In the wake of Channel 7’s shocking Spotlight investigation on Sunday 3 September 2023 into the transgender epidemic, join me as I talk to a mother who has successfully fought the BigPharma gender cult to protect her two daughters.
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Listen to this brave young woman who has come forward to talk about her firsthand experience of one of the biggest medical scandals in human history.
Ideological gender affirming “care” is not caring. It’s not compassionate.
This barbaric pseudoscience doesn’t answer the mental health needs of young people today. In fact, it does the opposite.
Although we know statistics show that suicide in teens confused about gender is elevated, it is far higher in those who’ve transitioned.
The “fix” makes it worse.
Puberty is a rite of passage to adulthood, not a disease to be mitigated. It’s hard enough without wealthy doctors preying on the insecurities of pre-teens.
In her own words: Stop telling 12 year olds they were born in the wrong body.
The left are trying to cause fake outrage with an edited video of me quoting the bible in a speech, falsely claiming I’ve called for the execution of trans people. It’s absurd, given I’ve already talked about trans people I call my friends.
As Labor tries to implement its new “ministry of truth” against misinformation, you can bet the wave of victimhood claims will drown out any of the real truth.
Voltaire said “Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”
Medically transitioning children is experimental. Long term benefits are not clear and detriments are mounting. Our children are not fodder for experimentation and advancing research outcomes for the medical profession.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I’m speaking to the answers Minister Gallagher provided—or, rather, failed to provide—to my questions on gender dysphoria treatment.
In avoiding the answer to my questions, the minister tried weakly to say, ‘Nothing to see here.’ Yet the world is waking up to the profoundly inhuman medical and psychological harms that children with gender dysphoria are experiencing when referred to gender clinics. The international trend is moving away from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children under 18 years. Britain’s infamous—and the world’s largest—gender clinic, Tavistock, is now closing, following a review that found it failed vulnerable under 18s: it failed vulnerable under 18s! It follows the clinics in Finland, Sweden and France suspending the availability of puberty blockers and sex hormones to children unless under strict clinical trials.
How did we get to this place, where the power of ideology and trans activism is greater than the rightful duty and obligations of parents, and of the medical and legal professions to provide whole-of-person care for children with gender dysphoria? This woke ideological movement is suffering binary dysphoria. Apparently, for some, a binary world is not sufficiently colourful. Some parents are now forced to abrogate their parental responsibility to the power of the medical state. Fundamental facts are being ignored about children and child development. Fact: contrary to some views, sex is assigned at conception—not birth. We all know that adolescence is a highly challenging time, marked with a preoccupation of the discovery of self. It’s okay that a percentage of both genders don’t conform to traditional stereotypes. This doesn’t need correcting through irreversible medical treatments.
Ideologically-driven activists have intimidated the medical profession into silence and compliance with the affirmation model rather than making a stand for our children who are in distress during adolescence and who need holistic or whole-of-person care. When puberty blockers are administered we know, firstly, that a child cannot develop fertility—the latter stages of puberty do that—and, secondly, that they will not have full sexual function. Essentially, this child’s body becomes frozen in the early stages of puberty, with testosterone or oestrogen treatment adulterating the child and committing the child to a lifetime of hormones and drugs. It’s unknown what effect puberty blockers have on brain development, and only now is The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne conducting research in this area. Too bad for all those children who have already passed through, and those currently receiving treatment. Endocrinologists traditionally treated diseases, yet in gender clinics they take perfectly healthy children with no diseases and inject them with puberty blockers to suppress normal hormone levels to treat, not an endocrine disease but the mental distress the child is experiencing.
How has this gone unchecked for so long? Why are these medical professionals not subject to disciplinary action for deliberately harming our children? What are governments doing while this is going on? Endocrinologists know the importance of puberty to the full development of a healthy human being. Today gender clinics give medical professionals a licence to offer up puberty as an option to children. The transgender lens has compromised the full care of our children. Gender clinics in Australia need to close and follow the lead of the Tavistock clinic in anchoring whole-person-care back to localised clinics within the mental health system.
Our children are making decisions that they can’t possibly understand—decisions with lifelong consequences. They are being sterilised and denied full sexual function, and their brain development is likely compromised. They are being made sick when they’re not physically sick. They are being denied the therapeutic support they need to help them with their distress. Instead of asking why there has been an explosion of girls presenting with gender dysphoria in Western countries, the medical profession has bowed down to the trans activists and grabbed the opportunity to create profits and research outcomes at the expense of our children—inhuman!
Adults in Australia’s gender clinics must not be allowed to hide behind a statement of operating to the standards of care. There is no care when the medical profession does not fully deal with the mental health issues that children are experiencing. There is no care when the medical professional takes physically healthy children and sends them on a pathway of drugs, infertility and arrested physical, sexual and neurological development for the rest of their lives. There is no care when state government legislation denies parents their rightful place in support of their children in distress. Our children are not fodder for experimentation and advancing research outcomes for the medical profession. Our children are not profit centres for pharmaceutical companies.
We are one community, we are one nation and this child abuse must stop now.
Australian gender clinics are under fresh scrutiny and face calls for an independent review of their prescription of puberty blockers to teenagers after British clinic Tavistock was closed down over safety concerns. Further coverage in The Australian: ‘Calls to review transgender treatment for kids after British Tavistock Clinic is closed’ (paywall).
The Labor Government is either ignorant or negligent in not intervening in these practices in Australia.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:32): My question is to Senator Gallagher, representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care. The Tavistock gender clinic in the UK, a leading provider of gender dysphoria services, will close in 2023. Britain’s National Health Service asked Dr Hilary Cass, past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to review the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. The Cass review found that Tavistock gender clinic has failed vulnerable children, and it recommended closing Tavistock. Finland, France and Sweden have taken the same decision for their gender clinics. Here in Australia, Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has many links with Tavistock. Minister, will you review Australia’s gender clinics to ensure that these clinics are not causing the same harm to vulnerable children that the Cass review found at Tavistock?
Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:33): As the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care, if there is further information I can provide after question time, I will do so. I would say that the Royal Children’s Hospital has an excellent reputation in paediatric care in Australia. It is staffed by world-renowned medical professionals providing first-rate care to younger citizens in the state and also around the country. I don’t have close knowledge of the services they would provide to children with gender dysphoria, but I have no doubt that they have the professional standards and the professional skills that are required to provide those young people and their families with first-level advice and health care. We have no information available to the government, to my knowledge, that we should see it any differently to that—that is, that where there are children who require health services they access them through a children’s hospital; that those services are accredited, there are professional standards in place and there are appropriate ethics and various advisory bodies that inform the delivery of those services; and that if there are concerns around them they are dealt with through the appropriate channels—not necessarily by politicians, who have particular views about certain things, but actually through the delivery of health services—as we do in a whole range of other areas of paediatric care.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:35): So you can’t say whether you will review? Evidence shows that the use of puberty blockers sterilises children, and the impact on brain development is unknown. The Royal Children’s Hospital is currently studying the impact of puberty blockers on children. We are literally offering a treatment we do not know is safe. Minister, when will the Australian government intervene and demand the closure of all gender clinics in Australia until gender treatment in children is proven to be safe, if ever?
Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:36): The government has no intention to intervene and ban particular services, health services, that are supporting families and supporting children to access the type of care that they need for their individual situation. If there is further information I can provide—and I would say, as a former health minister, that health services in this country, and we are very fortunate, are heavily regulated. The professionals who provide health services are heavily regulated. There are professional bodies in place, there are complaints mechanisms, and there are a whole range of avenues, if there are concerns about any health service, that those would go through and be dealt with. They are not normally dealt with on the floor of a parliamentary chamber.
There are many families that need services. The Australian government is about providing health services, not taking them away. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:37): Minister, One Nation listens to people and this is what we’re hearing, so we speak up for constituents. Minister, a child who has not even reached puberty is incapable of knowing their own mind. Doctors, and sometimes parents, are taking these decisions on the child’s behalf. Has the government considered the legal liability it is incurring for the government’s part in this medical malpractice?
Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:43): Well, I don’t agree that it’s medical malpractice; nor do I agree with the proposition being put forward in the question, which is that there are professionals and parents making decisions that are harmful to young people. Perhaps, Senator Roberts, it might be good for you to go and ask the health professionals who are providing these services how they provide them and how they support young people, rather than just taking a particular view. I’ve always found that going in and asking questions and being open-minded—not necessarily just taking one individual’s view about it but actually learning from the health professionals—is useful.
I also think saying it’s medical malpractice goes too far. When we’re looking at the vulnerability of the young people and children who are needing this kind of support through the health system, we should be very sensitive in how we deal with it, and as a government we’re keen on making sure that we are able to provide health services to anyone who needs them, regardless of their circumstances.
An interview with Andrew McColl from Family Voice and Robbie Katter, Queensland State MP. Gender dysphoria is affecting our teenage girls in huge numbers. Adolescence is a tough time, and some teens experience distress with their biological identity and then claim they are transgender. This has become a quick path to puberty blockers, hormone injections and surgical interventions.
This is not the miracle solution for this distress. State legislation has been introduced that alienates parents from supporting their children, and medical profession have been intimidated into abandoning our kids and sending them on this destructive medical pathway. There is hope as the tide is turning in many of the gender clinics around the world, with hormonal and surgical interventions no longer automatically available to children presenting with gender dysphoria.
A shout out for some common sense prevailing on this issue of gender neutral language. Bill Shorten has reversed the use of the dehumanising term “birthing parent” and will re-replace it with “mother”. Interestingly the term “father” is still used and there is no talk of it being changed to “sperm donor”.
Transcript
Andrew:
Welcome to the Family Voice zoom session this morning. My name is Andrew McColl. I’m the Queensland Director of Family Voice Australia. Our subject today is the transgender controversy and I’m joined today by the Queensland Senator, Malcolm Roberts and I hope at any minute to have Robbie Katter, the Queensland State MP from North Queensland, joining us as well. That will be good. Good morning, Malcolm.
Malcolm:
Good morning, Andrew. How are you?
Andrew:
I’m well, thank you. In the absence of Robbie being with us, I’ll direct some questions straight to you.
Malcolm:
Sure.
Andrew:
That will be good. We’re talking about the transgender controversy. I happened to note Malcolm that you’d interviewed Dr Andrew Orr recently who made reference to the term, gender dysphoria. Is this how this whole matter began?
Malcolm:
I don’t know if it began there, but I think it really owes its roots to some people who are pushing this hard to disrupt our kids. Gender dysphoria is real. It’s a sense of discomfort or distress or incongruence with their own biology. I make the point that sex is not assigned at birth. It’s assigned at conception and historically children are feeling very confused over gender and that was primarily in young boys around three to five years of age. We’ve all seen boys and girls playing as the opposite sex, but in the last 10 years, there’s been a… Before getting onto the last 10 years, I think it’s also important to recognise that the brain in adolescence, both boys and girls go through enormous changes, huge changes, radical rewiring of the brain and this is a very important time for the development of the human brain.
Malcolm:
It’s also a time when hormones are flushing throughout the whole body and so it’s a very complicated time for many people and adolescence is not easy for most people. It’s a time of stress. What we’ve seen in the last 10 years, Andrew, is an exponential growth explosion in teenage girls experiencing gender dysphoria, discomfort with their own bodies, their own gender. Most of them with no history of gender dysphoria at all. Adolescence is challenging, but this is not a problem to be fixed. Instead, we’ve got people jumping on the bandwagon to create a problem, so what we’ve seen now is hormonal and surgical interventions are not a miracle solution to the challenge of adolescents. They in fact make things worse and then if they go wrong, they’ll make things worse for that person’s life for the rest of their lives.
Malcolm:
You’ve got to recognise the normal discomfort, unease, stressors of adolescents and separate that out because it is a real issue, but most people at the end of adolescence, are happy with who they are. They realise, okay, I’m a boy, and I’m enjoying being a boy. If I’m a girl, I’m enjoying being a girl. That’s what we’ve got to be very careful of and gender dysphoria has been jumped on by a few people to take advantage of it.
Andrew:
Thank you. Good morning, Robbie. How are you getting on today?
Robbie:
Yeah. Good morning. Sorry I was running late.
Andrew:
That’s all right. Thanks for joining with us and we’re getting into this matter of the transgender as you would’ve figured out by now. You spoke fairly recently, Robbie, in the Queensland Parliament, and I congratulate you for your speech regarding the fact that you have daughters who will be teenagers soon. Why was that important in the context of the transgender controversy?
Robbie:
I think the challenge for us as politicians interested in this subject is inserting it into the consciousness of a switched off public who are mostly buying the idea that people’s choice is people’s choice. What impact is this going to have and even when they start entertaining the thought of transgender, they think that’s a tricky debate. “I’m going to have to get my head across this and that’s going to probably put me in arguments amongst my friends.” That to me is the real enemy for people on our side of the argument. That’s the challenge, I think. We want to find areas where we can break that debate back down to something that’s meaningful and we’ll cut straight through to them.
Robbie:
That was what was put to me was, I think parents will care about the welfare of their kids and I think that sport is a really good manifestation of that conflict. Whilst I think the issue is a lot bigger than just women’s sport, my girls could be playing sport against these people and I’m worried about their health being made to compete against them. I wouldn’t be real happy if my girls were playing rugby league, but speaking hypothetically, if they do they’ll be up against some big bloody Pacific Islander girl that could belt the bejesus out of them. I thought that was good imagery to put [inaudible 00:05:30]
Andrew:
Yeah. Malcolm, just getting back to Dr Orr again, he mentioned that as children moved through puberty, as you were indicating somewhat earlier, many were incongruent or confused about their gender, but that will probably desist. Does that make sense to you?
Malcolm:
Yes, it does. It certainly does. I think everyone on the planet knows that children going through adolescence are under stress just because there are so many hormonal changes, so many new things in our brains going on. There is stress, but there are also children who suffer from physiologic, psychological comorbidities, including anxiety, ASD, ADHD, depression, trauma, eating disorders, and many more. What we need to do is to get to the core of those issues. I don’t dismiss this as an issue. I’m not saying it’s a non-event. It is an issue for some people. For the majority of children, they will just grow through it and we just have to be with them and love them, but for some, there is a serious issue there, but it’s not to do with their gender.
