A parent “refusing to support” their child’s request for puberty blocker drugs to stop normal bodily development is breaking the law, according to an Australian human rights commission.
In the state of Victoria, the human rights commission is given a central role in policing a 2021 law against “conversion therapy”. The commission is charged with investigating conversion practices that target not only sexual orientation but also an inner sense of “gender identity”; it is also tasked with educating the public about this.
The draconian nature of Victoria’s Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act has been highlighted internationally by therapists concerned about the chilling effect of such laws on ethical, mainstream psychotherapy for young people with gender issues.
The website of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission gives several examples of illegal practices, including: “a parent refusing to support their child’s request for medical treatment that will enable them to prevent physical changes from puberty that do not align with the child’s gender identity and denying their child access to any health care services that would affirm their child’s gender identity”.
However, University of Queensland law professor Patrick Parkinson said this was an “extraordinary claim” by the commission — and wrong in law.
“In its published example, the commission would appear to take the view that it is unlawful for a parent to decline to take a child to a medical practitioner who will put the child on puberty blockers, rather than one who will consider other, less drastic, therapeutic options,” he told GCN.
Puberty blockers are a flashpoint in the international debate about the safety and ethics of medicalised gender change for minors. If children are given these drugs early in puberty (at Tanner stage 2, roughly ages 9-13), followed by cross-sex hormones, the expected result is sterilisation, according to the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine.
In January, the U.S. law firm Girard Sharp, which specialises in mass tort and class action litigation, put out a national call for parents of gender dysphoric minors who might have been harmed by puberty blockers.
The firm cited Lupron, Supprelin, Zoladex, Zytiga and Eligard as among the top drugs in the gender dysphoria market.
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