I honour the original, genuine feminist movement – a movement of women who fought hard to establish rights that are now under attack.
I am deeply concerned by the recent Giggle v. Tickle Federal Court decision, which highlights how the rights of biological women to have safe, female-only spaces are being eroded by men pretending to be women.
I challenged the Office for Women on whether they truly stand with biological women. I find it incredible that in this day and age, we are even having this conversation.
I asked them directly if women are entitled to safe places where biological men are not welcome. The Office and the Minister repeatedly deflected my questions, claiming these issues are “medical” or matters for the Attorney-General.
They claim to stand for “all women,” yet when pressed on what that means for biological females, they offer no clear protection.
I view this trans activist movement as a destructive force intended to destabilise and divide western civilisation. Rather than encouraging people to continue down this path, we should be helping them love the bodies they were born in.
The irony is not lost on me that our first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, legislated the very version of the Sex Discrimination Act that created this mess, one that puts women at risk and ignores basic biological reality.
Australians are fed up with this.
One Nation’s Promise: We will not wait. One Nation intends to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to fix the loopholes created by the Gillard government.
I will continue to pursue this issue until we return to a society that recognises truth, protects women and restores common sense to our laws.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. Women rightly fought hard and long to establish women’s rights through the original, genuine and very real feminist movement. I honour them. I sincerely do. Does the Office for Women support Sall Grover in her case Tickle v Giggle? Sall is otherwise known as Giggle. This case result in the Federal Court recently clearly shows that women’s rights are under attack from men identifying as women as part of the so-called trans activists. Do you support Sall Grover?
Ms Raman: I don’t believe that’s a matter for us. I would direct you to AGD. I think you did canvass this at length last night.
Senator ROBERTS: I did. I will continue to do so. As part of a—
CHAIR: Just ensure your questions are directed to the right people, Senator Roberts. That would be really helpful.
Senator ROBERTS: I am coming to that. By the way, the trans activist movement is part of a movement wanting to destabilise and divide our country. They are modern Marxists. I can’t believe we’re living in a time where this is even a topic of conversation. Surely it would be better to help these obviously unwell people with loving the body they are already born in, not encourage them to continue down this destructive path, which puts women at risk. The Office for Women plays a critical role in driving policies to eliminate domestic, family and sexual violence. I applaud you for that. The recent decision in Tickle v Giggle has diminished the rights of biological women to have safe places.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I think we’ve covered this in the sense that case is not a matter for these witnesses.
Senator ROBERTS: My question, Chair, is: does this office accept that women are entitled to have safe places where men, biological or identified, are not welcome? Do women have the right to have that?
Ms Raman: We’re focused on tangible and practical outcomes to close gender gaps. We are guided by our strategy Working for Women. Our day-to-day work is focused on what the Commonwealth can do to keep women safe, ensure families have choice in relation to care and work, as I said before, and improve women’s health and their place in decision-making. When we deal with these things, everyone is safer. All Australians are safer and have freedom and opportunities. Our daily work is about ensuring that we keep women safe. We work on the issues in our strategy to ensure that we get to gender equality.
Senator ROBERTS: What could be more tangible than a man who identifies as a women but is still a man attacking a women? Nothing could be more tangible than that. Nothing could be more safety aware than that. I want to know why Australians should be forced to accept that men can be women when they are not.
CHAIR: It’s not relevant to these witnesses.
Ms Raman: When we deal with the issues that we have in our strategy, these issues almost never come up. When we focus on the issues that are about ensuring that we remove the barriers to ensuring that we can have gender equality in this country, these issues do not come up in our day-to-day work.
Senator ROBERTS: Does the Office for Women stand with biological women, or does this office also include men identifying as women?
Ms Raman: We stand with all women.
Senator ROBERTS: So that’s biological women?
Senator WHITEAKER: What does that term even mean? It’s a ridiculous question.
CHAIR: The witness said all women, Senator Roberts. You are trying to create a divide here.
Senator ROBERTS: Safe spaces for women. I want women’s rights back.
Senator WHITEAKER: How about you leave that up to us to figure out for ourselves.
Senator ROBERTS: That is what I am doing. They’re coming to me saying, ‘For goodness sake, pursue this issue with the Office for Women.’ Senator Cash knows all about it. That’s exactly what we’re doing. I stand for women’s rights as hard fought for and won by the feminist movement decades ago. Do you believe that a man that is born with male genitals and male chromosomes can be anything other than a male?
CHAIR: This is a medical question, Senator Roberts. You are better off in the health department, which is next week.
Senator ROBERTS: If men can be women, does that mean anyone can identify something they are clearly not? For example, if I consider myself to be a six foot six inch basketball player when I’m clearly not, would it be considered delusional?