Malcolm:
It’s other underlying comorbidities, so we need to understand the diagnoses and appropriate therapeutic support and what we really need is family based therapeutic care. Much like Robbie’s doing. He’s caring for his daughters. That’s what’s driving him, but what we see are some blockages to parents getting involved and I noticed that you’ve got a question for Robbie coming up along those lines. We’ve got to be very careful because… I’ll maybe comment more after Robbie’s answered that question, but basically with parents being shoved to the side, unlike Robbie, for fear of being criticised, parents are letting go their kids and that’s not right. Kids need their parents at this critical time in their life, even if it’s just adolescence they’re facing. If they’re facing other issues, they need even more support from their parents so we cannot afford to abandon our kids at this time, just like Robbie’s not abandoning his daughters, all parents should not abandon their children. They should stay with them and care for them.
Andrew:
Yeah. Robbie, just thinking in terms of this term that people use. Some people say that it’s very important that we affirm the choices that children make. If the parents feel that their choices that their children are making are plainly ridiculous, doesn’t that mean that it’s time to say something to the child.
Robbie:
Yeah. I’ll shoot straight from the hip on that. I believe true compassion comes in trying to guide people in what you think, based on your experiences. I think it’s such a common practise in life that we rely on the past experience of others to give us some help on what’s the best outcomes for us on whether it’s on diet, staying away from McDonald’s food or whether it’s mental guidance or spiritual guidance and why would you allow parents to be giving kids advice on what’s good to put into their stomach and help them in nutrition, but you can’t help them in what’s going to guide them in the best way for the outcomes later in life.
Robbie:
If the kids are running around acting like a fool and playing up and punching kids, you pull them into line, or if they’re starting to trying to indulge in multiple personalities or something, you might try to stop it, but you at least try and put some guidance around that to help for the best outcome. If the kid is indecisive about something, I think it’s negligent as a parent to hands off approach and let the kid work it out without saying, “Crikey, that could lead them down this path and let’s just try and put them down here, because it’ll be the best outcome for them as best we can tell.” I think that’s part and parcel of true compassion and nurturing and granted, not everyone always gets it right.
Robbie:
How could you deny doing that? Me? I can’t see how you separate that because it seems to me that in this transgender debate, I think what we’re talking about is if the kid says, “I’m starting to feel like a girl,” I would say as a parent, “Crikey, maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but let’s not just entertain that too much yet,” and see if this is just a bit of a passing phase or it’s a popular thing at school and get him through it. Of course, you should be allowed to do that and I think that’s one of the big problems now is there’s no capital in that and it’s just let the kid make all the decisions for themselves. We don’t do it with their diet or any other parts of life, but why would you allow them to do it on this?
Malcolm:
If I could jump in there.
Andrew:
Yeah, sure.
Malcolm:
Thank you. I agree with Robbie. It is a time when children need compassion from their parents. They also need genuine care, which I think Robbie ties care in with compassion. They also need understanding and you can’t have compassion without understanding. These are the things that are important, especially when children are going through adolescence and they’ll come out of it believing that they belong in the body in which they were conceived. There will be others who are suffering genuine distress and they need to have support and counselling. As a parent myself, but knowing other parents, we want parents to be with their children and to support them through it, not just say, “Yes, little Johnny, you’re correct,” or “Yes, little Mary, you’re correct.”
Malcolm:
That’s rubbish. That’s abandonment. I would line up there with Robbie, very strongly. Robbie, in my experience is a very practical down to earth person. This is a very difficult topic for all of us, but I agree with Robbie, it is the parents’ responsibility to be the guardian of that child, from all kinds of things that are going to come into that child’s life up until about the age of 18 or 21. It’s our responsibility as parents to protect, to support, to have compassion and care as Robbie said, but we are responsible for that young person and we are responsible for how they mature. I agree with Robbie. We don’t just stand by and affirm. We actually support, but we stand ground and look after our responsibility.
Andrew:
Yeah. This is the issue that this whole thing hangs upon because there’s this group in society who get some power over children who think that we must affirm children come what may, whether we agree with what they’re thinking or not. It seems to me, we’ve got to ask ourselves a question in the whole transgender debate. Do we feel obligated to affirm a child’s decisions or their views or their feelings, even if that affirmation flies in the face of biology. That to me is where it’s going to get interesting, isn’t it, Malcolm?
Malcolm:
That’s exactly the point that we don’t automatically affirm what a child comes up with. A child is a child is a child. They don’t have the life experience. They don’t have the intellectual capacity at times, especially when they’re confused, going through adolescence when their brains are literally being rewired. This is a time of enormous confusion. Sure. We listen to them, we respect them, be with them, support them, have compassion for them, care for them, but we don’t just simply agree. That’s abandonment, that’s abdication. That’s not affirmation, that’s abdication. Andrew, I noticed you’ve got a question coming up later about international organisations. A lot of this is driven by international organisations that are trying deliberately to smash the family, because when you smash family, people turn to the government and that’s what they want. They want to use control. They are happy to smash up the family and this is one of their many ways of trying to smash the family, but they’re crippling children and some of these children who have interventions, hormonal or…
Andrew:
Surgical.
Malcolm:
…surgical, thank you. They are crippled for life and then when they realise later on they’ve made a mistake as has been happening, then there are very serious mental health problems and leading to suicide. We have got to protect these children. Affirmation is rubbish in this sense.
Andrew:
Robbie, would we say that in this whole controversy, what’s really needed is good old fashioned common sense.
Robbie:
Yeah. I’ve had the belief that common sense is there latent. It exists in the majority of people there, but I think a growing number of people and still probably not the majority, but a growing number of people are unwilling to voice that intuition where they know it’s common sense, but they won’t say it because they don’t want to be unpopular in their peer group. That’s a growing number and the challenge is to find those, like the women’s sport issues, find those and put it right back in people’s face so there’s a very clear delineation of the pathway. We can head down the two pathways. We can head down in society with these things and what the sort of outcomes they can expect because it’s that slow, incremental creep of all these things that is the biggest enemy, I think.
Robbie:
That’s where it’s successful. This transgender stuff is just where it slowly incrementally comes in. That’s the biggest challenge is to keep bringing it to a head where it’s… I think as a politician, from my point of view, it’s not being too confrontational in general because a lot of people just don’t give it a second thought. It’s trying to invite them into the conversation rather trying to force it down their throat, which I think requires a fair bit of finesse and often more than I’m capable of. It’s pulling what I think is a really big issue and making it seem, in a way, not as big because people don’t want to take on a big issue, but they need to recognise just in common sense terms, what it means and the implications on their life and their future and draw that into their consciousness and apply it to their everyday life and make it relevant to them.
Andrew:
Yeah. I’ve heard the statement made by some of the latest people in this and this is not so much in Australia, but certainly overseas that says, “The child has this sex, but their gender is something different, and just because a baby is born with a penis, doesn’t make him a boy.” I look at it and think, I can’t believe people are going to say something as stupid as that, because this is a radical rethinking of how we do just about anything in our society where a child is born with the body of one sex, but it is alleged that it’s actually something different. This is why I’m simply saying we just need some common sense here. The child is either a boy or a girl. They can’t be swapping over every Thursday afternoon to the other one, because I just feel like it today.
Andrew:
It seems as if, whether it’s peer group, whether it’s social media, whether it’s just a trend or a fad, but when people go down these roads and as Malcolm was alluding earlier, and we go and do hormonal treatment or surgery that actually removes the organs, part of the difficulty is that what we don’t always understand is that males and females are diametrically different. They have to be so that we can reproduce. Obviously I’m a male, but there are components with my wife that I share lots of things. We have a human body. We have a heart and kidneys and legs and feet and brains, but compared to my wife, I’m diametrically different. That’s not something that we should be ashamed of or think that’s something wrong. That’s not wrong. That’s actually right, otherwise we can’t have children.
Andrew:
It seems as if we’ve lost track of a few things here and Malcolm, you were alluding earlier, or you made comments about these international organisations that have got some kind of agenda that they’re pushing. That’s not something that lots of people really are aware of. Maybe you could tell us some more about that.
Malcolm:
I will. Can I just jump in and make some comments on the topic you just finished discussing first?
Andrew:
Yeah, sure.
Malcolm:
Okay. Warren Entsch, the member for Leichhardt in Northern Queensland, I don’t agree with much of what he says, but he got my respect when he talked about a friend that he grew up with who was a boy and later on changed his gender. He became a woman. What I’m saying with that is, there is a very, very small minority. It’s tiny, tiny, tiny. It’s a minuscule minority of people who have that. When we look at the human being, Andrew, we pop out about this big from our mother. We’re completely helpless. Male and female. We’ve got enormous differences at birth, between male and female.
Malcolm:
Then we go through planes of development every three years, six years, three years, six years, those planes of development and physical as well as mental, emotional, spiritual maturation and then we get to about 90 and we maybe have some adequacy when it comes to maturity. Along that way, there are so many chemical things that happen with a person’s development and some people are born with lesser skills physically. Some people are born with lesser skills mentally. What I’m saying is it’s a very complex transition to go from a process to go from birth to the age of 90 or a hundred. Along that time, many influences. We’re expecting the human being to be perfect and the human being is perfect, but it’s not perfect in the sense that everything physically is fine. Everything chemically is the same. Hormonally is the same. Mentally is the same. Emotionally is the same.
Malcolm:
There are some people who actually genuinely need to change their sex. I get that, so I’m not putting them down. There are other people who are confused through adolescence. There are other people who are confused through adolescence and need support because they’ve got other things going on in their development. The majority of people go through that within a wide range and they’re fine. I agree with you that while we have compassion for the people who are genuinely confused about what their gender is, and while we have compassion for those people who go through adolescence with that confusion and emerge from that, which is the majority of people are fine, we do have to celebrate the fact that men and women are different.
Malcolm:
What the feminist movement has done at times is tried to say we’re equal and that is complete rubbish. What we do, instead of saying, “We need to have women in positions, because it’s only fair, it’s only equal.” No, we need to say, “We need women in positions because they’re different, because they bring a different perspective, a different view.” Then we’re all richer for it. You are not as rich as you and your wife together. Same with my wife and me together. We are far richer in terms of our outlook, our abilities, our perspectives, because we are different. We need to celebrate that difference. We do need to recognise the diversity of humans though, along that sphere. What you’ll find amongst these people in international organisations, to an answer your questions, Andrew, is that they’re not interested in human beings.
Malcolm:
They’re not interested in individuals. What they want is machines that do what they’re told and they’re wanting to corporatize us, they’re wanting to indoctrinate us, they’re wanting to control us, suppress us because we are just cannon fodder to them. These international organisations want to remove individual thinking. They want to remove individual responsibility. They want to remove individual initiative. They want us to be dumbed down and all be the same and just conform and that’s not the way the human is meant to be. God didn’t mean us to be like that. He made us so that we are diverse and compliment each other and we belong with each other.
Malcolm:
These international organisations want to strip us down of our individuality and make us robots, but at the same time, Andrew, what they do is they make us conform and then they put pressure on us to conform and they split us. You either conform or you’re one of the nonconformists and if you’re a nonconformist, then they get stuck into you because they want us all to conform or they put so much peer pressure on parents. They say to parents, “You must affirm your child, otherwise you’re not caring for your child.” Complete rubbish. They want us to abandon our responsibilities and that’s the biggest threat that I see of all of these people. They want us to abandon our responsibilities.
Andrew:
Yeah. Robbie, we know that what’s happened in Victoria, they’ll use this term, the anti conversion therapy whereby there is now power in government to prosecute people who fall foul of government. That is they’re trying to not go along with these attempts to somehow convert a child from one sex to another. Do you think this is contributing to our problems today?
Robbie:
Yeah. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that and it’s a really scary thought. It’s one of those signposts on the road that control from government that you don’t want to see. That to me is a sign post saying you’re going to fall off a cliff shortly. I’d even wind it back to saying that the mental trauma that puts back on parents and the pressure it puts back on parents, it’s hard enough holding a family together under normal circumstances. Now you’ve got a bit of a troubled kid and you are trying to do your bit as a parent to pull them back in line or give them advice that you think will help them through life and here’s yet another signal, even if it doesn’t affect all parents, it’s a signal to them to say you don’t really have control. We’re assuming the rights of some of this critical decision making for your kids. What an absolutely scary thought. If that’s not a red flag for politicians or people to stand up against, I don’t know what is.
Andrew:
Yeah. It does seem to be a totalitarian move, doesn’t it, where the task of raising a child is actually being taken away from the parent and taken over by some third party. You were going to say something there, Malcolm.
Malcolm:
Yes. I just wanted to compliment Robbie because I’d never realised that and this complex situation can be boiled down to really simple, basic things. Robbie just pointed out that these people who are pushing this anti conversion legislation, they’re actually putting a lot of stress on parents and that’s hurting the children again. At a time when the parents are vulnerable, the child is vulnerable, they’re trying to increase the stress on parents by saying to parents, “You shouldn’t get involved or you should affirm.” Everything in the parents’ heart, in their gut is saying, “No, I’ve got to get involved,” and that’s completely wrong.
Andrew:
Absolutely.
Malcolm:
A lot of these international organisations, I’ll name them, United Nations, the World Economic Forum, Green Peace now. Sadly, it started off very, very well in the hands of Patrick Moore, but it was completely hijacked by Maurice Strong for the UN. WWF. These are hideous anti-human organisations, and they’re deliberately putting pressure on people and trying to use peer pressure to try and get parents to shut down. Imagine a parent who wants to get involved, wants to have the compassion and care and doesn’t do so because of peer pressure from these people. At the end, their daughter has bits of her body chopped off as hormonal treatment. What would that parent feel then? What would society pick? The price society pays picking up the pieces from this mess. This is deliberate anti-human practises and it needs to be confronted and I agree with Robbie. These people are putting enormous pressure on parents at a time when they can least handle it. It’s disgusting. It’s inhuman.
Andrew:
Yeah. Robbie, when you…Go on, Robbie.
