Dear Member of Tasmania Parliament,
We would like to congratulate you on your success at the recent election and to wish you well as you assume your seat in the Tasmanian Parliament.
We would like to alert you to a very important piece of legislation that will be coming up for debate in the near future, namely The Justice Miscellaneous (Conversion Practices) Bill 2024.
Although some members of parliament might support this bill, it has proven to be very contentious and should not be passed in its current form.
This bill would have the effect of putting in place what is sometimes called ‘modern conversion therapy.’ This is the process whereby confused children who are suffering from gender dysphoria are affirmed in whatever they say about their gender and led down a path to puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.
This is the affirmative model of gender care which has been discredited in many countries including England, Sweden, Norway and Finland. As the Cass Reviews mentions “The intent of psychological intervention is to help alleviate their distress regarding gender, regardless of whether they pursue a medical pathway or not”.
These countries have banned puberty blockers for minors due to the dire effects of these powerful drugs which include infertility, osteoporosis, loss of sexual function, cognitive impairment and depression.These confused children will, in the majority of cases, grow up to be gay. During the original Dutch study in 2011 (de Vries et al, 2011b) 89% of the young study population were same-sex attracted. Other studies put this population around 68%.
As pointed out before, the ban on conversion therapy for gender confused children is in effect a ban on them receiving the full range of care that psychologists and other health professionals could provide to support them through their distress and instead leads them down the pathway to transgender medicalization.
The guidelines for this care that are used in Australia come from organizations that have been exposed as unfit to provide such guidelines and yet our organizations in Australia, including Equality Tasmania, are ignoring the developments happening overseas and failing our children.
We would be keen to meet with you to supply you with the information we have that will help you become fully informed of the ramifications of the Bill to ban conversion therapy. This bill is not in the best interests of Tasmanian children and we urge you to give it your immediate attention.
Looking forward to being of assistance to you in this matter,
Kind regards,
Women Speak Tasmania Representative