CHAIR: Again, that is a medical question, Senator Roberts. I would direct you to the health department.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ll get to the final one. Minister, will the government change the law? The irony is that former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard, the first female prime minister in this country, created the legislation that created this mess. She accused Tony Abbott of being misogynist. One Nation will amend the Sex Discrimination Act legislated by the Gillard government that has created this mess. Why don’t you do it before the election and change it?
Senator Gallagher: It’s not a matter for the Office for Women.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking the minister.
Senator Gallagher: Well, it’s a matter for the Attorney-General. Her representative appeared last night, as did representatives from Attorney-General’s. I presume you asked the question of them. That’s where it is appropriately made.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking you as a minister of the government today.
Senator Gallagher: It does not form—
Senator ROBERTS: You have two years left in your term.
Senator Gallagher: It does not fall within my ministerial responsibilities, Senator Roberts. It is a matter for the Attorney-General.
Senator ROBERTS: You’re a woman and you’re a minister and you’re part of the government.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, if you want to ask a question about changing that particular legislation, then you are in the wrong place. I believe you have already done that and asked in those areas. You may not have liked the answer—
Senator ROBERTS: I didn’t ask that question yesterday.
CHAIR: Well, you still have time to put it on notice, Senator Roberts, if you would like to do that, to the relevant agency.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/j-AgD1RGnRs/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-07-09 12:36:382026-07-09 12:36:41Restoring Biological Reality to Australian Law
The Albanese Government hid a provision in a Superannuation bill which gave charity status to a lobby group, Equality Australia. For those who don’t know, Equality Australia is an LGBTQI+ organisation committed to destroying religious freedom in Australia. For many years, Equality Australia has waged a campaign against Christian Schools Australia, as well as almost 2,800 other faith-based schools.
Their method is to target exemptions under the Sex Discrimination Act and similar state laws. These laws permit schools to fire, demote, or refuse to hire teachers based on sexual orientation or gender identity, or to expel or deny enrolment to students on those grounds, as being contrary to their religious teachings — although they only target certain religious groups.
Equality Australia does not mention Islamic schools or madrasas on their website. They have taken Christian schools to court, yet never Islamic schools, despite both religions treating these issues the same way. It’s this double standard that defines Equality Australia as a lobby group, not a charity — and a gutless, dishonest one at that.
Equality Australia was refused charity status by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, then the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and finally the full Federal Court, because they are a lobby group, not a charity.
The Government has legislated this approval because they are desperate to keep the transgender industry going to secure votes in crucial city electorates, which they are defending from the Greens.
I ask suburban, regional, and rural voters to reject the Government’s perverse agenda and vote One Nation to end the transgender madness and the Queer mafia attacks on Christianity.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Last year’s pre-election budget contained a hidden announcement indicating the federal government’s intention to award deductible gift recipient status to Equality Australia. Additionally, deductible gift recipient is called registered charity status. That allows donations to the organisation to be claimed as tax deductions. Reduced taxation from donors means taxpayers wind up paying more, so, if a body is getting charity status, they better deserve it. The innocuously named Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025 makes that happen—granting charity status to a lobby group Equality Australia until 1 July 2030. In other words, taxpayers will pay for donations to Equality Australia.
For those who don’t know, Equality Australia is an LGBTQI+ organisation committed to destroying religious freedom in Australia. Their strategy is to force religious schools to teach the same perverted agenda taught in public schools, even to the point of forcing religious schools to hire trans teachers. For many years, Equality Australia has waged a campaign against Christian Schools Australia as well as other faith based schools, numbering almost 2,800 schools across Australia. It strongly advocates to strip protections that currently and tenuously allow Christian schools to operate in name and in nature—that is, as Christian schools.
Their method is to target exemptions under the Sex Discrimination Act and similar state laws which permit schools to fire, demote or refuse to hire teachers based on sexual orientation or gender identity or to expel or deny enrolment students on those grounds, as being contrary their religious teachings, although only certain religious groups. Equality Australia does not mention Islamic schools or madrasah on their website. They have taken Christian schools to court, yet never Islamic schools. Both religions treat these issues the same way. It is this double standard that defines Equality Australia as a lobby group not a charity and a gutless one at that—a dishonest lobby group.
The background to this issue is that Equality Australia has previously sought public benevolent institution status as a way to get tax deductibility for the donor, yet the government’s Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission rejected those attempts, and then the Administrative Appeals Tribunal rejected the same attempts, and then the full Federal Court rejected the same attempts. All decided that Equality Australia is not a charity. It’s a lobby group. They even say that in their strategic plan. While this was going on, media reports suggest Equality Australia has been rorting the system, channelling donations through another charity, Thorne Harbour Health, formerly the Victorian AIDS Council, and there you have it. What a pile. This arrangement may be allowing an entity which is not a charity but a lobby group to use, in whole or in part, tax deductions to an AIDS trust. This is a clearly non-conforming operation.