Robbie:
Sorry. It just triggered another thought. There’s also a heavy dose of contradiction, I think, in the philosophical approach of, let’s say in this case the Victorian Government, the proponents of all this transgender stuff. If you looked at the abortion debate in Queensland, they expanded it to 22 weeks which was a period that you could then start detecting defects in the child. If you could make a presumption then, as Malcolm said before, that kid’s imperfect and I have a niece who has a condition and she’s perfect to me. She’s perfect to her parents, but those people would find that acceptable that you terminated the pregnancy because you see there are imperfections here, but I think there’s a fairly heavy dose of contradiction here where it’s like, no, these imperfections are good. You’ve got to nurture that and celebrate it and quickly, we’ve got a child that’s different here so let’s give them the opportunity to change their sex because we’re celebrating the fact that they’re imperfect. I just think there’s a bit of contradiction in the approaches there of the other side.
Andrew:
Yeah. Yeah. Malcolm. What we find evident here is that doctors used to sign up to the Hippocratic Oath and one part of that says to do the patient no harm. Being fairly blunt with my listeners today, if a 13 year old girl is perfectly healthy and well and decides she wants her breasts removed by a surgeon, is that surgeon ever justified in doing such a thing and isn’t that an uncaring and an unloving and a foolish and utterly unprofessional thing to do?
Malcolm:
Yes, it is. Doctors are no different from parents. Many doctors are parents. Politicians are no different from everyday people in Australia. Many of us want to belong, so we belong to a family, we belong to a sports club, we belong to a workplace, we belong to a political party, we belong to social clubs. Belonging is extremely important and it’s part of our makeup because those who didn’t belong among our ancestors let the tribe down and were booted because you just didn’t have anything. Humans are very vulnerable individually because we are very weak as compared to some of the more aggressive animals on the planet. We have a superior intellect, we have a superior caring system and we have a superior social system and so very important to belong. What I’m saying is that doctors are no different from politicians, no different from the people at large, that there’s so much pressure to belong.
Malcolm:
Doctors will go against their better judgement and just do that operation, but also some doctors just don’t care. We’re entrusting our children to professionals who don’t care enough to make a stand on behalf of the children with gender dysphoria. A child is troubled, gender dysphoria. The child needs a therapeutic approach, psychological therapy, psychotherapy approach, not a knife, not some hormones and adults are too scared to safeguard the children from harm and that’s cowardly behaviour, but there’s so much pressure on parents as Robbie just mentioned. A much more cautious approach would be watchful waiting, getting therapeutic advice and assistance. What we need is doctors who are using the scalpel or the hormones to back off and to really look at what the child needs, because paramount in this is what the child needs and children and adolescents, especially those who are under stress and other mental health issues, that’s not the time to let them loose. That’s the time to give them compassion and care, as Robbie mentioned.
Malcolm:
The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, their gender clinic, in 2012, they had 18 new referrals. In 2021, eight hundred and twenty one new referrals. That’s largely because of peer pressure amongst girls. In 2021, they had 1120 patients. In 2020, the year before, they had 538 so there literally is an explosion of gender dysphoria, or people presenting with that. What we need is the doctors to be educated and the doctors to really be strong and honest and as Robbie said, compassionate. To look after these children with the right therapy, rather than a scalpel and a hormone, because there’s growing evidence of regret amongst people later on. There’s a 2021 transitioner study by, let me just check the name here, Dr Lisa Littman and showed only 24 percent of her 100 sample reported their regret back to the clinic. In other words, there’s an explosion of people later who regret what’s happened and we’re not considering them.
Andrew:
That’s a serious matter and I happened to come across a Jordan Peterson YouTube just last month called, “Arrest them,” and Peterson says, and I quote, “We are sacrificing our children on the alter of far left wing ideologies. This is worthy of a prison sentence. The Hippocratic oath has been replaced with a delusion.” That’s a very serious statement to make, but it does seem as though there has been some kind of an attempt to hijack, even the term, what is therapeutic? Is it therapeutic for a 13 year old girl to have her breasts cut off? How can that be? If we are talking about a woman with breast cancer, I can understand of course, but we don’t go to a healthy well child with a knife simply because the child thinks it might be a good idea today. It’s utterly unprofessional. Robbie, you made your speech quite recently in the Queensland Parliament and there were one or two labour MPs who criticised your speech that day. Do you regret any part of that?
Robbie:
Yeah. I regret not bringing up something because my colleague, Nick Dametto put a question in parliament earlier that morning about why the inquiry on domestic violence hadn’t consulted any of the men’s groups in Queensland and the Attorney-General’s response in question time that same morning was that unfortunately with domestic violence, we have to apply gender lens and was very explicit on that point. That afternoon, we were debating that you can’t refer to gender, that it didn’t exist and I forgot to cover that point. I was disappointed I didn’t. I don’t think anything the opposition said upset me because there was just no substance to it. As usual, every counter argument seems to be emotive.
Robbie:
They use the word hate speech. This is hate, this creates conflict and it’s hate speech and it’s disgusting that we’re even, and they always say, why are we even talking about this, and which is what I was referring to my initial comment is that they try and pretend it’s not relevant and it’s nothing. The challenge is to say it is, it does have implications and beyond that, they’re supposed to put up six speakers for the debate. I think they put up two speakers and the Greens contributions were just ridiculous. Again, all emotive, no substance. I actually think I did a bloody terrible job with my contribution, because I kept looking at the facts that I had to put forward and part of the speech was dedicated to going through the Olympic records in different events between men and women to provide evidence or demonstrate that there’s a built in advantage to the males versus the females.
Robbie:
I started looking at my notes and thought, I can’t even say that. It’s so self-evident, it’s ridiculous that I even have to go through it, but I kept catching myself on all the material parts of the argument. You think, this is all self-evident. I don’t even think that’s being agnostic on the issue of transgender. It’s just going through facts. The entire other side of the argument was almost completely absent of any facts at all. I think the only half reason was Sterling Hinchliffe, Member for Sandgate mentioned something about women’s sport that you thought, okay, that’s sort of a point to make, but the rest of it was purely emotive.
Malcolm:
That’s the same in the Federal Parliament, Robbie. It’s exactly the same. What happens is they can’t resort to a logical argument. They can’t resort to data, so what they resort to is name calling and smearing. When they use that on us, we just turn around and say, “Thank you for confirming my point, because if you had any data, you would’ve presented it. Instead, you’re calling me names, so that just vindicates the fact that you haven’t got any data.”
Robbie:
Yep. Andrew, if I can put some context on what Malcolm just said, put some further context around that. Bearing in mind, the same as State Parliament, the labour government has 220 parliamentary staff operating for them because the LNP gets exactly 10 percent of that, so we know they’ve got 22 staff, so you must assume labor’s got at least 220 staff or more assisting them with their parliamentary debates. We’ve got one staff, three total for KP and so it’ll be similar numbers for Malcolm in Federal Parliament. You think about this, there’s only Malcolm there and maybe one other with you in the Senate trying to back you up on these debates and same with us in Parliament. We only had Steve Andrews from One Nation backing us up so there’s only four of us versus the other 90.
Robbie:
They’ve got all that wealth of resources and all those people working for them. They’ve got an opportunity to make an absolute fool out of us and smash us with data and evidence. That’s their opportunity to put us to the sword and all they could come up with is a few lazy emotive arguments. What does that tell you? There is nothing there. Time and time again, they come up with nothing.
Malcolm:
They just call you names and I just laugh at that because it means they have lost the debate, but Andrew, the significance, not only for children in this issue, it mirrors the significance for parents, the significance for families, the significance for the energy debate, cost of living, climate change, family law, all of these things are being driven by the same people and they have been driven by the same people since the UN was formed in 1944. They are all on an anti-family agenda, an anti-human agenda and an anti-national agenda. They want to smash the national borders. They want to create just a one world global governance, and you don’t have to take my word for that. It’s in their own statements. What they have to do is smash two things, smash national sovereignty, and that’s what they’re trying to do through smashing the borders and putting in place a one world global governance.
Malcolm:
If you look at the things I’ve talked about, COVID, climate change, energy policy, these are echoed around the world. The second thing that they’re trying to do is to smash the family because when you smash the family, people turn to government and they become dependent on government. At the moment, these people who are pushing these agendas, global agendas are pretending they’re doing things to help people, but they’re just making people dependent. What they’re also doing is they’re creating victims and when you have a victim, you have someone who loses responsibility for themselves. That’s exactly what these people want. They want us to be family-less. They want us to be victims. They want us to lack responsibility. That means we lack personal accountability, lack personal authority.
Malcolm:
Victor Frankel said in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, “You can strip everything from a man in a concentration camp in Holocaust, Germany, except for one thing, the ability to choose his attitude.” That’s what these people are trying to do to intimidate humans and smash us everywhere. They want to smash religion. They want to smash families. They want some smash nation’s states. It’s just hideous what they’re doing. They’re inhuman and they’re anti-human.
Andrew:
Thank you, Malcolm. Thank you, Robbie. Perhaps I could ask Robbie to begin with a concluding statement and Malcolm, you can follow him if you would.
Peter:
Robbie’s muted.
Andrew:
Okay. Perhaps, Malcolm, you’d like to step up to that?
Malcolm:
I’m very, very pro-human and what these people are doing is anti-human. I’m pro-human because humans have a very strong sense of care. Humans have a very strong sense of belonging to the human race. There is only one race and that’s the human race. We have a very, very powerful intellect that’s capable of creative thought and capable of independent thought. These are the reasons why I’m very pro-human. What we have to do is to be very careful about following these agendas. We have to pick them apart and recognise the tactics they use both propaganda and also social tactics, social engineering, to try and divide us and to separate us and make us powerless. Every human being, male and female has enormous power within themselves so long as we hang onto that and that’s what I’m asking people to do.
Malcolm:
The other thing I’m asking people to do is to truly forgive in the sense that Christ and Buddha and many sages throughout history have taught us. True forgiveness, the absence of value judgement . Don’t hate these people, actually truly forgive them because when we forgive, we clear our heart, we clear our mind. That’s a better way for us to think and to respond using our intuition and our common sense, as Robbie said a little while ago. That common sense we’re blessed with, just use it and help our kids and above all love our children, because that’s what they need to get through these challenging times that we all face in adolescence.
Andrew:
That’s true, Malcolm. Thank you. Robbie, do you have any conclusion to make for us this morning?
Robbie:
Yeah, I guess the conclusion from this discussion for me, and it’s probably solidified a bit more in my head as well, and it sort of taps into that sentiment that Malcolm just expressed is that I have strong views on this. I have personal strong views on where I think the morality sits on the list, but even to dial back from that to try and communicate with others and make them aware of where this road can lead us. It’s important to find those touch points and invite people into this space, not trying to jam it into them, because I think there’s a fair bit of resistance. I think there’s a huge enemy. People are disengaging from critical thinking on anything and questioning and challenging, so I think the pathway forward from my perspective is trying to hit those people on the margins that I think they’re intuitive.
Robbie:
They have buy in on this issue in their heart, but they’re not willing to so openly engage and trying to just bring them in softly but it’s also being relentless in doing that as well. You can’t be too passive to the point of being ineffectual. I think the consequences couldn’t be more important to our future as a society but the challenge right now is to make it relevant to people and bring it into their consciousness. I think that’s where the real challenge exists right now.
Andrew:
Sure. Thank you, Malcolm and thank you, Robbie. Did you want to say something else?
Malcolm:
Yes, if I could just add something. If you look at what happened. Rugby union was against transgender males playing sport against female rugby union players. Back in 2020, they ruled that out. It wasn’t taken up. FINA, the world’s swimming body did it just recently as you know, and that larger body did it very professionally. They had three separate experts. They had psychological, health and also athletes and they went right through it and they came away with a somewhat sensible policy and have you’ve seen what’s happened since? Many other organisations have followed them. Once you stand up, as Robbie is, and we are in the Federal Parliament, once you stand up once and then it slowly builds, people say it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to speak out against these people and so then the whole thing starts crumbling, so thank you very much for speaking out in State Parliament, Robbie, and I’m pleased Steve Andrews, I knew would back you. We’ve just got to keep doing this.
Andrew:
Yes. That’s the thing and it doesn’t really matter. I can put my Toyota up on a hoist and take off the wheels and put on Ford wheels and if I spray paint my Toyota badge and put a Ford badge on there, it hasn’t really changed the car, all it’s done is changed some externals. That’s the thing we have to contend with here. You simply can’t change people by changing certain parts of their body. They’re just not made that way. As I said earlier, we are diametrically opposed, males and females, and us men are not the same as women and we will never be like women in many, many things. We’re much better off being content with those differences and actually being thankful for them so we can do the things that we do as men and that women can do the things that women can do successfully.
Andrew:
Thank you once again, gentlemen, for your contributions today, and I trust you engage in further success in your careers on this subject. Thanks again to all those who have been watching us today and we trust you have an enjoyable weekend. Thank you. Bye bye.
Andrew retired from being a GP in 2019, he is married, a parent and a grandparent.
He is a graduate of Queensland University and spent the first two years after graduation as Resident Medical Officer at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Andrew was appointed Medical and Paediatric Registrar at Toowoomba Base hospital and had a small group General Practice in Brisbane for eight years. He also spent two years in solo practice in Central Queensland mining towns, Moranbah and Dysart, following which he returned to Brisbane where he was appointed Paediatric Registrar at the, then, Royal Children’s and Royal Women’s hospitals in Brisbane. Andrew returned to solo practice before retirement in 2019.
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Transcript
Speaker 1:
This is the Malcolm Roberts Show on Today’s News Talk Radio, TNT.
Malcolm Roberts:
Welcome back to Today’s News Talk Radio, tntradio.live. Last hour, we spoke with a wonderful, courageous woman who’s standing up for our society. This hour, we’re going to talk to a man, so we’re diverse. We talk to both sexes.
