fertility and sex life. They cannot understand the impact that may have on relationships.

“The commonly repeated trope that these children will kill themselves without this [hormonal] treatment pathway is poorly evidenced, hyperbolic and dangerous in itself.
open.substack.com/pub/genderclin…

Dr Wilson says the RCH Melbourne treatment guideline, used widely in Australia, is “just one opinion on how children should be treated. It is not definitive. It is not evidence-based." open.substack.com/pub/genderclin….”

“It is hard to understand how Finland, Sweden and the U.K. can conclude there is no evidence [to support these treatments], but clinics in Australia can continue to pronounce they are operating an evidence-based practice.
open.substack.com/pub/genderclin…

"What evidence exists here that isn’t available in Stockholm?,” Dr Wilson says.

Or in Oslo? In March, an independent health agency in Norway concluded that medicalised gender change for minors is "experimental". Info here --open.substack.com/pub/genderclin…

Earlier this month, an anonymous Australian child and adolescent psychiatrist uploaded to YouTube her concerns about the now dominant “gender-affirming” treatment of children with gender dysphoria. That's the model spread in Australia by @RCHMelbourne.

“Social transition [whereby adults enable a child to live out an opposite-sex role] and puberty blockers [interrupting normal development] prevent children from recovering from gender dysphoria,” this psychiatrist says.

Without these interventions, she says that “between 60-90 per cent of children with gender dysphoria become comfortable with their own body [this is called ‘desisting'] by the time they reach adulthood, [according to the scientific literature].
open.substack.com/pub/genderclin…

“There is no evidence that children with gender dysphoria in Tanner stage 2 [of puberty]—that is, age 10 to 12—are more likely to persist in their gender dysphoria," the psychiatrist says.

“It is the whole course of puberty that can heal gender dysphoria, through the formation of friendships, the sexual awakening, a broadening of activities, falling in love & experiences of physical intimacy. There is no way of knowing which children will persist or desist.

“The evidence underpinning the affirmation model is of very low quality and does not provide convincing evidence of psychosocial gains to justify the harms.”

Are we seeing cracks in the wall of silence put up by Australian children's hospitals, professional bodies & health ministers? Many people are affected by this international surge in teenagers asking adults to go along with their rejection of the only body they will ever have.