Chaired by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, the review was commissioned by England’s National Health Service (NHS) in 2020, with the final report published in April 2024.
The review found the evidence base underpinning medical and non-medical interventions for children and young people with gender dysphoria must be improved and that the NHS should exercise “extreme caution” in prescribing masculinising or feminising hormones from 16 years old.
Guardian Australia understands neither New South Wales or Victoria have plans to make changes to puberty blocker prescribing or accessibility as a result of the Cass review.
Victoria’s health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, said: “Our gender clinics offer some of the most vulnerable young people in our community the support they deserve – we’re fiercely proud of the important work they do.
A spokesperson for the federal health minister, Mark Butler, said clinical treatment of transgender children and adolescents is a complex and evolving area in which longer-term evidence to inform treatment protocols is still developing.
“The clinical care pathways are different in the UK from Australia,” the spokesperson said. “The provision of public gender services to young people in Australia is led by the states and territories, who are responsible for the relevant services.”
The Queensland health minister, Shannon Fentiman, said the state’s Children’s Gender Service “is considered one of the best in the country, and continually reviews its models of care to ensure it is based off the best available evidence”.
The NSW health minister, Ryan Park, said trans and gender-diverse healthcare is a complex and evolving practice area.
“NSW Health continues to monitor developments in the evidence to ensure the care we provide remains consistent with national and international best practice,” he said.
[Ed: What will it take to stop this lunacy??]
Hardly reassuring responses.
The federal health minister’s statement that Australia is different initially appears to distinguish treatment approaches. Yet it simply says that it’s a state responsibility that is for each state health department not federal health … so Australia has no National Health Service . That does not address the Cass Report’s significant findings … indeed it avoids making the reasoned and responsible statement to which parents, children, practitioners and indeed all Australians are entitled. Whatever the role and responsibilities of the states and territories the federal minister for health has the health rights of everyone under his care.
As for the state responses, have the ministers even read the Report? It would appear not … yet if the matter is so complex … doesn’t the Report require reading fully and considering, with more than the superficial statements each produces.
This article is hardly reassuring and the health minister’s should return to their statements, retract and say they’re taking time out to read the Report and to review their state’s approach accordingly.