Malcolm Roberts:
So I want to welcome my second guest, Dr. Andrew Orr from Brisbane, Queensland, who actually lives not far from where my wife and I live, between Ipswich and Brisbane. Andrew Orr retired from being a GP in 2019. He’s married. He’s a parent. He’s a grandparent. He’s also a graduate of the University of Queensland and spent the first two years after graduation as resident medical officer at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Andrew was appointed medical and paediatric registrar at Toowoomba Base Hospital and had a small group general practise in Brisbane for eight years. He spent two years in solo practise in Central Queensland mining towns, Moranbah and Dysart. Oh, that’s another thing we share in common. I’ve lived in Dysart.
Malcolm Roberts:
Following which, he returned to Brisbane where he was appointed paediatric register at, well, as it was known then, the Royal Children’s and Royal Women’s Hospitals in Brisbane. Andrew returned to solo practise before retiring in 2019. He’s a male, yet he understands women. Maybe that’s a good question I could ask him. But he certainly understands biology. Welcome to TNT Radio. Great to have you on, Andrew.
Andrew Orr:
Thanks, Malcolm.
Malcolm Roberts:
Do you understand women?
Andrew Orr:
Do I understand women?
Malcolm Roberts:
Yeah.
Andrew Orr:
Well, I guess, yeah, I probably shouldn’t say anything about that publicly, should I? I might be in trouble. Yeah.
Malcolm Roberts:
You want to stay married and your wife might not exactly validate your claims, hey?
Andrew Orr:
Exactly.
Malcolm Roberts:
Okay. Something you appreciate, Andrew, anything at all, what do you appreciate?
Andrew Orr:
What do I appreciate in my life? Goodness me. Well, firstly, I remain aware and grateful. I’ve shared my life with a competent life partner, with whom we’ve had three sons, all of which have done the same, same sort of thing. They have married really top girls. And I’d like to think that my wife, Mary, and I have had a bit of a hand in that outcome because family is everything in life and it’s the basis on which you exhibit and build your own values and hopefully can pass them on.
Malcolm Roberts:
Well, I complimented our-
Andrew Orr:
It’s a core value thing.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yeah. I complimented our previous guest, Katherine Deves, for standing up for Australian values and human values really, and I want to do the same with you. You’ve approached it in a different way, but you’ve been in quite a battle. So let’s talk about gender dysphoria, Andrew. You’re a retired doctor. You’ve worked as a children’s hospital-based paediatric registrar. What’s gender dysphoria?
Andrew Orr:
Gender dysphoria is a sense of discomfort that an individual is feeling subject to a sense of what’s been called gender incongruity. I suppose the terms used is born in the wrong body, as some people like to explain it. It’s a basis of feeling discomfort. Many individuals have a variable degree of gender expression but may feel no discomfort with it at all, but a small number … Well, I shouldn’t say small. It’s a significant number are suffering with a degree of discomfort that they feel is because of what they call birth assigned … What their gender assigned at birth, what you and I would call your physiological or anatomical sex, doesn’t align with how they feel inside. And a significant number of these individuals are children. And of course, they come to the attention of medical practitioners, both the adults and the children. And we can talk later why I think our approach to minors, children should be different to that how we approach adults. I think adults should be-
Malcolm Roberts:
No, keep going.
Andrew Orr:
Adults should be free, path their own life course. But I think children who are in this position, Malcolm, it’s such a huge issue. It’s hard to know quite just where to start. I think it comes down to really an ideology that’s been called gender identity/fluidity, which it comes straight from the humanity, social science, specifically gender studies within that school of thought. And that has supported the idea of what’s been called queer theory. And of course, that’s given birth to the idea that we should respond to individuals who are suffering like that based on … Well, when you go with this with kids, what do you do with this? And these children who come to the attention of medical practitioners have been, the word that’s used is affirmed of their assertion because the child is deemed the ultimate arbiter of their gender.
Andrew Orr:
So they’re in a situation where they’re subject in many cases to medical intervention, which is the application of medicalization and the administration of puberty blocking hormones and cross-sex hormones, which is a contentious issue. It is contested. It is controversial. The outcome of this as to whether it does within the long term or not, we can talk about that.
Malcolm Roberts:
Okay.
Andrew Orr:
So maybe I’ve said enough for the moment. Maybe I’ll respond to the questions.
Malcolm Roberts:
Let’s be clear about a couple of things here to clarify my understanding at least, Andrew. You’re not opposed to people changing their sex if they’re an adult and they’re wanting to do that and they become well informed and that’s something that’s needed.
Malcolm Roberts:
And I gave an example of a person close to my wife and myself in another country, who we love very much, and she was going down the path, she married another lady. They’ve had a baby. She was going down the path to a sex exchange, and that was her choice. She’d been very much a tomboy. I’m not trying to simplify it, but that’s the way she felt for many, many years. There are people like that. They’re very few and far between, but there are people like that. And as she was starting to embark on the hormone treatment to become a male, she pulled back and she had reconsidered.
Malcolm Roberts:
Now some people go continue right through that process and they change their sex and that’s fine by me. You’re not opposed to that. That’s an adult decision. They’ve had many decades in that body and they realise they need to be someone else. I know someone else, a wonderful person who changed from being a male to a female and still a wonderful person. So they’re happy.
Malcolm Roberts:
But what you’re talking about with gender dysphoria, you used the word feeling discomfort. So if you dare question that, then I’m sure you’ve been labelled transgender, transphobic. But what you’re saying is that this is a statement of distress potentially, especially in children because they haven’t had the experience to make that life changing decision, so they shouldn’t be affirmed. They should be listened to, counselled, given good advice based on medical science on just being a human. Is that somewhat on the right mark?
Andrew Orr:
I think so. I think there is evidence, and I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m an expert in this. All I can do is say to you, in answering your questions, I’ll make reference to other authorities and I’ll answer them because I think they can articulate some of the things that you’re asking about better than put them in words better than I’ll be able to. But I think the medicalization of … Well, there’s been a tsunami, a virtual tsunami of biological girls who’ve appeared all over the world, expressing this gender incongruity. Much has been written about it. Much has been said about it. So I guess that’s what the issue we should be talking about, what to do, how to respond?
Andrew Orr:
Because the evidence is if you intervene prior or if you defer intervening until a child experiences their own puberty, and most of those children will desist from the expression of being incongruent, and they’ll either express as being homosexual, which is a much kinder path to life than as a transgender individual.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yes. I appreciate the human body. It’s absolutely amazing. Not just as it is right now for me, as anyone is right now for them. But the growth of the human body, we popped out, at some time, we were just a cell then we became larger foetus and then we started our heart beating in mother’s womb and the brain started forming, and we had all of these inputs. Then we enter the real world or outside our mother’s womb and we continue to grow and we go through planes of development that are not understood by most people. And just that sheer … It’s so amazing. It’s so beautiful.
Malcolm Roberts:
Think of a flower, bud, a little bud. It grows from just the end of a stem and then it unfolds. It’s compressed in that little bud. Next thing, it unfolds into an amazing flower, sometimes a huge flower, sometimes a foot or more across, 30 centimetres or more across, but then that’s nothing compared to the evolution of the unfolding, the blossoming of a human, the mental development, the social development, the physical development, the skills, the complexity. It takes 25 years to build a human being, and it takes 95 for some to mature.
Malcolm Roberts:
What you’re really saying is, as I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth. I’m just trying to explore this. Gender dysphoria is this statement of distress about gender, people not really understanding. And I’ve used the words, it’s a distorted reality, and I don’t mean that in an unkind sense. I mean we all have distortions of reality at times. We’re not feeling so well. Those feelings are driven because we’re not feeling comfortable in something. When we start getting worried, we start having these feelings.
Malcolm Roberts:
So it could be, and that’s the evidence that I’ve seen, that a girl or boy, who is entering puberty, is not happy with their birth sex and they emerge. And if we just give them some gentle reassurance and some love, by the time they emerge from adolescence, they’re perfectly happy with their birth sex.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah. Well, it’s part of adolescence, isn’t it, finding yourself of who you are? And I think that we’ve all been … certainly all remembered well.
Andrew Orr:
To give you some idea of the size of the issue, my understanding is the Queensland Children’s Hospital Gender Clinic is the largest now, the largest clinic of all the clinics, outpatient clinics. So the numbers are rapidly expanding. The big clinic, of course, is in Melbourne. And of course, this whole phenomenon is a Western society observed observation. It’s massive in parts of America, in California, England, and we’re experiencing the same thing. And of course, what tends to happen with us is we tend to follow the Americans a bit. And I guess I’ve been concerned about the medicalization issue with children. I think if you look at what happens in America, you’ve got children who are presenting … or first, I should go back a step.
Andrew Orr:
When we go back a few decades ago, children who were expressing gender dysphoria were mainly biological boys, who were often preschoolers even, who were confused about who they were and this went on into adolescence, continued. And there’s another demographic, which is overwhelmed. That’s relatively a small group. And these are biological adolescent girls, who’ve never said a word about it as a preschooler, never said a word about it growing up until they start to enter puberty. And many of us feel that the social media effect has had a big impact in magnifying the whole thing with kids talking together. And I’ve got a bit of an idea about why, and I’ve never heard this mentioned, I’ll just put this to the audience as a thought, this is just a thought that I’ve had, what could explain this phenomenon of mainly 12, 13, 14-year-old girls who’ve suddenly come up with this idea that they’re not girls? They’re something else.
Andrew Orr:
If I put myself in the shoes of, say, a 13-year-old girl and I’ve got my smartphone and out of normal natural human curiosity like most of us, you look at everything you can look at. And these kids come across maybe by accident the dreadful stuff on the internet they’ve all got access to, the hardcore pornographic stuff. I can imagine if I was a 13-year-old girl, I’d look at that and say, “My God. Is that what I’m in for when I’m an adult? I don’t want any part of that.” So the natural reaction might be to run away from that as far as possible. Maybe I’m not a girl. Maybe I’m something else. Maybe I’m a boy. Maybe I’m not a boy. I don’t want to be a boy. The thought of being a lesbian might be acceptable to even contemplate. So maybe they’ll say, “Well, maybe I’m something in between.”
Andrew Orr:
Look, I don’t know, Malcolm. This is just a thought that’s come to me as to try and understand what has been behind this, as I say, tsunami, massive numbers of these kids. There’s an investigative journalist called Abigail Shrier, who has written a book called Irreversible Damage. And she quotes figures like up to 10% of preadolescent girls in schools in California, who are all expressing the same idea. So it’s quite intriguing as to what’s causing this phenomena. Obviously, social media augmented, magnified. Just a thought. That’s all.
Malcolm Roberts:
We know that it happens within groups. When one influential person in the group starts speaking this way, the peers take it on, and it seems to be peer pressure. But as I said a minute ago, we are very complex creatures. It takes 25 years to assemble our body, give or take a few years for variety amongst our species. But then you add the social aspects. You add the environment, the cultural aspects. You add the feelings that come in. And adolescence becomes very, very confusing. You add the physical changes and the things we’re bombarded with, with advertising, with social media, and then the crooked, corrupt, incompetent United Nations trying to break the family, pushing some of these things. We see all of this going on. It’s no wonder people are unhappy or have dysphoria and distress and somewhat distortion of reality.
Malcolm Roberts:
I’ve had distortions of reality. We all do. They’re called being incredibly angry, being overwhelmed, being stressed because of something. We all do that. But what we’ve got now is a group of agencies and even governments pushing kids down the line to have bits of their bodies chopped off, surgically altered, hormones going in there at critical parts of their life and they’re maturing, and these hormones disrupting the natural processes. This is not healthy.
Andrew Orr:
No. Of course, the question is why have medical practitioners become involved in this? The whole thing, as I said, it comes from a social science background. It comes from this gender identity/fluidity ideology. What else can we call it?
Malcolm Roberts:
Ideology, yes.
Andrew Orr:
So it’s just confusing as to why doctors, who’ve had their training, why they would include a small subset of my profession as elected and why would-
Malcolm Roberts:
Why?
Andrew Orr:
Maybe out of compassion. We might argue in this place, compassion to participate. Now that level of participation involves hormonal interventions. In Australia, it’s not possible to obtain surgical reassignment or affirmation surgery, they call it euphemistically, until you’re no longer a minor. But throughout the world in places, girls have had their breasts removed at the age of 13 and that sort of thing, and it would be dreadful to think if that intervention crept into Australian society. The hormonal intervention itself is not without its risks in the long term. It’s associated with unacceptable risk of infertility and loss of sexual function as an adult. So it’s not reversible the way it’s been claimed by some of the activists. So you wonder why there has been this collusion.
Andrew Orr:
And the other group that have puzzled me even more, not so much the ones who’ve been actively colluding and participating out of let’s call it misplaced compassion, but the ones who should know better, the senior ones who said nothing. And you wonder why. You can understand why many young ones who have said nothing, they have the threat of career retribution. That’s always looming large because as you say, you’re immediately branded as transphobic as soon as you’ve come up with an alternative idea. But the truth of the whole thing is irrevocable. I think it was Winston Churchill who gave that great quote about truth saying, irrevocable truth is denied by ideology. It may be denied by alternative conviction. And of course, it may be distorted by malice, but in the end, truth stands, irrevocable.
Andrew Orr:
As Thomas Sowell, the American philosopher, said, it’s like the north. It’s going to be there and the winds will blow and the snow will fall and the sun will be bloody. Everything will collapse. And when it’s all settled, there it is. It’s still north. So truth is something, I think as a medical practitioner, it’s something we always should be striving for. And I think what’s happened, I think … Yeah.
Malcolm Roberts:
That compass-
Andrew Orr:
We’ve gone on into this cul-de-sac.
Malcolm Roberts:
That compass in you is strong. I can sense that. So let’s come back and talk about being branded transphobic and maybe explore some of the issues you’ve just raised in a comprehensive introduction to this topic. We’ll go for a break now and then we’ll come back and hear your views on some of those specifics that you have raised with so much care.
Andrew Orr:
Okay.
Malcolm Roberts:
We’re with Dr. Andrew Orr and we’ll be back after the ad break.
Malcolm Roberts:
Welcome back and we’re with Dr. Andrew Orr. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts.
