Channel 7 Promotes Medical Misinformation in Program Attacking Healthcare for Trans People
By Elio Wilder (they/them)
Content Warning: This article contains extensive discussions of transphobia and mentions of misogyny, racism, coerced sterilisation, anti-choice beliefs, ableism, mental ill-health, and suicide
"It turns out that when the media want to talk about trans issues, they want to talk about their issues with us, not the challenges facing us."1 - Shon Faye, 2022, The Transgender Issue
On September 3rd, 2023, Channel 7 aired an episode of Spotlight titled, “The Gender Agenda: De-transitioning”. The segment featured interviews with exclusively cisgendered people, and platformed provably false, misleading, and harmful information regarding trans healthcare. Anti-trans arguments are “strangers to research – precisely because, exposed to research, their assertions evaporate.”2 – Shon Faye, 2022. The purpose of the program was to contribute to the moral panic regarding the rights of transgender people, primarily by over-exaggerating the rate of regret after medically transitioning. In this article, I quote and correct the most egregious examples of misinformation featured in the program.
Why are people transphobic?
As philosopher Robin Dembroff explains, patriarchy relies on humanity being split by physical characteristics into an immutable male/female binary. By establishing this binary as externally verifiable and totally fixed, patriarchy asserts that the subjugation of women is biological, natural, and therefore justifiable and cannot be overcome.3 Trans people contradict the immutability of this binary. Thus, the existence of trans people is a threat to those who seek to uphold patriarchy.
Transphobic ideology also shows many similarities to the arguments and tools used by racist movements, such as belief in eugenics and bioessentialism,4 paternalism, coerced sterlisation,5 and segregation.6
It is no surprise then that mainstream media, which is notoriously owned and controlled by a small group of overwhelmingly white cisgendered men, platforms anti-trans ideology.
Quotes from extended interview between Channel 7 journalist Liam Bartlett and Psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer with annotations
Bartlett: this affirmation model…so if a child comes in and presents with gender dysphoria, regardless of the mental state of that child, the hospital and the gender clinic just goes along with what the child wants?
Spencer: yes
According to the Australian organisation, Trans Hub, “The 'Gender Affirming' model of healthcare is about recognising and acknowledging that trans people tell the truth about who we are. Unfortunately, this approach to care is sometimes wilfully misconstrued as meaning an immediate race to hormones and surgery for all trans people, particularly young people. The reality is very different though with many trans people reporting significant barriers to accessing this medically necessary healthcare.”7
Bartlett: …if a child was presenting with gender dysphoria, you were, no questions asked really, (directed by the hospital to) send them straight to the gender clinic?
Spencer: yes
Bartlett: …how do you know if you were sending the right kids on what is an irreversible journey?
Spencer: no one can know
Being referred to a gender clinic is categorically not the start of “an irreversible journey”. It is a referral for a doctor’s appointment which may or may not lead to medical transition. The Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines: For trans and gender diverse children and adolescents provides extensive guidance to healthcare professionals in determining appropriate care.8
The role of the gender clinic is to work with each patient to provide appropriate and tailored healthcare. Dr Spencer was advised by the hospital to refer to the medical professionals at the gender clinic as they have additional training and expertise. It is standard practice in healthcare to refer patients to specialists that correspond with their needs.
