Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for an inquiry into the rising number of children suffering from gender dysphoria in Australia and the increasing number of children being treated for gender dysphoria at gender clinics, to examine the causes and possible remedies for this trend and to ensure that children and their families receive appropriate support and care.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that a rapid tenfold increase in a condition that was causing Australian children to suffer would immediately lead to calls for urgent action and investigations into its causes and treatments, but this isn't the case with the condition known as gender dysphoria. It was revealed last year that more than 2,000 Australian children were enrolled in public adolescent gender clinics, almost 10 times the number in 2014. This figure did not capture the number of children being treated for gender dysphoria by GPs and private clinics, so it's likely the number is much higher. The number of children prescribed puberty-blocker treatments for gender dysphoria in 2021 was more than 600, up from only five in 2014, while there was also an eightfold increase in children receiving cross-sex hormone treatments over a similar period.

Why isn't this a matter of urgency? Why didn't the Senate support my notion last year to refer the alarming increase in Australian children suffering from this condition? Because the issue is completely wrapped up with the appalling politics of identity. This progressive form of politics holds that biological reality means absolutely nothing and that people can simply choose their gender at a whim, ever-changing the gender on their birth certificates. Rather than address the problem and debate the issue, the so-called progressives insist on deplatforming and silencing those who dare to go against the gender-affirmation narrative. This is because they realise there is no difference in encouraging teenagers with the same problems and confusion that teenagers have always had to deal with them by choosing a different gender.

It's this affirmation approach which was found to be the major problem in the wide-ranging Independent review into gender identity services for children and young people commissioned by the United Kingdom's National Health Service in 2020. The review found a significant and sharp rise in referrals of children with gender dysphoria, similar to what is understood to be happening in Australia. It also found a major change in the case mix of referrals, from predominantly birth-registered males to predominantly birth-registered females. Most importantly, it found scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making—specifically, the gender-affirmation approach, which immediately resorts to the use of puberty-blocker and cross-sex hormone treatments. These treatments have been conclusively shown to cause lifelong negative health impacts, and it's destroying lives and families.

The story of UK teenager Keira Bell has come to serve as an example of how these confused, suffering children can be led to a life of misery by the gender-affirmation approach. At the age of only 15, she was referred to the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London, where she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. She was put on puberty blockers at age 16 and was getting testosterone shots at 17. At 20 she had a double mastectomy and had developed a more masculine build, a beard and a man's voice. However, by then, as an adult she realised her so-called gender dysphoria was only a symptom of her misery—not the cause, as she had been strongly encouraged to believe. But it's too late. The changes were irreversible. Keira joined a judicial review case against the clinic, which unanimously decided it had conducted what amounted to uncontrolled experiments on these poor confused kids who could not understand the implications of gender dysphoria treatments with life-altering consequences. The Tavistock clinic is now being closed, but what happened there is happening across the world and right here in Australia.

At the very least there must be an Australian inquiry into this issue to find the causes of this rapid increase in gender dysphoria and ensure the same kind of experimentation is not being practised on our children. Either you are genuinely concerned that our kids receive appropriate treatments and will support an inquiry into the issue, or you are more concerned about identity politics and will oppose it. I choose to stand up for our kids and I choose to stand up for the parents who actually came and walked the halls of this parliament to talk to each member here in this place, yet you did nothing to satisfy their needs and concerns to have a Senate inquiry into this to find out the real causes behind it, because you're too gutless to do it and stand up for these people, the poor children who are led down this path of destroying their lives. (Time expired)