A doctor’s right to object on medical grounds to the unquestioning affirmation of children as the opposite gender faces a human rights test in Queensland, with a suspended psychiatrist filing a complaint against the state’s children’s hospital over transgender health policies.Jillian Spencer alleges she was prevented from adopting a neutral therapeutic approach and instead forced to comply with gender-affirming polices that risked causing substantial harm to young people, during the course of her employment as a senior staff specialist in the consultation liaison psychiatry team at the Queensland Children’s Hospital.In a complaint lodged with the Queensland Human Rights Commission, Dr Spencer, who is openly critical of gender-affirming policies, reveals that she was subject to lawful employment directions that required her to use gender-affirming pronouns at all times in her practise of medicine and refrain from dissuading any child and their family from seeking a referral to the hospital’s children’s gender clinic, which frequently prescribes puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to young teenagers.Tension within the hospital over transgender healthcare policies boiled over when management hung a large trans pride flag in the youth mental health unit waiting room, which Dr Spencer took down on the basis the area needed to be a neutral space.Dr Spencer later began using the pronoun “adult human female” in her email signature in protest at the pronouns and was reprimanded.
Source: Transgender medicine comes under fire in human rights challenge | The Australian