Bartlett: But if they keep going, and they go to the gender clinics and they start to have body parts cut off, they're never going to recover
Spencer: it's an absolute disaster
The premise of the ‘protect the children’ argument is that “being trans is always considered an undesirable - if sometimes tolerable – outcome for a human being. Certain unfortunate individuals may wish to transition as adults, such a belief goes, but innocent children risk being too easily encouraged into this potential disaster and will grow up with bitter regret at what has happened to them. The irony of this prejudice is self-evident: it utterly disregards the harm involved in not supporting a trans child who is certain of their identity and vocalizes it”.9 – Shon Faye, 2022
This quote is also an example of how transphobes infantilise trans men of all ages and utilise emotive body horror language in their arguments. Ultimately, they “care more about the sexist ideal of the perfect untouched female form, than about the people whose bodies they actually are”.10 – Jay Hulme, 2019
Bartlett’s use of the word “recover” is ironic. The medical condition diagnosed as ‘gender dysphoria’ is treated through medical and/or social transition. Transition is recovery for trans people. “People with gender dysphoria need to get gender affirming care”.11 – Healthdirect.gov.au, 2022
Finally, gender affirming surgeries, such as a mastectomy, are not available in public hospitals in Australia. Both ‘bilateral mastectomy’ and ‘gender affirming surgery’ are listed on the NSW Health Elective Surgery restricted list, meaning they are only permitted to reduce the risk of/treat cancer or to address “congenital abnormalities in children”.12 Outside of that, gender-affirming surgery is only performed privately in Australia, at the discretion of private surgeons. The most common gender-affirming surgical procedure, a double mastectomy known as ‘top surgery’, typically costs $11000-15000. The Australian government criteria for surgery states patients need to “be over the age of 16 for top surgery, or 18 for bottom surgery. Some surgeons will provide surgery to younger people in very specific situations”.13
Bartlett: …you've been labelled transphobic, how do you relate to that?
Spencer: I see this as a really serious Child Protection issue…we don't want them to have regrets and serious health problems
In Australia, healthcare is provided to children with parental consent. This consent is not required if the minor is assessed as being Gillick competent, known as a ‘Mature Minor’. However, trans children are not extended this same autonomy. Even if a child/young person is Gillick competent, all parties with parental responsibility must consent to gender-affirming treatment before it can begin. In other words, gender-affirming care is the least accessible form of healthcare to children in Australia.14
This ideology also mirrors misogynistic anti-choice arguments.15 “Access to abortion and access to trans healthcare are often attacked in similar ways: principally by overstating the incidence and likelihood of regretting either process, and an intense, disproportionate focus in the media on stories of individuals who do regret their personal choices, as a way to undermine the principle of choice generally”.16 – Shon Faye, 2022.
Studies have reported between 1-8% of trans people detransition, meaning they took steps to halt or reverse medical and/or social transition. The main sighted reason for detransition is social pressure. In other words, the vast majority of “detransitioners” are trans people who have temporarily altered the path of their transition. Only 0.4% of people, who at one time considered themselves trans, detransitioned because they felt the transition was not right for them. The remaining 99.6% of this group still consider themselves trans.17
A review of 889 studies on surgical regret across general surgery found that “self-reported decisional regret was present in about 1 in 7 surgical patients” (14.4%).18 A review of 7 studies on regret after gender-affirming surgery, found that 1% of 7928 participants regretted their gender-affirming surgery.19 Where reason for regret was reported, many cited social difficulties or physical, functional, or aesthetic reasons.
Dr Spencer fails to provide evidence for her claim that gender-affirming care causes “serious health problems”.
Spencer: we're seeing very poor quality studies being published and the conclusions drawn by their activist researchers are often the exact opposite of what the study has found
Once again, no evidence is cited to support this claim.
Spencer: (In reference to a trans child experiencing dysphoria) we want to do everything we can to support you through it… we’re going to continue to use your biological name and pronouns
What the heck is a “biological” name? Dr Spencer’s idea of “everything we can” does not include using words to address someone which make them comfortable.
Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
Quotes from interview between Channel 7 journalist Liam Bartlett and Paediatrician Dr Dylan Wilson with annotations
Bartlett: what do you think is the main cause of gender dysphoria?