Complaints have been made to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. The Prime Minister’s hand-picked governor-general is controversially the patron of Equality Australia, and the Australian newspaper has reported the Governor-General has declined to answer their questions on the appropriateness of this arrangement.
This bill was passed through the House of Representatives on 26 November 2025 and went to the Senate standing committee on economics for inquiry and report, and, of course, they rubberstamped it. One Nation calls for the granting of deductible gift status to Equality Australia to be put on hold until the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission completes investigations into these dodgy financial arrangements.
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission grants charity status as a routine measure. It’s only when an organisation which does not deserve to be a charity applies that bills like this come before the Senate. You know it—bills that overrule the experts, overrule the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and override the full Federal Court. Does the minister know better than all of these bodies? Of course not. This decision has been taken because there are votes in the urban bubble in this war on Christianity and in Equality Australia, the Labor Party, the Greens and the teals pursuing gender.
And there’s more. The Productivity Commission is reviewing the whole system for granting charity status. Their final report on philanthropy within Australia proposed a wholesale upheaval of the deductible gift recipient system. Why don’t we do that—suspend more of these legislated overrules of the system until these matters can be settled? It would be terrifying to open the door to Equality Australia’s having more money to conduct its war on Christianity and on religious schools—sorry, its war on Christian schools. It’s not a war on Islamic schools but on Christian schools—not all religious schools, just Christian schools. With stronger campaign finance behind the lobby group, our schools are in danger of coming under attack once more.
In February’s Senate estimates hearings, I asked the office of the Governor-General about Equality Australia, because Australia’s Governor-General is supposed to be neutral and to not take political positions. This leads to many questions for the government. Firstly, how is it that the Governor-General can be patron of a political activist group like Equality Australia, which actively supports irreversible gender treatments for children? Secondly, why did Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh, intervene to give Equality Australia charity status when, on three occasions, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and two Federal Court hearings held that Equality Australia was not established for a benevolent purpose and should not be entitled to deductible gift recipient status? Deductible gift recipient status allows donors to claim tax deductions for donations. Why did the Labor government give Equality Australia such a massive favour against the findings of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the full bench of the Federal Court? Was it because the Governor-General is a patron of the activist group, the lobby group Equality Australia? Isn’t this a clear conflict of interest and a breach of the requirement of neutrality of the Governor-General?
Observing the government’s blatant contradiction of the law, does the law mean nothing to this government? Is the lobby group, the activist group Equality Australia, when it attacks Christian schools, acting in any way on behalf of the government—on your behalf? Is this lobby group acting on behalf of the government in any way when it supports children’s futile attempts to change sex, to change gender? One Nation will propose an amendment to the bill as follows: delete clause 4 of schedule 5 of the bill in its entirety and, consequently, delete chapter 5.18 of the bill’s explanatory memorandum.
Turning to the bill as a whole, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025 amends the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 to streamline the choice of superannuation fund made during the onboarding of new employees and ban the advertising of certain superannuation products—fair enough. Additionally, it amends the income tax assessment acts to provide income tax and withholding-tax exemptions for World Rugby and its wholly owned subsidiaries. The bill amends the International Tax Agreements Act 1953 to give legislative authority to the Convention between Australia and the Portuguese Republic for the Elimination of Double Taxation with respect to Taxes on Income and the Prevention of Tax Evasion and Avoidance. It amends the A New Tax System (Wine Equalisation Tax) Act 1999 to increase the maximum amount of wine equalisation tax producer rebate that eligible wine producers can claim to $400,000 each financial year.
I now address comments made by Senators McKim and Dolega in their second reading speeches earlier today. By the way, One Nation has members of the LGBTIQ community in its membership and in its voter base. In response to Senator McKim’s comments about LGBTQI+, I note that many lesbians, gays and bisexuals oppose gender affirmation as a treatment for gender dysphoria in children. They oppose it, and they oppose it very strongly—I’ve spoken to them. Like One Nation, they know that surgery to chop body parts off children and the hormone and chemical treatment of adolescents alters brain function and puberty and neuter the victims’ ability to have children later. One Nation clearly opposes gender affirmation of children as a way of treating gender dysphoria, a known mental health condition that children pass through. One Nation points to the lack of peer reviewed, double-blind, scientific and medical studies that support gender affirmation. One Nation points to the growing number of studies and experts in the field now discrediting gender affirmation. One Nation points to the growing number of children and parents using legal action, court action, to sue those now known to harm children through surgical, hormonal and/or chemical means implementing gender affirmation.