Malcolm Roberts:
So being branded transphobic, whenever I see someone using a label to condemn someone, pigeonhole them, I see an absence of defence, which usually indicates that what they’re pushing is ideologically driven and not fact based. But so many parents are now becoming labelled transphobic when they just want to talk with their kids who are just entering adolescence at a difficult period, and so their parents shut down. Isn’t that abandoning children?
Andrew Orr:
Well, there’s a fair bit of pressure. If you’re familiar with the term anti-conversion therapy, which has come into legislation in various legal jurisdictions in Australia, it started off in Victoria and the ACT announced in Queensland, anti-conversion therapy is deemed anything other than a clinician affirming a child’s assertion. In other words, you go along with what the child is saying because they’re the final arbiter about what their expression, what their opinion is about themselves in terms of gender. So a number of child and adolescent psychiatrists and paediatricians will be feeling a level of disquiet about how vulnerable they might be unless they refer the child to the clinic. The clinics are totally overwhelmed. I might say the numbers are just ridiculous. There are long waiting periods so you’ve got children who are left dangling, waiting for appointments.
Andrew Orr:
But a lot of clinicians are feeling that they can’t really … Well, they’re vulnerable if they don’t follow the party line as it were. So that’s an issue. And of course, that extends beyond just clinicians. That extend to counsellors, psychologists, and even parents are being felt vulnerable unless they act on the child’s assertion. They may well become vulnerable legally, which I can’t think of any other medical condition that’s subject to just one legally obligatory treatment protocol, in this case that of an affirmation model.
Malcolm Roberts:
So can we discuss those terms because I feel very confused about them? Can you tell us what affirmation model is? Can you tell us what anti-conversion therapy is? I think that’s being mandated now in law, isn’t it, in some states in this country?
Andrew Orr:
Yes, it’s in Queensland. Yes.
Malcolm Roberts:
So what’s affirmation model and what’s anti-conversion therapy?
Andrew Orr:
Affirmation model is you’re accepting what the child says unquestioningly because they are the final arbiter.
Malcolm Roberts:
So we affirm what the child feels.
Andrew Orr:
You’re affirming what they’re saying. You’re not trying to dissuade them in any way. And of course, that’s part of counselling when one … I’m not a trained psychological counsellor, but my understanding is what you do when you have a patient in that situation, regardless of the nature of the complaint, you listen and you try and let them talk their way through. You don’t influence them one way or the other. Many, many decades ago, conversion therapy was described as when homosexuality was a crime and homosexuality was totally socially unacceptable. Clinicians would use all sorts of dreadful physical methods to dissuade people out of their homosexual ideas.
Andrew Orr:
Now, that term has been appropriated to apply to a counsellor or a clinician, who is not affirming a child’s assertion. That’s been deemed as likely to be conversion therapy. And of course, there are significant penalties that apply to that, jail terms and there’s significant fines, and of course de-registration. So people who are faced with children like this are going to feel quite vulnerable, unless they either refer the child to the clinic, that’s really their only option. Unless they’ve had … And I’ve had it said to me that Medical Defence Association have indicated there is a level of protection one could gain by following certain guidelines that’s been published. It’s not quite the same as affirmation, but it’s halfway. It’s one foot on each side of the barbed wire fence, if you know what I mean?
Malcolm Roberts:
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Orr:
So I think a lot of people do juggle these kids. And of course, it’s a matter of where all these kids end up. As I said, the clinic is full, and a lot of the clinicians are feeling a bit wary about what they’re going to do. It’s a real predicament. It is a predicament.
Malcolm Roberts:
So my understanding then, if you could just tick me on this or correct me, confirm or correct, affirmation model says whatever the child says is right. And then if we dare counsel our child or counsel, if you’re a doctor counselling someone else’s child, then you’re trying to do anti-conversion.
Andrew Orr:
Yes.
Malcolm Roberts:
And that is deemed illegal in some states already.
Andrew Orr:
Yes.
Malcolm Roberts:
And yet, my basic understanding of medicine has been smashed by what they’ve done with the response to COVID where we don’t get a consultation with a doctor. We get a doctor giving us orders on what they’ve been told they must do. But my understanding of the way I use a doctor is I go to a doctor presenting with some symptoms, some problems, some concerns, some fears. I listen to that doctor. The doctor tries to prescribe something. I then engage in a dialogue to understand better and get the risks and the advantages, and then I make up my mind with the doctor’s guidance. That’s correct?
Andrew Orr:
Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Yeah.
Malcolm Roberts:
But we can’t do that when a child presents with gender dysphoria, even though maybe a very confused 12-year-old, entering adolescence, normal confusion. That can’t happen, so the doctor is under enormous pressure to not be seen to be anti-conversion.
Andrew Orr:
Yes. Malcolm, back in 2018, the Federal ALP at the Federal Conference enshrined the principle of affirmation.
Malcolm Roberts:
What?
Andrew Orr:
Yeah, with the change of federal government. I would just suggest to you that predictably, the various state governments may well be encouraged because they would have federal backing on this to more carefully look into what’s happening, and maybe various clinicians might be feeling doubly vulnerable. I’m just predicting what could reasonably be assumed might happen just because of the change of government. That was just one aspect that occurred to me that might make me think that if I was a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I’d be especially doubly feeling more vulnerable than I was six months ago, maybe. Just a thought.
Malcolm Roberts:
This is Senator Malcolm Roberts and I’m with a wonderful retired doctor, who’s been very concerned about gender dysphoria and what it’s doing to our children. So, Dr. Orr, where did the therapeutic professions, the psychiatrists and psychologists stand on this issue? They’re the ones who are supposedly counselling these children and families.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah.
Malcolm Roberts:
But if you’re the mother or the father, then you can be labelled transphobic, so you don’t get involved. If you’re the doctor, you could be afraid of anti-conversion therapy. So this just seems to be abandoning our children at a time when they most need us. Where do the psychiatrists and psychologists stand on it?
Andrew Orr:
Well, that’s a very good point. And I’ve been canvasing an idea to anyone who’d listen, making the following suggestion. It’s been suggested that the whole idea is controversial, the idea of treatment outcomes, the idea of affirmation treatment. I should add to you that affirmation is adopted to children once they vocalise this dysphoria, their symptoms, significant distress. It’s really once they’ve gone on this period of six months. That’s my understanding from what the clinicians at the gender clinic have told me.
Andrew Orr:
So that’s what’s supposed to be the criteria for affirming or offering affirmation, which can lead to hormonal intervention. The child has to have expressed this thing for a significant … persisting for at least six months, something like that. So it’s not like come in today and we’ll put you on the drugs tomorrow. Obviously, the clinicians at the clinic are compassionate and wanting to do the right thing. I should have made that point clear. I think that’s significant.
Andrew Orr:
So getting back to the child and adolescent psychiatrists as a body, they have a college, and the college has recently expressed an opinion about what their members should do. That policy basically is pretty much you make up your own mind about whether you refer the child to the clinic or not, but whatever you do, just be careful that it’s not likely to be deemed anti-conversion therapy. So you really need to examine carefully what you think the motives are for the child making these assertions.
Andrew Orr:
And because the outcome of all this is not known, we don’t really know the long term. It hasn’t been going long enough to know what the outcome of all this intervention is going to be. So it is controversial and it is contested. I would have thought-
Andrew Orr:
If you took that-
Malcolm Roberts:
So the doctors-
Andrew Orr:
Yeah. The doctors as a body, all the child and adolescent psychiatrists, were they to be canvased in let’s say a secret ballot like a voluntary plebiscite, do you support the idea of obligatory affirmation of a child’s assertion? Do you think that’s a good idea that we should have legislation for that?
Andrew Orr:
And the other point I’d like to put to them as a body would be ask the members of that group, secondly, would you support the deferment of hormonal intervention in minors until they reach a mature age decision about it? And intuitively, I would’ve thought most of them would be on board with thinking, no, we don’t agree. It’s legally obligatory that it should be affirmation. And yes, we would probably as a group, I would think an overwhelming majority would say, “We’d like to see hormonal intervention made legally obligatory that had been deferred until the child is no longer a minor.”
Andrew Orr:
So I think that’s the focus. I think that’s got to be the direction in which the profession goes. And I think if you’ve got that information, then it might go some way to convincing legislators that the whole thing is not as controversial as the activists, the protagonists declare, if they can be convinced that most of the serious clinicians, mainly the psychiatrists feel that way. That may influence legislators to say, “Well, maybe this legislation for anti-conversion therapy should be withdrawn. And maybe we should introduce legislation that makes medical intervention, hormonal intervention, not surgical intervention, hormonal intervention, make that deferred while the child is a minor.” So they’d be the two optimal outcomes one would like to see happen to my mind.
Malcolm Roberts:
So this could be yet another case of someone pushing an ideology, as a few groups pushing an ideology, the doctors being afraid, the parents being afraid. The fact that the media has got this into a stage where it’s now politically incorrect to oppose it, so everyone is afraid of saying anything. Then we have AHPRA, the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency, and the AHPPC, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. They are putting enormous pressure on doctors. The doctors are now terrified of the media. They’re terrified of being labelled transphobic, just as our parents. They’re afraid of being, what, sent to jail, fines, de-registered.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah.
Malcolm Roberts:
And then they see legislation in some states talking about, just saying something to counsel a child to think maybe consider, anti-conversion therapy. So the doctor then, what you’re saying, I think, is that there could be a lot of fear around this and a lot of uncertainty. And what you need is that plebiscite of psychiatrists and psychologists and their views also on deferment of treatment to minors, whether it be hormonal treatment or surgical treatment.
Andrew Orr:
I think that might go some way, Malcolm, to convince legislators because at the moment, all they’re listening to are the activists, and they’ve been quite powerful, and they’ve had the ear of legislators to be able to obtain that legislation. So I think they need to listen. The legislators need to listen to people. That might come up with a reason to change their mind. That’s just a thought. That’s all.
Malcolm Roberts:
Well, that makes sense to me because legislators are put up on little pedestals and praised as little tin gods so often around the country. I’m continually asked, “Oh, what’s your view on this?” How the hell would I know? It’s just a new topic to me. What’s your view on that? What’s your view on that? I’m treated as if I’m an expert on everything, and I’m simply not. The difference between me and others is that I’ll admit that, but the legislators are largely ignorant and they’re easy prey to activists who are pushing an agenda through the media, and so legislators respond to the media.
Malcolm Roberts:
So this is just an ideologically driven campaign that is hurting our kids. And ultimately, when our kids go through adolescence, confused and have hormonal treatment, which disrupts, destroys their development or they have bits and pieces cut off their bodies, and then they don’t have a full sex life later on, they have disease coming in later on, they have heartache. Then they’re really in trouble psychologically. We’re leaving these kids out to dry because we haven’t got the courage to say, what the hell is going on?
Andrew Orr:
Yeah. Well, in the United States, and as I said to you, I think as we all have observed, much what happens here, we follow the American themes, don’t we really, in so many different areas. Well, in the United States, what worries me, I’m just thinking in terms of participation of paediatric endocrinologists, across the United States is a network called Planned Parenthood, whose function was basically pregnancy termination services and contraceptive advice and services. But they’ve increased their business model now to dealing with children who are presenting at the clinics sent by counsellors, and these clinics or Planned Parenthood include paediatric endocrinologists, whose function is almost last cab off the rank, to provide the child with the hormones because the psychologists, who sent the child there, aren’t prescribing clinicians. They’re not qualified to do that.
Andrew Orr:
So they’ve got to involve medical practitioners significantly, specifically the endocrinologist, to supply the hormone. So the endocrinologists there supply the hormones, and the child goes, and there’s a complete abrogation of any sense of ongoing clinical responsibility. They’re basically just one little cog in the wheel. That sort of thing as of my reading, if that’s absolutely true and I have no reason to think it’s not true, when you see that sort of thing that it’s progressed to that level in a place like the United States, you wonder if we can expect that behaviour here. I would like to think it wouldn’t be possible, but there you go. You just got to look at what happens over there and think, goodness me, if that would’ve happened here.
Malcolm Roberts:
Can we take an ad break now, Dr. Orr, and be right back with you straight after the ad break and continue this?
Andrew Orr:
Thank you.
Malcolm Roberts:
Okay. We’ll be right back with Dr. Andrew Orr to continue discussions on gender dysphoria.
Malcolm Roberts:
Welcome back. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts, and my special guest is Dr. Andrew Orr, and we’re talking about gender dysphoria. TNT Radio, the only thing we mandate is the truth, and that’s what’s so important here, and it’s taken a while to get me to understand this. Pardon my ignorance, Dr. Orr. So we’ve now understood that this is a problem that’s driven by activists, exacerbated by peer pressure at a very sensitive age for kids. It’s out of touch. How could you say it? Medical bureaucrats, who are giving orders. Can we have an idea of just how big this problem is? How prevalent is gender dysphoria in Queensland? How many children are affected and how worried should we be, Andrew?
Andrew Orr:
Well, as I said to you, my understanding is that the clinic at the new Queensland Children’s Hospital is the largest outpatient clinic at the hospital. I understand there’s something of the order of 750 children currently this year. Well, I think it’s doubled over the last year or two, who are enrolled at the clinic, who are seen by the clinicians at the children’s hospital. So their waiting times are significant, so a lot of children who have been referred cannot be seen. And I think the same things happen down in the big clinic in Melbourne, I think. That’s my understanding. So it’s a big problem.
Malcolm Roberts:
750 children at a clinic. What about all the children not at the clinic? That would be a far greater number. So this is almost an epidemic of this.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah, that’s a misunderstanding. I’m not talking about 750 kids with their moms in one room.
Malcolm Roberts:
No.
Andrew Orr:
I’m talking about outpatient clinic to be clear.
Malcolm Roberts:
Okay. Yeah. No, but if they’re the ones who are getting clinical treatment then they’d be the tip of the iceberg.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah, of course.
Malcolm Roberts:
So we’ve got something that’s out of control and that is really affecting and hurting not just the children who are the key focus here, but also families and therefore communities, parents worried sick and doctors under pressure.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah, absolutely.