Wilson: I believe there's a genuine group of children, a small cohort of children, who for reasons that aren't clear have a significant distress around the sex of their body and then there are another group of children who more recently have become entangled in the ideas around gender… in conjunction with overarching issues of mental health disorders, anxiety, depression, trauma, autism, and confusion around their sexual orientation…regardless of that there's no children I think who would benefit from blocking their puberty
Wilson begins by acknowledging trans people are real. But goes on to undermine the autonomy of people who’ve experienced mental illness, those with autism, and queer people broadly. This echoes historical rhetoric which has pathologized the experiences of queer and trans people.20 It is also condescending and ableist towards people with mental illness and those who are neurodivergent, undermining their right to self-determination. “Capacity or lack of capacity should not be assumed on the basis of a patient’s diagnosis or condition”.21 – NSW Health
Wilson is entirely against puberty blockers, contrary to medical consensus that puberty blockers are a safe and effective form of gender-affirming care. 22 Puberty blockers were developed to treat precocious (early-onset) puberty. They are still used for this purpose today as well as in the treatment of gender dysphoria in trans children. “GnRH analogues (puberty blockers) don't cause permanent physical changes. Instead, they pause puberty. That offers a chance to explore gender identity. It also gives youth and their families time to plan for the psychological, medical, developmental, social and legal issues that may lie ahead. Delaying puberty may: improve mental well-being, ease depression and anxiety, improve social interactions with others, lower the need for future surgeries and ease thoughts or actions of self-harm”.23 – Mayo Clinic, 2023
Wilson: I think social media and social contagion is definitely something that needs to be explored, the fact that there's been no academic interest in that
Gender is not a contagion. A man cannot ‘catch’ being a woman. Just like someone cannot be ‘turned’ gay. Gender, like sexuality, is innate.
A 2022 journal article published in Paediatrics found no evidence to support the ‘social contagion’ suggestion.24
Wilson: I don't think any child should have their breasts removed in order to satisfy their dislike of their body
Once again, transphobes “care more about the sexist ideal of the perfect untouched female form, than about the people whose bodies they actually are”.25 – Jay Hulme, 2019
See earlier points about the barriers to accessing gender-affirming surgery.
Wilson: it's not possible to be the opposite sex, no human can change sex
This is a conversation concerning linguistics and semantics. This is not a reason to deny gender-affirming care.
See the points in my introduction about patriarchy’s dependence on an immutable gender binary.
Wilson: I don't know how the consultations (at the gender clinic) go…
Dr Wilson admits his entire argument is based on his personal ideology, not his lived experience.
Wilson: there's a lot of autonomy placed on the self-declaration of children and they can be children as young as five to ten years of age declaring ‘this is who I am’ and ‘this is who I want to be for the rest of my life’ and the doctors at the Children's Hospital saying okay that's good enough for us
As Dr Wilson just stated, he doesn’t know how the consultations go so it is unsurprising that he is misinformed. The earliest form of gender-affirming medical care is puberty blockers which can be started around the beginning of puberty. So, there is little scope for doctors providing physical gender-affirming care to children under 10. Transition for children is primarily social, such as changing their name, pronouns, and style.
Wilson: what the treatment is causing for children, the lack of any discussion around sexual function and fertility about what that does to children in the long term
Puberty blockers, as previously cited, do not cause permanent physical changes. They do not irreversibly prevent sexual maturation.
An individual may choose to undergo a treatment with a sterilising side-effect as an adult. Informed consent is legally and ethically mandatory for this to take place. Trans people may choose to explore ovum/sperm freezing.
In NSW, sterilisation may not be performed on a child under 16 without an order from the Guardianship Tribunal, unless it is performed to remediate a life-threatening condition. All Australian states and territories follow this general position.26
The prioritisation of reproductive capacity over an individual’s health echoes misogynistic arguments used to limit the autonomy of women and people with uteruses.27
Wilson: it's clear to me that a referral to the gender clinic is a referral to commence medical treatment it's not a referral to have an assessment to consider what's really going on with the child to fully explore why the child is expressing this view. it's a referral to start the treatment
This is conjecture. As Wilson stated a few minutes previously, “I don't know how the consultations go…”
Bartlett: do you believe that when children go through that process they are surgically mutilated?
