Letter sent to Tasmania Health Minister Bridget Archer on 22 August 2025
Dear Minister Bridget Archer,
Re: Government Sponsorship of the Australian Professional Association of Trans Health National Conference – Hobart 27-29 November 2025
We are writing to you to raise our serious concerns regarding the Sponsorship of the upcoming Australian Professional Association of Trans Health (AUSPATH) being held in Hobart from the 27-29 November by the Tasmanian Department of Health.
We want to highlight numerous concerns:
The AUSPATH Conference Pathways to Equity: Transforming Gender-Affirming Care in Australia is being promoted with the following:
“The landscape of gender-affirming care is shifting rapidly, with growing resistance and coordinated attacks threatening both the care of trans people and their fundamental rights. Pathways to Equity: Transforming Gender-Affirming Care in Australia is a call to action for professionals, community members, and allies to strategise, innovate, and strengthen our collective response. How do we push back against misinformation and hostility while driving meaningful improvements in care? What opportunities exist for us to advance the field in ways that create lasting, equitable change? Join us in Hobart from 27–29 November 2025 as we chart the future of gender-affirming care in Australia and beyond.
It is clear from this framing that the conference is driven primarily by an activist agenda—“to push back”—rather than by a professional agenda focused on evaluating emerging international evidence on gender-affirming medical treatments (GAMT).
This sits uneasily with the position outlined by former Minister for Health Guy Barnett, who, on behalf of your Government, wrote to Federal Minister for Health Mark Butler on 31 May 2024 following the release of the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (the Cass Review) commissioned by the UK National Health Service:
“While I note there are some differences in the service systems and approaches between Australia and the United Kingdom, I believe the findings and recommendations of the Cass Review provide an important opportunity for Australia to consider the public gender services that are being provided across the country.
It is highly important to ensure these services are truly multidisciplinary and holistic, have rigorous patient safety and clinical governance measures in place, and prioritise the health and wellbeing of the children and young people who are accessing them.
As such, I ask the Commonwealth Government to consider undertaking a national review of public gender services to consider all available evidence and ensure these services are best practice and that patient safety and wellbeing is paramount.”
This letter made clear that the Tasmanian Government recognised the importance of a cautious, evidence-based approach that prioritises patient safety and rigorous clinical standards. Sponsoring a conference framed around activism rather than medical evidence appears inconsistent with that position.
Guy Barnett was the first Health Minister in Australia to call for such a review—much to his credit, and to that of your Government.
On 28 January 2025, the Queensland Government followed suit, announcing its own inquiry: the Independent Review of Stage 1 and Stage 2 Hormone Therapies in Queensland’s Public Paediatric Gender Services, which is due to report by 30 November 2025.
https://www.health.qld.gov.au/research-reports/reports/review-investigation/hormone-therapies-review
In late January 2025, shortly before the Federal election, Federal Health Minister Mark Butler announced a national review of the medical guidelines for gender-affirming treatments for young people. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has been tasked with developing new guidelines to provide evidence-based care and build community confidence. Interim advice is expected in mid-2026, with the final report due in early 2028.
As Minister for Health, you will no doubt share concern that your Department is sponsoring a conference explicitly framed around “pushing back” against the very actions taken by your own former Health Minister, as well as by the Queensland and Federal Governments. Even more troubling is that AUSPATH is publicly promoting the Tasmanian Health Service as a Gold Sponsor of this activist-driven event.
It is widely recognised that AUSPATH is not, in fact, a professional association. A recent article published in Australasian Psychiatry (2025, Vol. 33(2), pp. 273–277) reached damning conclusions regarding its role and influence:
As a consequence of a membership policy which admits members with lived experience as health experts, AusPATH functions as an activist organisation whilst claiming to be a professional association. There is no accreditation or endorsement underpinning AusPATH’s influence on health policy in Australia. Its role as an activist organisation is demonstrated by a lack of caution in its position statements, which are misleading in circumstances where accurate information has been long available. The considerable influence of AusPATH on health policy in Australia needs to be reconsidered, as well as RANZCP Position Statement 62 which provides insufficient guidance upon balancing research and clinical knowledge, as well as medical ethics, with voices of lived experience.
The paper goes further, observing that:
AusPATH claims to be experts, but their membership consists of whomever wishes to join as a clinician or transgender activist. This approach aligns with RANZCP Position Statement 62: ‘Partnering with people with lived experience’ which acknowledges:
‘Engagement with people who have lived experience in all aspects of mental healthcare has had transformative effects on service delivery and models of care.’
We have recently become aware of correspondence sent by the Tasmania Health Service to General Practitioners in the North and North West of the state, inviting them to apply for sponsorship to attend the upcoming AUSPATH conference. The Department advised that sponsorship would cover conference fees for three GPs from these regions.
Further, on Thursday 21 August 2025, The Australian published an article raising serious concerns about AUSPATH’s eligibility for charity status. The article reported that AUSPATH may “fail the public benefit requirement imposed on Australian charities because the proven detriment to the public in carrying out its objectives outweighs any of its benefits.”
The report noted that former Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) head and former federal minister Gary Johns, commissioned by the Australian Medical Professionals Society and the Nurses Professional Association of Australia (together representing approximately 16,000 members), has lodged a formal complaint with the ACNC.
In a 30-page submission, Dr Johns argued that in promoting and advocating for the Australian Informed Consent Standards of Care for Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy, AUSPATH “fails the public benefit requirement imposed on Australian charities because the proven detriment to the public in carrying out its objectives outweighs any of its benefits.” The article further reported that AUSPATH has disregarded the findings of the internationally significant Cass Review, instead continuing to align with the discredited guidelines of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
In light of these developments, Women Speak Tasmania respectfully requests that, as Minister for Health, you urgently investigate the matters we have raised, and that your Government review its relationship with AUSPATH. In particular, we call on you to withdraw Department of Health sponsorship of General Practitioners to attend the AUSPATH conference.
At a time when Tasmania’s public health services are under immense pressure, it is neither appropriate nor responsible for government resources to be allocated to the endorsement of an activist organisation whose stated aim is to “push back” against legitimate government inquiries into medical safety.
We look forward to your considered response.
Kind regards,
Dr. Elizabeth Caballero (retired GP)
cc: Hon. Guy Barnett
cc: Hon. Eric Abetz
Response from the Tasmanian Department of Health on 20 September 2025
