A new Victorian law which forces mothers and fathers to accept their children’s desire to change gender has left distraught parents fearing prosecution if they do anything to try to prevent potentially harmful and irreversible treatment.
So far-reaching is the new law that even trying to arrange counselling and expert assessment for their kids could lead to parents – and the mental health professionals – being prosecuted if the advice did anything other than affirm the children’s newly-discovered gender dysphoria.
Many parents feel trapped, unable to do anything to prevent their children pursuing potentially irreversible and harmful changes – from chest-binding to taking hormone blockers and ultimately sex-change surgery.
And while the parents are powerless to intercede, their kids are often subject to encouragement and cajoling from activist pro-trans teachers and counsellors.
One parent even found text messages from a counsellor to her daughter advising the child to leave home so she could escape her sceptical parents and freely pursue her newly-found wish to transition to being a boy.
Fearful of prosecution, parents in this predicament have formed a clandestine network to exchange ideas on how to approach the legal minefield laid down by the Change of Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021.