Wilson: I believe they are chemically mutilated initially chemical castration is what puberty blockers are, it switches off the normal development of the gonads, that is chemical castration. I believe mutilation is a powerful word, but I cannot think of any better word to describe the removal of healthy breast tissue in girls as young as 15 in Australia.
See previous notes about body horror language, misogynistic obsession with the untouched female form, what puberty blockers actually do, and barriers to gender-affirming surgery, age, and consent requirements.
Watching two grown men confer that they are upset by the loss of a pair of breasts on a teenager is utterly repulsive.
Quotes from interview with Victorian MP David Limbrick with annotations
Bartlett: It’s illegal here in Victoria for the school not to agree with the child, what sort of craziness is that?
Limbrick: no one is really allowed to say “oh hold up a minute”, you know, the teachers can’t, the psychologists can’t, the doctors can’t, they all just have to basically affirm whatever the child says
In reality, under Victorian law, “people under the age of 18 can only access gender-affirming medical treatment with consent from their parents or carers, or, failing that, by seeking a court order. However, students can socially transition at school without parental consent if they are deemed a mature minor”.28 – RMIT University, 2022. The opinion of a teacher does not have bearing on a child’s identity. As for healthcare staff, see earlier points regarding the guidelines for providing gender-affirming care and the barriers to accessing this.
Limbrick: …no children should be socially transitioning in schools without their parents' knowledge and consent
In Limbrick’s ideal world, teachers would be forced to use the incorrect name and pronouns for trans children with unsupportive parents. It would also mean teachers would be unable to intervene in bullying involving name-calling using a student’s deadname. This would create a psychologically unsafe environment, which is damaging to a child’s development.29
Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash
Won’t somebody save the children! And also the adults?
The program also featured the voice of an anonymous parent stating “She started taking testosterone at 18, I only found out 6 months later when her voice dropped.”
Probable misgendering aside, the program suggests the viewer empathise with a parent who is concerned that their adult child has medical autonomy.
Another interviewee, Mel Jeffries, was a cisgender woman who chose to transition to a man as an adult before deciding it wasn’t for her. She is of the stance that gender-affirming care should be less accessible to adults.
The program takes the dangerous viewpoint that ‘children are too young’ and need to be protected from accessing gender-affirming medical care and social support. However, the above statements go beyond this, additionally questioning the bodily autonomy of adults.
The worst-case health outcome of denying gender-affirming care is death
One of the interviewees was Joan, the mother of a trans man who is not named in the program. After failing to support her son emotionally or medically, he was admitted to hospital due to suicidality at 17.
Joan: All the (hospital) staff were telling us that this was now our son and we had to accept this, and ‘would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?’
It seems Joan and her husband chose ‘dead daughter’ as they misgender their son throughout the interview. Presumably the family has become estranged as a result of their inability to support their now adult child.
The consequence of transphobia, as the hospital staff state, is death. “More than half of trans men reported having attempted suicide in their lifetimes (53%)”30 – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2022. Noah O’Brien was 14 years old when he killed himself whilst on the waitlist to receive gender-affirming care at Westmead Hospital in Sydney.31
Ignoring evidence case-in-point
Professor Ian Hickie was the only pro-medical-consensus interviewee who appeared in the program. He was unsurprisingly also the most medically qualified of the interviewees (AM MD FRANZCP FASSA FAHM FRSN). He was also the only interviewee who Bartlett interrupted (which he did consistently). Professor Hickie presented many of the same facts as I have cited here and called out the misleading information that Bartlett was pushing. When Professor Hickie presented evidence-based responses to Bartlett’s inflammatory questioning, Bartlett resorted to yelling over him. Professor Hickie directed Bartlett to refer to the College of Physicians, the Australian Medical Association, and the College of Psychiatrists, who all share Professor Hickie’s position. Channel 7, of course, did not refer to any of these respected medical organisations “precisely because, exposed to research, their assertions evaporate”.32
A few final points
The program features American anti-gender-affirming-care activist, Chloe Cole. Her segment focuses on her regret over her decision to get a double mastectomy at age 15. It omits the fact that her surgery took place in the United States and that this rarely happens in Australia.33
At one point Bartlett tells us there are just 7 state-run gender-affirming care facilities for children in Australia, and one in Newcastle has 95 patients taking puberty blockers. He describes this number as “concerning”. There are over 1.8 million children in New South Wales.34 95 is less than 0.005% of 1.6 million. Around 5% of young adults are transgender or non-binary.35 This would suggest that this facility is under-utilised.
