Fresh off the back of Donald Trump’s latest attacks on gender affirming care, the anti-trans right in Australia is on the offensive. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has halted prescription of puberty blockers and hormones for trans kids, plunging people into distress and uncertainty. There are 491 young people in Queensland currently on the waiting list for the treatments that have been prohibited.
Shamefully, federal Labor Health Minister Mark Butler has failed to oppose the Queensland ban or call for it to be reversed. Instead the federal Labor government is trying to avoid taking a position by announcing a federal review of Australian treatment guidelines for trans and gender diverse kids. Labor sought to override a separate review launched by the Queensland LNP government but the LNP is still pushing ahead to set its own treatment policy.
Labor’s review is to be led by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and many organisations have cautiously welcomed it on a pro-trans rights basis, seeing it as a path to establish medical standards that could form a bulwark against anti-trans attacks.
But Labor doesn’t need a review to defend trans kids. In the press conference announcing the review, Butler was asked to explicitly affirm his support for gender affirming care for young people and refused. Labor has continually failed to support trans rights in their three years in office despite countless opportunities to do so.
Last year Albanese backed away from an election promise to remove special exemptions allowing religious schools to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ students and teachers, after signalling that the government was seeking a bipartisan approach with the LNP. Despite having clear support from The Greens and the crossbench to pass reform that would stand up for trans kids, Labor capitulated to the right.
Spreading attack on trans kids
The announcement of the review comes in a context of Labor’s refusal to stand up to a growing global onslaught of anti-trans bigotry.
Trump has signed an executive order banning federal funding for puberty blockers, hormones or surgery for trans people under the age of 19 and at least 24 US states already ban medication and surgery for trans children.
In December, the UK Labour government banned the use of puberty blockers and hormones for under 18s indefinitely following the widely criticised Cass review.
The Cass review argued that existing studies into puberty blockers and hormone treatments are “poor quality” and their long-term effects are not understood. But it set an impossible-to-reach standard by insisting on the need for Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) using blinding, where some participants receive placebos rather than puberty blocking medication.
These are near impossible to carry out because, unlike other drugs, it is obvious to any patient whether they receive the puberty blockers or hormone treatments, since they have immediate physical effects. There are also serious mental health risks associated with giving adolescents placebos instead of puberty blockers. The conclusions of the Cass review are therefore disputed.
Citing the Cass review, a group of anti-trans campaigners including notorious bigots Tony Abbott, Katherine Deves and Jillian Spencer are calling for Australia to follow suit with the UK.
Weasel words
Amid the rise of anti-trans politics around the world, there is no room for weasel words or capitulation. Federal Labor should immediately condemn the Queensland ban and use all available measures to prevent its implementation. They could, for instance, make providing care to trans kids a condition of allocating federal funding to hospitals.
But it’s clear we can’t rely on Labor to stand up for trans rights. We need to build a fighting movement on the streets to push back these attacks.
Rallies called by the Trans Justice Project will take place around the country this weekend to protest the ban in Queensland.
In the US there is a growing fight back, with nationwide rallies, court challenges and some doctors speaking out, committing to defy Trump’s bans. We need health sector unions and medical bodies in Australia to condemn the ban and commit to supporting health staff in Queensland to act with similar defiance and ensure trans youth get the urgent care they need.
Liberation movements over several decades have fought to establish the principle that trans people have a right to gender-affirming care. In 2025 we will need to continue taking this fight to the streets to halt the rise of anti-trans bigotry and assert that trans people and trans rights are not going anywhere.
By Matilda Fay