Malcolm Roberts:
So from your perspective then, your medical perspective, what’s your take on FINA’s decision to ban transgender participants for elite competition? Should it stop at just the elite sports? I think you’re involved with a rowing club, I won’t mention the club’s name, but which has community ramifications.
Andrew Orr:
Yes. Well, Malcolm, can I just refer to something I’ve dug up, which your listeners might be interested in? This comes from Margaret Somerville, a professor of bioethics at the National School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She was a founding board member of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Ethical Issues Review Panel.
Andrew Orr:
So what I thought I might do is I know you’re going to ask me about that, I had a look at some resource material, and I think let me just read this. “It merits noting that Sport Australia’s guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport, human rights informing principles call for equality but not fairness.” So basically that’s the Sports Australia’s guidelines.
Andrew Orr:
So go back a step. The World Anti-Doping Agency was founded back in November 1999. It lists drugs athletes are prohibited from using, but it also has the term therapeutic use exemption guidelines, TUE guidelines that allow the use of prohibited drugs for necessary medical treatment. In 2017, it produced a document called The Therapeutic Use Exemption Physician Guidelines, transgender athletes, which states, “The exclusive purpose of this medical information is to define the criteria for granting a therapeutic use exemption for the treatment with substances on the prohibited list to transgender athletes. It is not the purpose of this medical information to define the criteria of the eligibility of these athletes to participate in competitive sport, which is entirely left to the different sporting federations and organisations.”
Andrew Orr:
So that’s the important thing. It is left to the different sporting federations. So you’ve seen FINA come out with their opinion. So in short, this World Anti-Doping Authority deals only with what the medical evidence requirements would be for an exemption permission to use cross-sex hormones. It actually ducks the issue of whether trans athletes taking these drugs should be allowed to compete in their transgender category.
Andrew Orr:
The authority was founded to prevent the use of performance enhancing drugs, however, the issue faced in cross-sex hormone treatment for trans women, biological males, is where the performance dis-enhancing drugs to reduce natural testosterone levels should be allowed as an exemption in trans men, biological women. The question is whether performance enhancing testosterone should be allowed.
Andrew Orr:
So it’s acknowledged that these were only recommendations and the decisions about inclusion of transgender athletes was up to the individual sports federations. Now we’ve heard what FINA said with regard to swimming. Rowing Australia I think has made a similar exclusion, except when it comes down to social rowing where they’ve adopted the line suggested by the Sport Australia where you include transgender and gender diverse people. So in that case, they’ve forgotten about fairness and they’ve gone with the work idea of laissez-faire.
Malcolm Roberts:
And so now, all the pressure from the ideologists, the activists is now pushed on to community sporting groups like rowing clubs, like cricket clubs, like football clubs, and they have to make that decision, and they are bombarded by the same woke media, pushing the activist line, the same bombarding by ignorant and gutless politicians. So that’s why we’re going to have to wrap up pretty soon. So I just want you to repeat your solution, and we’ve got about two minutes, if that, your solution is a voluntary plebiscite of psychiatrists and psychologists and de-affirmative treatment to all minors.
Andrew Orr:
Yes. And also de-affirmative treat … That’s right. Well, an abolishment of anti-conversion therapy, which will take away the threat of legislation to clinicians and the legally obligatory de-affirmative hormonal intervention in minors. And I think that’s the goal I would see my profession as pursuing.
Malcolm Roberts:
Thank you. Where can parents, families, people within our communities, people in the medical health, where can they go for more information? You mentioned that book. Perhaps you could mention that book, the title again, and then mention any sources, any websites that you could steer people to.
Andrew Orr:
Yeah, look, Malcolm. There’s so many, but let me just mention two. There’s a book by Helen Joyce called Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. That’s a book. It’s Oneworld Publication. It’s just called Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality.
Andrew Orr:
The other thing I think that’s worth reading as an interested listener might be, the wonderful Douglas Murray, who you might know, who’s the assistant editor at the London Spectator Magazine, who’s frequently interviewed on YouTube. He’s written a book called The Madness of Crowds, which very interestingly-
Malcolm Roberts:
Oh yes. Yes.
Andrew Orr:
He’s written about the different movements that have occurred through society, the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the gay rights movement. And then lastly, the one, as he says, we least understand is the trans movement. If you got that book, The Madness of Crowds, I just read the last chapter, that is excellent.
Malcolm Roberts:
Okay. We’re going to have to go, but I’m going to say before we go, thank you so much, Dr. Andrew Orr for what you have done, what you continue to do and for a fabulous discussion today. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts, staunchly pro-human and a believer in the inherent goodness in human beings.
Andrew Orr:
Excellent.
Malcolm Roberts:
Please remember to listen to one another and to love one another. Stay very proud of who we are as humans. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you all for listening.
Andrew Orr:
My pleasure.
Malcolm Roberts:
Catch you again in two weeks’ time.
Katherine Deves is a Sydney-based lawyer and mother of three daughters. Over the past few years she became concerned at the erasure of sex in policy and legislation in favour of gender identity, and what this would mean for the rights of women and girls.
In October 2020, Katherine joined forces with women in NZ to cofound Save Women’s Sport Australasia. Her motivation came from realising that no one in Australia was speaking up for the little girls, teenagers and women whose rights to safe and fair play were impacted by inclusion policies. If you are wondering what an inclusion policy is – it is a policy that extends eligibility to biological males to compete in the female sports category. Appearances in the Australian and international media as the spokeswoman for Save Women’s Sport raised awareness of this issue and gave her a public platform.
Related: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/the-malcolm-roberts-show-andrew-orr-child-gender-dysphoria/
Transcript
Malcolm Roberts:
This is the Malcolm Roberts Show, on Today’s Newstalk Radio, TNT.
Malcolm Roberts:
Welcome back, and it’s a pleasure to do another show for Today’s Newstalk Radio, tntradio.live. Thank you for having me as your guest, whether it’s in your car, your kitchen, your lounge, your shed, or wherever you are right now, TNT Radio is where the only thing that’s mandated is the truth. There are two themes to every one of my shows. The first is freedom, specifically freedom versus control, the age old battle among individuals, among societies, amongst groups of people, and secondly, personal responsibility and integrity. Both, in my opinion, are fundamental for human progress and people’s livelihoods and safety. And we’ve got two diverse guests today, there’s that word, I’ve hit a politically correct word, diverse. We’ve got two wonderful guests, diverse guests, approaching a very difficult topic, but a topic that is extremely important.
Malcolm Roberts:
Transgender women competing in women’s sport is an international issue of considerable contentious debate. Should it be allowed? Is it safe and fair? What about inclusiveness? We going to discuss this as an issue that’s hurting children in many ways, affecting women and hurting women in many ways, destroying sport, affecting society, and it comes back to the children in particular. But transgender women competing in sport as an issue, came to a head last month when FINA, swimming’s world governing body, voted to bar transgender women from elite female swimming competitions if they have experienced any part of male puberty. And that’s pretty clear, it’s taken them years, but they did it. Fairness and safety have triumphed. The reality that fairness and inclusivity do not always overlap is a harsh reality that we cannot ignore, nor should we shrink from it, especially for the safety of our women and girls.
Malcolm Roberts:
FINAs was not an arbitrary decision that reflects the latest ideological narrative and therefore is subject to change tomorrow, it’s not. This decision was based on three expert committees, one medical, one legal, and one comprising athletes. The medical experts were able to demonstrate without any equivocation that once a male child enters and experiences puberty, the male will forever have physical advantages over women. These structural advantages such as larger lungs and hearts, denser muscles, broader shoulders, longer bones, bigger feet, and hands cannot be changed with hormone suppression. We all know this, don’t we? It’s a fallacy to think that post pubescent males can use hormone suppression to create the equivalency of strength and stamina of a female body. FINA, the world swimming body, has recognised this biological fact in this decision, which received over 70% of support from the 152 voters. But that also raises another question, what was going through the minds of the 30% of the committee members who did not support this vote?
Malcolm Roberts:
But FINAs decision is not new, world rugby barred transgender competitors from international competitions in 2020. So FINAs decision is advancing a momentum. And it is important to understand and reflect on what happened immediately after FINA, there was a rush of other sporting bodies coming out in favour of protecting women and girls from transgender athletes, who became transgender after puberty. Netball and athletics are just two of many other sporting bodies that are now reconsidering their positions on transgender women. I think the national rugby league came out against it, in support of FINA, similar decision to FINAs. Now I agree that every athlete should have the right for inclusion and the right to safety and fairness, FINA has suggested an additional open category to accommodate those who don’t fit the traditional categories. So how and why has this gender fluidity emerged? Who or what are guiding our children through it? And what is the medical profession’s response to this ideological momentum?
Malcolm Roberts:
So my first guest today is Katherine Deves, who I spoke with a year ago about transgender women competing in women’s sports. Katherine Deves is a Sydney based lawyer and mother of three daughters, so she knows a bit about women and girls. Over the past few years, she’s become very concerned at the erasure of sex in policy and legislation, in favour of gender identity and what this would mean for the rights of women and girls. In October, 2020, Katherine joined forces with women in New Zealand, to co-found Save Women’s Sport Australasia. Save Women’s Sport Australasia. Her motivation came from realising that no one in Australia was speaking up for the little girls, the teenagers and the adult women whose rights to safe and fair play were impacted by inclusion policies. Yes, they have rights too, little girls, teenagers and women have rights for safe and fair play.
Malcolm Roberts:
If you’re wondering what an inclusion policy is, it’s a policy that extends eligibility to biological males to compete in the female sports category. Appearances in the Australian and international media, as the spokeswoman for Save Women’s Sport, raised awareness of this issue and gave Katherine a public platform, and we’re forever grateful for that. She used it well. Katherine ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 Australian federal election, as the liberal candidate for the seat of Warringah in New South Wales. Welcome, Katherine. It’s wonderful to chat with you again.
Katherine Deves:
Hello, Malcolm. Thank you so much for having me on the show, and hello to all your listeners.
Malcolm Roberts:
Well, we always start with appreciations. Tell us something you appreciate, anything at all, Katherine.
Katherine Deves:
Malcolm, I think it would be the fact that I am an Australian citizen. I’ve travelled the world, I’ve lived in the United States for years, and I am immensely grateful for having been born in this country and being able to raise my daughters here. It’s a country that is prosperous, secure, and we have a functional democracy, so that’s very important to me.
Malcolm Roberts:
Well, I’m getting goosebumps because that’s the first time that I’ve heard that answer, and I love the answer. That’s wonderful. Why do you appreciate Australia? You’ve you’ve told us about some of the features, but what is it in you that makes you feel so appreciative of our country?
Katherine Deves:
Well, my roots in Australia go all the way back to the first and second fleet. So for someone with European heritage, I’m as Australian as you can be. And I look at democracy and look, of course, it’s not perfect, but when you look at what’s happening in the rest of the world, when you look at say the rights of little girls in many countries, the fact that they can’t even go to school, and we live in a country that is so blessed, we are wealthy, we have universal education, healthcare, it is beautiful country. And by and large, every day when we get up, we’re safe, we’re not having to flee the country like the people of Ukraine. I think we are very, very lucky, and I think that sometimes we really forget how lucky we are when we look at what’s going on in the rest of the world.
Malcolm Roberts:
And that’s why I start with appreciation, because quite often we forget just how fortunate we are. Sure, we’ve got some problems and I’ve been very much disgusted with so much of what’s been happening at state and federal level in the last two years, but the basics are good. We’ve got wonderful people, wonderful resources. But our society is being torn apart in so many ways here in Australia, and what you’re doing is saving our society. So I want to thank you, first of all, Katherine, very much, for what you’ve been doing over the last two years. Thank you.
Katherine Deves:
Thanks Malcolm.
Malcolm Roberts:
The FINA decision last month to bar transgender women from competitive women’s swimming events, was remarkable. It came out of the blue. Can you capture what that landmark decision has meant for supporters of Save Women’s Sport, Katherine?
Katherine Deves:
Well, this is really a watershed moment in this debate. Women and girls have the right to a dedicated female sports category in elite swimming. World rugby made this decision a couple of years ago, however, it simply didn’t get the reach and coverage that this decision has with FINA. And essentially it is saying to men and boys who want to claim a trans identity, that they are ineligible to compete in a female sports category. It’s the first time that, well, aside from rugby, it’s the first time that a major international federation, and this is the first federation after the IOC handed down their guidelines to do with trans and gender inclusion, that have stood up and said, “No, we are acknowledging the importance of biological sex in sport.”
Malcolm Roberts:
So it’s a wonderful decision because it’s really triggered an avalanche of associations, sporting groups, I think globally, as well as in Australia, that have followed. That’s what I can see anyway. And it’s so encouraging to know Katherine, that so many people, despite your best efforts and our efforts in the Senate and our efforts publicly and socially, our efforts have all been for naught, because the avalanche of political correctness just swept everyone away, and people were silent. Once FINA and the rugby union changed two years ago, that didn’t break too much, but once FINA changed, there’s been an avalanche of people now changing and people suddenly realising, oh, it’s okay to say what we really think.
Katherine Deves:
That’s right. So with FINA making this decision, I believe FINA was already consulting for these guidelines, prior to Lia Thomas, who is the male athlete in the United States who competed in the NCAA and became a champion in the female category, even though he is … I mean, you look at him and there is nothing female about him. And I think that that really galvanised a lot of people when they saw how unfair it is. And I think Malcolm, maybe for people, such as yourself, for people like me who have been standing up and saying things, in many countries around the world, there are many women who’ve been doing the same thing. Finally, once people saw it, when they saw Laurel Hubbard and they understood what we were talking about, when they saw those images, when you saw that image of Thomas standing there number one on the podium and the three girls who really should have been first, second, and third, huddling together, away from him, that was such a powerful image, and people then understood what it was that we were arguing about.
Malcolm Roberts:
Well, let’s just go to the vote, the 70%, more than 70% vote in favour of restrictions at FINA in its committee, is resounding. What were the powerful messages that came from the critical analysis of the issue by FINAs expert medical, legal and athletic committees?