Bartlett comments that Perth Children’s Hospital, Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Westmead Hospital Syndey, and the Brisbane Children’s Hospital declined to comment on how they “make their life altering decisions”. Meaning how they ‘verify’ whether someone is transgender, which is problematic in itself. It makes one wonder if, prior to the 2019 law change allowing reason-free abortions in NSW, Bartlett may have spent his days asking hospitals how they verified a patient’s reason for terminating.
The only clips featuring actual trans people were taken from social media without the featured creators consent. This was used to tout the baseless argument that transgender people are a social contagion. Grace Hyland (grace.hylandd), Tomi Jolee (@tomi_jolee), Olivia G (@stsouthmusic), and Levi Ace Day (@chaotic.good.bad) are all actual trans people who have posted videos expressing their disapproval regarding their images being used without their consent in a piece on “detransitioning”. Olivia has created a petition to have the Spotlight segment removed which currently has over 45 000 signatures. You can sign here: https://www.change.org/p/channel-7-stop-using-our-videos-without-consent-remove-harmful-de-transitioning-segment
At least two people whose videos were taken out of context and featured without their consent now have their tiktok accounts switched to private. These being Dakota Danger (@dakota.danger) and Kyle-Tyler (@cheese.named.kyle).
In conclusion, the program vilifies trans healthcare and contributes to the moral panic around trans people. It ignores medical consensus and argues that gender-affirming care, which is already abnormally inaccessible, should be made even less accessible. It contains interviews and opinions of exclusively cisgendered people. It fuels the hostile social conditions that contribute to the appalling suicide attempt rate amongst transgender people. It goes far beyond caring about the small number of people who medically transition then change their minds, and descends into a malicious misinformation campaign attacking healthcare for trans people. Ultimately, the position of the program fundamentally undermines the autonomy of trans people and our right to be treated as fully human, making it nothing short of transphobic propaganda.
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
Header image credit: Photo by Mercedes Mehling on Unsplash
References:
1 Faye, S. (2022) The transgender issue: An argument for justice. Harlow, England: Penguin Books.
2 See 1
3 Dembroff, R. (2023) Real men on top: How patriarchy weaponizes gender. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
4 Radi, B. (2020) “Reproductive injustice, trans rights, and eugenics,” National Library of Medicine. doi: 10.1080/26410397.2020.1824318.
5 Open Society Foundations (2015) License To Be Yourself: Forced Sterilization. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/forced-sterilization.
6 Dunne, P. and Sharpe, A. (2019) Gym Use and Changing Rooms: the illegality and chilling effect of (trans)gender segregation, Oxford Human Rights Hub. Available at: https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/gym-use-and-changing-rooms-the-illegality-and-chilling-effect-of-transgender-segregation/
7 What is gender affirmation? (2021) TransHub. Available at: https://www.transhub.org.au/101/gender-affirmation
8 The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and Telfer, M.M., Tollit, M.A., Pace, C.C., & Pang, K.C. (2018) Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines For trans and gender diverse children and adolescents. Available at: https://www.hnekidshealth.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/418996/2057308.pdf.
