Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, in the 21st century, we look back with horror at many of the deadly dangerous medical practices of the past. Well, how do you think history will look back on young girls suffering irreversible damage because they were prescribed testosterone by a doctor who claimed they had a testicular disorder. Yes, you heard that correctly. Doctors are giving drugs with serious long-term side-effects to young girls on the basis that they allegedly have a testicular disorder. This is a drug which, when given to girls and young women, can cause infertility, osteoporosis, incontinence and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

After learning that this was being openly promoted to doctors and young people by certain lobby groups, earlier this year I asked the Department of Health and Aged Care how many biological females have been prescribed testosterone in each of the past five years by doctors using the PBS authority indication 'antigen deficiency due to an established testicular disorder'. The table that came back four months later showed that, in 2023, 6,599 females were prescribed testosterone through this method, a 140 per cent increase since 2019.

Thousands of young Australian women and girls are being prescribed taxpayer subsidised testosterone for gender affirmation by doctors, despite the known dangers and irreversible effects on their bodies. As taxpayers we are paying for this because some doctors are using a backdoor method of claiming that these girls and young women have testicles. Australian girls between 14 and 18 years old are more than four times as likely as boys to commence taking PBS subsidised testosterone. Young Australian women aged between 19 and 23 are nine times as likely to be starting taxpayer subsidised testosterone as men in the same age bracket. Remember that this is just a small segment of the total number of girls and young women being put on testosterone by doctors, because many others will go through private prescriptions or other sources.

Why is this a problem? A recent study of young females taking testosterone for gender affirmation found that 95 per cent had developed pelvic floor dysfunction. The experts said the impact of the drugs were 'underresearched and underreported'. The systematic evidence review undertaken as part of the Cass review concluded:

There is a lack of high-quality research assessing the outcomes of hormone interventions in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria/incongruence, and few studies that undertake long-term follow-up … Uncertainty remains about the outcomes for height/growth, cardiometabolic and bone health.

Let's turn to a fact sheet from the Endocrine Society of Australia. It says:

The long-term effects of testosterone … are not fully understood.

There may be an increase in risk of heart … problems.

…   …   …

Some trans men on testosterone therapy develop pelvic pain, which is currently not fully understood.

The effects on the risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer is also not fully understood.

These are quotes not from an organisation which is warning against prescribing pharmaceuticals with unknown long-term effects to young women and girls but actually from one which is actively promoting it. These quotes are directly from an Endocrine Society of Australia fact sheet titled 'Masculinising hormone therapy for gender transition'.

The very same fact sheet says this about how to access taxpayer subsidised testosterone for gender transition:

Different formulations of testosterone are PBS listed (making them cheaper to purchase). These can be obtained by using the approved indication 'androgen deficiency due to established testicular disorder' …

Why is a medical group advising that females can be listed by their doctor as having a testicular disorder despite the fact that we all know females don't have testicles? Why are they doing so in a document that is not about testicular disorder but specifically about gender transition drugs and how to get them? It's because, under PBS rules, it is not permitted to prescribe taxpayer subsidised testosterone for gender affirmation.

In order to do it they need to find a loophole, and the loophole they have found and are promoting is that doctors can say that female patients have testicles. In Australia and around the world we have already seen many young women who came into the gender medicine industry as children and left it with devastating permanent and irreversible consequences. How are we going to look back at this period of medicine when we had doctors putting female patients down as having testicular disorders in order to get taxpayers to subsidise a drug which they knew was not proven to be safe? It's no wonder that Labor governments and activists around the country are so desperate to avoid an independent expert inquiry into— (Time expired)