Katherine Deves:
Well, I think they did an excellent job, they heard the athletes. So what came out of that was that competitive fairness must be paramount and that sex specific categories are necessary to address the inequality between men and women in sport. The biological inequality, the inequality with access to resources and opportunity. With the science, so they had the science panel and they said that neuromuscular, cardiovascular, respiratory function, and anthropometrics, including body size and limb size, I mean, the differences in biological sex, they are imutable, they are observable and no amount of nutrition or training or inherent skill can overcome the performance advantages that men have because of those reasons. So there are biological differences linked to sex, especially at elite levels. It also addressed the issue of testosterone. Now, testosterone is a wonder drug and male foetuses start to accrue the benefits of testosterone in utero.
Katherine Deves:
So six weeks after conception, six weeks after birth, those benefits continue to accrue in childhood, and then they become very much apparent at puberty. So the science panel addressed that issue. And also with respect to legal, the eligibility rule for aquatics is very narrow and it had to reflect FINAs commitment to a sex based women’s category, in order to ensure that there is fair competition for women and girls. And there was a woman who consulted on the legal panel, who is the Honourable Dr. Annabel Bennett, a retired Australian judge. Her credentials are impeccable, she’s a tribunal member of CAS, which is the international tribunal for sport. She’s also been on the tribunal for discrimination, here in New South Wales. And she was the tribunal member for the Caster Semenya decision. So when I understood that she was participating in the FINA guidelines, I felt very confident and reassured that the guidelines would be properly given, everything would be given due consideration, because she’s one of the foremost legal minds on this issue in the world.
Malcolm Roberts:
So we’ve had confirmation from medicos, that women are different from men.
Katherine Deves:
Yes, that’s right.
Malcolm Roberts:
Basically.
Katherine Deves:
Yes.
Malcolm Roberts:
And look how long it’s taken. I mean, Senator Alex Antic asked a question of the secretary, the head of our department of health, in federal parliament. He just asked a simple question, what’s the definition of a woman? And they took it on notice, they couldn’t define that. I mean, this is really basic stuff, isn’t it? We’re getting a long way from having a balanced society. When the chief of the department of health cannot define what a woman is and now it’s taken how many years and how much heartache for the medical profession to actually say that women are different from men.
Katherine Deves:
Oh, that was terribly embarrassing when that health bureaucrat couldn’t even say what a woman is. A flip side, I’d like to say to him, well, what is a man? What’s your definition of a man? I don’t think it would’ve been the convoluted answer that they responded with weeks later, that’s for sure. But one thing that I particularly liked about the FINA consultation process was they asked the female athletes. And when the women athletes are asked in a way where it’s confidential and they don’t have to be concerned about the backlash or losing sponsorship or losing their position on the team, invariably they come back saying, “Yes, we want our own category.” So I think that Cate Campbell stood up in defence of herself and other women. So I would hope that in having started this conversation, other women activists who had done that, it empowered her to be able to stand up and be able to defend herself without feeling afraid.
Malcolm Roberts:
So let’s just branch off for a minute, I’ve got some other questions in the line we have been pursuing, but let’s take a quick diversion. My mother, who was a woman, surprising though it may sound, but she’s long said that the women’s movement had lost its way because … and I agree with her entirely. And I came to that conclusion, the conclusion that we need to celebrate women being different from men, we need to celebrate that they bring a different opinion, they bring different qualities, rather than pretending women and men are equal and the same. We have a much better society when we recognise that we need both, at whether it be at corporate board levels or sporting associations, but there are some things that men can do better than women, and there are many things that women can do better than men. And I’m not just talking about physically, I’m talking about mentally, socially, emotionally,
Malcolm Roberts:
We’re different, and we should be celebrating that and hiring people, not on the basis that women are equal to men or that men are equal to women, but that they’re different because it brings a much better balance to whatever an organisation is, whether it’s a sporting organisation or a cultural organisation or a corporation or a social club. What do you think?
Katherine Deves:
Look, I think there is a bit of a difference just saying, “Oh, we need to have equality.” It needs to be quality of opportunity, equality of access to resources. And you’re right, we do need to acknowledge that there are differences between the sexes. We need to acknowledge that women do bear the burden of human reproduction, and for that reason, our bodies are different, that we do have some limitations. It doesn’t mean that one sex is better or worse, but I agree with you, the sexes are different and what we should be striving for is more equity, that everyone has equality of access to opportunity and resources, rather than trying to be exactly the same.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yes, I agree entirely, equity of opportunity, not an imaginary figment of the imagination that we’re the same. It’s complete nonsense. Thank you for being so clear, no wonder you got the result that you got. What about the 30% of the committee that did not vote in favour of the restrictions, were they mainly abstaining or were they against, did they vote against?
Katherine Deves:
I think there were some countries that abstained, but like you, I was quite surprised that it was as high as 30%. It would be interesting to see which of those countries it was. And I mean, I read the guidelines that they did vote on and I thought it was extremely comprehensive, and I think that it’s a real betrayal of women and girls and females who compete in aquatic sports, to have voted against that. Because it really needs to be clear, the eligibility criteria for male and female needs to be clear and that’s simply what the guidelines did.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yes. But does it worry you that 30% don’t see this?
Katherine Deves:
It does.
Malcolm Roberts:
How could they have not voted in support of this? I mean, the issue is so clear cut, why?
Katherine Deves:
I struggle with that a lot, trying to understand why people would think that the appropriate way forward here is to allow men and boys to claim to be women and to compete in women’s sports. I mean, with the FINA decision, obviously this applies to just simply elite sport, but I also struggle with the fact that it’s just elite and the sports bureaucrats seem to think that it’s fine at community and grassroots level to allow men and boys to compete in the female category. I mean, when you look at … I mean, to be able to get to the elite level, you have to start at community level. So the fact that this doesn’t apply at those local levels as well, perplexes me greatly.
Malcolm Roberts:
And there are other considerations there as well, in terms of dressing sheds, I’m going to be talking with my next guest, next hour, about the rowing, about what’s happening in rowing and males and female, biological males, sorry, and biological females having to share the same hotel room, having to share the same change sheds, dressing sheds, this is just absurd. But let’s take a break now, Katherine, and we’ll listen to our sponsors and then we’ll be back to have more of your insights and your opinions. Thank you very much. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
Malcolm Roberts:
I was listening earlier, before I started, to Joseph and his guest Mark Wood. Now they had totally different views on Joe Biden. I’m with Joseph on that issue, but Mark had a right to express, have and express a different view, and Joseph welcomed that. So we’ve got the opportunity for the people to say what they really think. So I’m with a wonderful guest today, Katherine Deves, who’s done a remarkable job of standing up where no one else would stand up. Katherine, how important is it that FINA identified that the cutoff point, are males who have been through puberty onwards, would be excluded from competing?
Katherine Deves:
Well, my understanding of the reasoning for that decision is that it’s to do with the accruing of the benefits of a male puberty. So where they put the cutoff point, it was at 12 years old for males, provided they haven’t entered into [inaudible 00:25:03] stage puberty, which is when puberty starts to commence. In my view, it actually doesn’t go far enough, the policy, it really should be you’re excluded on the basis of being born male, observed and recorded at birth. And even FINA research itself demonstrates that boys start outperforming girls at eight years old. And I think any parent who stands on the sidelines of sports in the afternoons or on the weekend, you can see the difference between boys and girls from a very early age. Even my daughter in the under sixes for rugby league, there’s a difference in how they perform.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yeah. And when I was a boy, which is 50 years ago, we didn’t have girls playing rugby league, just wasn’t on. And so it seems a bit strange when they started playing rugby league some years later, but now it’s an everyday occurrence and you don’t think anything of it, it’s just a natural occurrence, but you want some protection against … and let’s face it, we have boys maturing at different rates themselves. And so in some areas, they didn’t have an age limit on boys, they had a size limit on boys. You played, up to a certain age, you played according to the size because some people mature so much more quickly than others. So there is an important need to understand that boys and girls are different, sometimes kids are different, but as you’ve just said, boys will outperform girls in a physically active way, from a very early age.
Katherine Deves:
That’s right. And Dr. Carol Hooven, who’s a lecturer at Harvard, she actually wrote the book on testosterone. And she said that the dose that male neonates get about six weeks after birth, contributes to how boys rough house. So even with respect to how competitive they are, how willing they are to be … when I watch the rugby league under sixes play, the boys are much more interested in tackling, the girls usually hold back. But when we’re talking about like, it doesn’t so much apply to swimming because it’s not a contact or collision sport, but when we’re looking at contact, combat collision sports, this starts to become very important. And we’re only even beginning to understand how concussion affects males and females differently and females experience worse concussions at lower impacts, with worse outcomes.
Katherine Deves:
So it’s very, very important that we acknowledge the sex differences. And in my view, it really should begin younger than 12. I think probably about eight might be the right age to start separating them into the different sexes. And I mean, a lot of sports, particularly team sports, they will have the girls category, and then they have the boys category, which is also open to girls who are able to play at a really high level. But even once they start getting to about 12 or 13, the girls just can’t keep up, and it starts to be a bit of a safety issue as well.
Malcolm Roberts:
Boy, you’re not afraid to tackle the issues, are you, Katherine? Because you’ve just indicated, the way I read it, correct me if I’m wrong, that there’s a difference of an approach between a boy and a girl. The boy will be more physical and more aggressive, is that my understanding? I certainly agree with you if it is, but if it’s not, then correct me please.
Katherine Deves:
Oh, look, I think we have stereotypes for a reason. And I’m not saying that this is for every single boy or every single girl, of course, you’re going to get girls who like to rough house, of course you’re going to get boys who prefer to be gentle and don’t want to involve themselves in collision sports. But I think by and large, there are sex stereotypes for a reason.
Malcolm Roberts:
And we wouldn’t be here today, because our ancestors would’ve been eaten by some sabre tooth tiger or whatever, some years ago, if we didn’t have males doing the protecting. Now, if push comes to shove, don’t get between a woman and her child, that’s wonderful, that protective instinct is there, but the males are the more aggressive and the more physically assertive. And so we need to recognise that, and we need to celebrate that, providing the male doesn’t dominate unfairly because of that.
Katherine Deves:
Oh, that’s right. So, I mean, if you’re going to apply this to sport, if we don’t have sex specific categories, then women don’t have the opportunity to shine. All we have to do is look at the history of sports records and we see how much men outperform women, whether it’s speed, which we get outperformed, I think is 10 to 12%, all the way up to punching power, which is 260%. So if we don’t have sex specific categories, women just simply would not be able to compete.
Malcolm Roberts:
Now there’s been some criticism of FINAs decision and it seems absurd to me, I’ll just put it out there now, but I’d like your opinion of it because FINAs decision would potentially push boys as young as 10 to start considering puberty blockers, and sex hormones, to get in early, before the puberty starts, or they risk never meeting FINAs regulations. In American states like Texas, where it’s outlawed to have this type of medical intervention in young children, it means that FINAs ruling would exclude any transitioners during or after puberty. What do you say to that criticism?
Katherine Deves:
Well, it’s really false to claim that these boys are being excluded, it’s making them ineligible on the basis of their male sex. However, they would be able to compete in the male category or in a mixed category. So there are absolutely opportunities for them to participate in sport. I suspect FINA maybe didn’t think through the decision to cut off at 12 years old, and I can only speculate their reasoning at the time. But I think that we are also being rather naive if we do not acknowledge and accept that there will be bad actors who will try to exploit this loophole. We only have to look at the history with the east German female swimmers, also the Chinese swimmers who were doping, whether they knew that they were being given testosterone or not. And I think that this decision has definitely highlighted the moral and ethical issues around the medical transitioning of children.
Katherine Deves:
It really must be noted that countries like Finland, Sweden, France, the UK are urging extreme caution in transitioning children. There is a lot of evidence coming out now of the harm that’s being done to the bodies of children when you put them on these medicalized pathways. And some of these countries are even saying, we are just simply not offering medicalized pathways anymore, we’ll offer psychological support, like in Finland. So I think they’ve really opened a Pandora’s box with this one.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yeah, it seems to me that the whole thing was conjured up, it’s a concoction, a fabrication to somehow stand between the sexes yet again, because we’ve seen this policy reflected in many other areas, this type of policy reflected in many other areas, and it’s really confusing. Sex is breaking down families, breaking down males and females, that’s the way it strikes me and this push back saying that, “Oh, boys as young as 10 will now start considering puberty blockers and sex hormones to get in early.” That really is clutching at straws for me, they’re really not coming up with a solid argument and so they’re trying to get their way using a nonsense. And I mean, I’m not asking you to agree with me, but the whole thing is basically a nonsense that’s been fabricated, to my way of thinking.
Katherine Deves:
Well, I think if they were going to rely on the accrued benefits of testosterone, and based on the existing evidence, and they had to have a cutoff point from 12 years old. However, now with the emerging evidence, showing that, as I mentioned before, male embryos get doses of testosterone in utero that female embryos do not, then I think it just needs to go back to your sex observed and recorded at birth.
Malcolm Roberts:
Yep. So let’s continue Katherine and thank you for your blunt answers, it’s so refreshing. How viable is FINAs suggestion of an open category, will this be sustained, are there enough competitors, will it hold the same prestige?
Katherine Deves:
Well, my concern has always been for the women and girls and provided that they continue to have a dedicated female or female only sports category, I would not object to any solution proposed to accommodate these men and boys who claim to be women, who want to compete in the female category. If that’s an open category or a specific transgender category, of course I would support that, provided that the women and girls don’t have to give up their own opportunities or give up any of their own resources.
Malcolm Roberts:
So you’re in this battle and that’s what it is, for protecting women and girls, and it’s really up to other people to come along and put their case for what they want.
Katherine Deves:
That’s right. I mean, they’re the ones making the demands and it really should not be put on women to solve this problem. I mean, women’s sports are not at parity with men’s sports as it is, with respect to scholarships, resources, media coverage, pay parity and so on. So we haven’t even achieved equality in this area yet, so I don’t think we should be expected to solve this problem for others. If they’re going to come in making demands, then they should also be bringing solutions. I think an open category, a mixed category, transgender category is more likely the way forward. And I’d also put it to men to be more accommodating of gender nonconforming males, instead of expecting women to make accommodations.