9 See 1
10 Hulme, J. (2019) Transphobes and trans men, Jay Hulme. Available at: https://jayhulme.com/blog/transmen
11 Healthdirect Australia (2022) Gender incongruence, healthdirect.gov.au. Available at: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/gender-incongruence
12 NSW Government (2022) Elective Surgery Access, NSW Health. Available at: https://www1.health.nsw.gov.au/pds/ActivePDSDocuments/PD2022_001.pdf
13 Healthdirect Australia (2022) Gender confirmation surgery, healthdirect.gov.au. Available at: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/gender-affirming-surgery
14 Ouliaris, C. (2022) “Consent for treatment of gender dysphoria in minors: evolving clinical and legal frameworks,” The Medical journal of Australia, 216(5), pp. 230–233. doi: 10.5694/mja2.51357.
15 Raman, S. (2023) Conservatives use abortion strategies in fight over trans care, Roll Call. Available at: https://rollcall.com/2023/02/16/conservatives-use-abortion-strategies-in-fight-over-trans-care/
16See1
17GenderGP (2021) Detransition Facts and statistics 2022: Exploding the myths around detransitioning, gendergp.com. Available at: https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/
18Wilson, A., Ronnekleiv-Kelly, S. M. and Pawlik, T. M. (2017) “Regret in surgical decision making: A systematic review of patient and physician perspectives,” World journal of surgery, 41(6), pp. 1454–1465. doi: 10.1007/s00268-017-3895-9.
19 Bustos, V. P. et al. (2021) “Regret after gender-affirmation surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence,” Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open, 9(3), p. e3477. doi: 10.1097/gox.0000000000003477.
Bustos, V. P. et al. (2022) “Regret after gender-affirmation surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence—erratum” Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open, 10(4), p. e4340. doi: 10.1097/gox.0000000000004340.
20 United Nations Human Rights (2016) “Pathologization – Being lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or trans is not an illness,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2016/05/pathologization-being-lesbian-gay-bisexual-andor-trans-not-illness
21 NSW Health (2020) Consent to Medical and Healthcare Treatment Manual. NSW Government. Available at: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/manuals/Publications/consent-manual.pdf
22 Guss, C. and Gordon, C. M. (2022) “Pubertal blockade and subsequent gender-affirming therapy,” JAMA network open, 5(11), p. e2239763. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.39763.
23 Mayo Clinic Staff (2023) Puberty blockers for transgender and gender-diverse youth, Mayo Clinic. Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075
24 Jenco, M. (2022) Study finds no evidence of social contagion among transgender youths, American Academy of Pediatrics. Available at: https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/21888/Study-finds-no-evidence-of-social-contagion-among
25 See 10
26 NSW Health (2014) Youth Health Resource Kit, health.nsw.gov.au. Available at: https://www.slhd.nsw.gov.au/Concord/ethics%5Ccontent/pdf/youth-health-resource-kit-sect-3-chap-5.pdf
27See 15
28Jeffery, E. (2022) Anti-trans group raises false alarm on Victorian policy for gender diverse students, RMIT University. Available at: https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/factlab-meta/anti-trans-group-raises-false-alarm-on-victorian-policy-for-gend
29Kristina R. Olson, PhD,corresponding author Lily Durwood, BA, Madeleine DeMeules, BA, and Katie A. McLaughlin (2016) “Mental Health of Transgender Children Who Are Supported in Their Identities,” Pediatrics. doi: 10.1542/peds.2015-3223.
30 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2022) LGBTIQ+ Australians: suicidal thoughts and behaviours and self-harm, aihw.gov.au. Available at: https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/suicidal-and-self-harming-thoughts-and-behaviours
31 Karvelas, P., Robinson, L. and Hildebrandt, C. (2023) “Controversial research pulls Westmead children’s hospital into centre of fight over gender care,” ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-10/transgender-children-westmead-hospital-research-four-corners/102568570
32See1
33See 14
34 Australian Bureau of Statistics (2022) Population, Australian Bureau of Statistics. Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population
35 Brown, A. (2022) About 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth, Pew Research Center. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/