Malcolm Roberts:
So I’m with Katherine Deves, who’s doing a remarkable job of being blunt and concise. So I really appreciate the way you’re answering questions, Katherine. Now let’s extend beyond swimming. Rugby’s already made that decision in 2020, and there are more sporting bodies reconsidering their positions. Do you think FINAs decision will hasten the growing movement to safeguard women’s sport?
Katherine Deves:
Yes, I do. I think there needed to be one prestigious international federation to stand up and protect women and girls sports, and obviously FINA has done that. World rugby did it, as we mentioned before, but maybe because it’s, I don’t know, it’s a small sport, it was two years ago, the landscape has changed a lot. We’re also in the post Lia Thomas, Laurel Hubbard world, so people have had the visual on what it looks like when you have men who are essentially … I mean, Laurel Hubbard was in his 40s, and he had 10 years off weight lifting, I believe, and there he is standing there with the world’s best young women who were teenagers and women in their early 20s. And same with Lia Thomas, when we saw him, he was ranked, I think, around about 500 and then all of a sudden he’s a national champion.
Katherine Deves:
So I think Lia and Laurel both did us all a favour, in giving us [inaudible 00:37:03] around that, but I would really hope that due to the consideration that FINA gave to their guidelines, that this might serve as a template for other sports, and I would really, really like to see that adopted by the national federations here in Australia. Unfortunately, we are still getting quite major pushback. We had Kieren Perkins, who is now the CEO of Sport Australia, who came out saying that these sorts of policies protecting women and girls would end up in human carnage, which I think is very extreme and hyperbolic and incredibly-
Malcolm Roberts:
What did he mean by that? Could you explain what he meant by that, please?
Katherine Deves:
I think it’s to do with if men and boys who are claiming to be women are excluded, I’m not entirely sure that it’s going to result in human carnage. I mean, I would hazard a guess and say, does that mean that these people are going to be suffering depression and anxiety or committing suicide? I’m not entirely sure what was in his contemplation at the time, but I think that that was a very extreme comment to make. I would also say to Mr. Perkins, that had he had to compete against someone who was enjoying a 10 to 12% advantage, say a fellow swimmer who was doping, he certainly wouldn’t have won his gold medals, and he certainly wouldn’t be sitting there as the CEO of Sport Australia because he would’ve likely not enjoyed such professional success.
Katherine Deves:
And we’ve also seen that sports federations here in Australia, who’ve signed up to a group called pride in sport, which is part of ACON, that used to be known as the Aids Council of New South Wales. Now pride in sport receives very generous government funding to go and lobby government departments and sports organisations, with respect to having sports categories based on gender identity instead of sex. So we are rather behind some of the other countries like the UK, in terms of this debate. In the UK, their sports council did a wide ranging review that came out last year, that said that it is impossible to have both fair competition, player safety for women, as well as inclusion of men and boys who claim to be women in their sports categories. Whereas in Australia, our mainstream media and many of our sports federations seem to still be going along with the gender identity being prioritised over sex.
Malcolm Roberts:
Okay. I’d like to broaden the discussion after the break, but before we go to the break, can you just tell us how listeners can find out more about Save Women’s Sport? Is there a website, are there advocacy roles, do you need volunteers, how organised is it? Can you just tell us where people can go for more information about what you’re doing?
Katherine Deves:
Sure. So with Save Women’s Sports Australasia, we are on all the social media platforms, we also have a website where you can subscribe. Coach Linda Blade has written a book on this issue called, Unsporting, if you really want to educate yourself on this issue. And also if you follow Senator Claire Chandler, she’s very active in this space, she’s doing fundraising, she has her save women’s sports bill in an effort to clarify this issue at the federal level in Australia. So go and look her up, follow her on social media or at her website. So there’s some good places to start.
Malcolm Roberts:
Thank you very much. And I’ll endorse that Pauline Hanson and I, we don’t worry about someone being in another party. Claire Chandler has done a very good job in this area, full power to her, we support that, we have supported her in the Senate, we’ve spoken up very strongly in the Senate, we will continue to support Claire doing that. So thank you very much for that. We’re with Katherine Deves, having a wonderful conversation. We’ll be back, Katherine, after the ad break. And let’s talk about the avalanche that may be coming now that FINA has broken the dam wall, right across our society. We’ll be right back with Katherine Deves.
Malcolm Roberts:
Welcome back, with Katherine Deves. So Katherine, what we notice and one of the ladies, of course, in our office team … and by the way, we’re 50/50, not because we have any mandate for that, because I don’t believe in mandates, or positive discrimination, we’re 50,/50 male and female in our office because based on merit. But one of the ladies said, “Look at all the people folding in, look at how quickly the news media picked this up.” So this was a bubble waiting to be pricked, wasn’t it? It’s based on nonsense. And so once FINA stood up, the media actually changed very, very quickly.
Katherine Deves:
That’s right. If you’ve been following this debate, the IOC put out guidelines back in November that were frankly, dreadful. They were saying that the categories for sport were to be based on gender identity, they were saying that a male could compete as a female, and under the privacy principles, you couldn’t challenge that, you couldn’t ask about that. And then in an act that, in my view, was incredibly craven, then said, “Oh, we’re going to pump this to all the international federations to sort out.” So everyone’s been waiting for one organisation to be able to stand up and be brave and acknowledge the difference between the biological sexes. So I think that now that that’s happened, it really started a bit of an avalanche because I mean, it’s just absurd, when you are seeing these men who are aged out or mediocre, competing at an elite level and women’s sport really should not be a plan B or a retirement option for these men. We really want to see the elite women.
Katherine Deves:
And I think now that we’re starting to have female athletes, ex Olympians, Sharon Davies over in the UK, she’s been incredibly vocal, we had Dawn Fraser, even standing up, Cate Campbell, a number of athletes here, parents, grandparents, women, and girls who play sports, we were looking for someone with very high profile to stand up and start talking common sense. And I think for those who are being critical of women standing up and saying we want to have our rights here, I mean, during the course of the election, I even had my opponents, Zali Steggall, who herself is a former Olympian, who likely would not have been an Olympian had she had to compete against men, and she referred to the parents who had concerns, as transphobic.
Malcolm Roberts:
I know, it’s disgusting.
Katherine Deves:
I think that when we are seeing the arguments of the other side, that is simply predicated on, well, I just want to be included, I’ve got hurt feelings and so on, I mean, it just doesn’t stand up in the face of say what FINA did, where they’re consulted with the scientists and the lawyers and the female athletes themselves. There’s just a real disparity in the quality of the arguments, and the other side just really falls over when it gets challenged, it just simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Malcolm Roberts:
And yet Katherine, we have the media, we have the activists, we have some politicians, many politicians who promote this Bullshit, pardon my French, who promote this rubbish, and it spreads right across society. And very few people have the courage to stand up and tell the truth and stand up and speak in a common sense way, about facts and data. And you’ve done that, and it’s so refreshing, what you’ve done and what you’ve led. So this is not just a campaign to bring sense back to swimming, to protect girls and women, this is about the values of our society. This is about making sure that people in the remote halls of New York and Geneva and UN buildings, who are trying to smash the family, are actually put back and said, “Get the out of our country. We believe that women and men are different, boys and girls are different. We applaud that, we celebrate that, we welcome everyone, but for goodness sake, just come at us with the facts, instead of your busted ideology, trying to divide our society.”
Malcolm Roberts:
So, Katherine, thank you so much for what you’ve done, because I see it, as I just said, as a matter of your protecting our values and I applaud your courage. What was your motivation to get involved? Why were you standing up for young girls in sport? What were you seeing that made you think that shouldn’t happen? Why did you stand up?
Katherine Deves:
For my daughters, Malcolm, they play sport and no one in any of this was speaking for the little girls. And I was seeing, it’s wide in sport with the transgender inclusion guidelines here, it was all done with great fanfare, lots of resources, people who are being paid nice full time salaries, the top nine sports in Australia had signed up to this. And then going and having a look at the guidelines and seeing that sex wasn’t a category in sport anymore, it was all gender identity and all a man or boy had to do, they don’t need hormones or surgery or anything, they just had to register as a female and say that they were a female.
Katherine Deves:
And I understand you’re speaking to another guest, but that was extending to change rooms, overnight accommodation, the parents weren’t to be told, if we were to send our daughters off on a sports camp, we weren’t to be told that another athlete who was male might be billeted in the same room as them, or the coach or the umpire might be in the same room as them. And I just thought that was a safeguarding failure, and I thought, why is no one challenging this? Why is this all being promoted as brave and stunning and inclusive? But when you’re putting these men and boys in there, you’re making it dangerous for little girls and they are the ones being excluded, and I felt that someone had to simply speak up for them.
Malcolm Roberts:
Well, thank you for doing so. And I want to actually compliment you on something else and draw to people’s attention, your argument. Your argument has never been anti transgender. You’ve never slagged anyone who’s changed their sex, you’ve never done that. You’ve never put them down. Because I’m sure you would probably know, just like I know, there are people who are born in the wrong body, but they’re very, very few and far between, and I will support those people, and I’m sure you would too. But this is about fairness, it’s not about slagging off on someone or putting someone down, what you’ve done is very positively and in a very caring way, supported people that are being disadvantaged unfairly because of a monstrous lie in our society.
Katherine Deves:
Look, that’s right. And I mean, bodies play sport, not identities. And so for that reason, that’s why I just used fact based language. Some people might find that confronting or offensive, but I think it’s really important to just acknowledge the biological sex here. And I mean, I have people in my life who identify as trans, people who have gone through the whole surgical process, they understand that they are still the sex that they are born, but they find it easier to move in the world, identifying as the opposite sex, wearing the clothes that are associated with the opposite sex, and I fully respect their experience, but I think there are certain times when we need to just acknowledge biological sex, for very important reasons.
Malcolm Roberts:
My wife and I know of someone overseas, who was seen as a tomboy when she was a little girl and she’s dressed like a boy, she’s played sports like a boy, she’s married to another lady. She then contemplated getting a sex change operation. And as she stepped up to that, I think she might have even started the hormonal treatment, as she stepped up, she thought, no, this is not right. So that was her choice to go that way and then to pull back, and we love her for doing that, for both, that’s her choice. We love her as she is and she doesn’t claim to be a boy or a man, but we just love her as the human she is. And I think that’s what really matters here, and your love for young girls, your love for your own daughters, your love for women, it’s the same as your love for men because you’re doing this to protect men as well.
Katherine Deves:
Well, I just see this, with the gender ideology, it really just reinforces these regressive sex stereotypes. Why can’t we just have gender nonconformity? Why can’t you just have a girl who is going to grow up to be a lesbian, she likes wearing shorts, she likes playing rugby? And you say there is a million different ways to be a girl, there’s a million different ways to be a boy, but just because you’re maybe a boy who likes dresses and plays with trucks, or a girl who plays footy and wants to cut her hair off, it doesn’t mean that you’re the opposite sex. And I think that selling children that lie, we’re doing a great disservice to them. I think we should just be able to accept people for who they are, however they want to dress, whoever they want to love, instead of enforcing these sex stereotypes.
Malcolm Roberts:
Beautiful. What’s the future for this movement, and is there more to do, Katherine?
Katherine Deves:
There definitely is more to do. Unfortunately, the trans activists are very much focusing on erasing sex in law and policy, not just in sport, but in many other areas of our national interest, in education and so on. And I think we need to be very vigilant, I think we need to defend the concept of biological sex. And so yes, there is a lot of work to be done, not just with sports.
Malcolm Roberts:
How can people be more involved? I mean, you could mention your website again and people can maybe become educated by reading the book that you mentioned, Unsporting, the title was Unsporting. How can they be more involved? What are the first steps they should take if they want to protect our society? Because that’s what I see it as doing, you have been protecting our society and you continue to protect our society, and I am very grateful for you doing so. How can more people help you?
Katherine Deves:
Well, what I would suggest is following on social media, some of the groups that are doing the lobbying with respect to this. So that would be Coalition for Biological Reality, Binary also do good work. So if you start following them on social media, you’ll start to see the other groups around the world as well, that are also fighting this issue. I think supporting those who publicly stand up, whether it’s politicians, whether it’s ordinary people like me, supporting them on social media, writing to your local paper, write to the national papers, call into your radio stations, make sure that your voice is heard, get your opinion out there. Make the politicians, decision makers, see that the vast majority of Australians really don’t agree with the erasure of sex in law and policy.
Malcolm Roberts:
There are very few people like Katherine Deves, with her courage and her sense, and a common sense in politics, so take her advice and jump right into the fray. Katherine Deves, thank you so much for protecting our country and our values. Listeners, stay right here, we’ll be back after the news with another great guest, another down to earth view. Thank you so much, Katherine. Thank you to our listeners.
People would be allowed to change their gender every 12 months, while the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ would be optional, under a proposed radical shake-up of birth certificates the Courier Mail reports.
No amount of ideology or pontificating by bureaucrats will ever change the biological fact that a father is an adult male with potential to produce sperm and a mother is an adult female with potential to produce eggs.
Just as a bull who is castrated does not become a cow, a “transgender female” will never be female, even though they choose to live in a female world.
The scope to choose any gender you want on your birth certificate from 12 years, with the potential to change every year, fuels an obsession with self-identity at an age when the human brain is already scrambled due to puberty. Genuine gender dysphoria is genuine distress and bureaucratic pandering does nothing to alleviate the distress.
Transgender athletes who went through puberty as a male are now banned from competing in female events. The world swimming governing body FINA made the decision on Sunday in a resounding 71.5% majority.
FINA’s decision that only biological women can compete in women’s swimming events and a proposal to create an open category for athletes who do not fit into traditional gender categories is fair, safe and inclusive.
Everyone has the right to access competitive sport and everyone has the right to safety while competing. FINA’s landmark decision is based on the irrefutable science that once males progress through puberty they are physically stronger than females.
FINA’s courage to make a stand for women’s sport is the new benchmark for the rest of the sporting world to measure up to.
My podcasts with Transgender women and motions in parliament on this issue: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/?s=transgender
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