In response to Senator Dolega’s use of labels—through you, Chair—including ‘cookers’ and ‘homophobes’, against us, I note that labels are the refuge of those incapable of responding with a rational, fact based argument, whether their claim is ignorant, incompetent, dishonest, desperate, stupid, weak, lazy or fearful. When people resort to using labels, they confirm they have neither the data nor the logical argument to counter their opponent’s position. In that way, those who resort to labels admit they lack a counter argument. They’re admitting they have lost. It’s also not possible to give offence—only to take offence. Calling me a cooker or a homophobe—whatever—has no impact on me. It won’t stop me telling the truth. I do not take offence. Until the recipient takes offence, labels are mere words that tell everyone about the labeller, not the labelled.
In conclusion, as I foreshadowed earlier, One Nation will move an amendment to this bill in committee stage. If the amendment is not carried, One Nation will oppose this bill; if the amendment is carried, One Nation will support the bill.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Sharma): Senator Roberts, before you conclude, I want to draw your attention to standing order 193(2) of the Senate, which directs:
A senator shall not refer to the King, the Governor-General or the Governor of a state disrespectfully in debate …
I would ask you to reflect on your comments with regard to the Governor-General and consider whether you wish to withdraw them.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Acting Deputy President. I was referring to the Governor-General’s actions and whether or not the government condone them.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Okay. I might refer this matter to the President to look at what you said a bit more closely, but my recollection, Senator Roberts, was that you called into question the partiality or otherwise of the Governor-General. Is that not your recollection?
Senator ROBERTS: That is correct.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Then I would ask you to withdraw, because that is a—
Senator ROBERTS: I withdraw.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Roberts.
“I understand the law. What I don’t understand is the science around XX and XY ….”
— Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, during Senate Estimates.
How can you advise the court on sex-based rights if you don’t understand the science? Seriously!
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’d now like to go to Dr Cody, and the intervention in Tickle v Giggle, please. Thank you for appearing, Dr Cody. Tickle v Giggle is the case of someone who was born a biological male being stopped from joining a women-only app. What are you arguing in your intervention? How much are you being paid by the taxpayers to go in and bat for biological born and developed men to be allowed into women’s spaces?
Dr Cody: The role that we have within the case Giggle and Tickle is intervention, or amicus curiae: helping the court to understand the interpretation of the Sex Discrimination Act and the amendments from 2013, and also how the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women applies, whether or not there are special measures, and their understanding of section 5 and section 7 of the Sex Discrimination Act. We were given leave by the court to assist them to understand those issues and also the constitutionality of the Sex Discrimination Act. In terms of the cost, we have two counsel who were briefed. Both agreed to appear on a capped fee basis, so that’s a reduced fee. One was paid $13,000, and the other one was paid $10,000.
Senator ROBERTS: What I actually asked, Dr Cody, was how much are you paid by the taxpayers to go in and bat for biological born and developed men?
Dr Cody: My salary is similar to that that you mentioned for Commissioner Sivaraman.
Senator ROBERTS: About $400,000 a year, plus 15.4 per cent super?
Dr Cody: Correct.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Just so I can be clear, your position is that the law means a biological man who identifies as a transgender woman can enter a female-only space?
Dr Cody: I would question whether or not Roxanne Tickle is not a man. She is a trans woman. She has gone through various processes and has transitioned, and she’s a trans woman. So she has access—or sought access and was provided access—to the Giggle for Girls app, and then was taken off the access to the Giggle for Girls app.
Senator ROBERTS: What sort of chromosomes does she have—XX or XY?
Dr Cody: I can’t answer that.
Senator ROBERTS: You can’t?
Dr Cody: No, I can’t answer that.
Senator ROBERTS: Wow. Can someone who was born with XY chromosomes change to XX chromosomes—a male change to a female?
Dr Cody: I don’t believe so, but I’m not a scientist. There are many variations of chromosomes. There are hormonal variations, there are chromosomal variations, there are genitalia variations—there are a lot of variations which are along a spectrum.
Senator ROBERTS: Would you agree that a piece of legislation can’t change a person’s sex—if born a man, they are a man; if they’re born with XY chromosomes, they’re a man and they stay a man?
Dr Cody: No, I would not agree.
Senator ROBERTS: You don’t agree? If a woman took a case to court today trying to stop a person with a penis who identified as a female going into a women’s bathroom, which side would you be arguing for if you were there as a friend of the court?
Dr Cody: No. I would need to know more facts. I can’t make a judgement on that in particular.
Senator ROBERTS: Coming back to your previous answer, you talked about XX and XY and how you didn’t really know the answer. How can you make a decision on sex?
Dr Cody: The issue around me not being able to identify whether someone has XX or XY is because I haven’t tested them. I’m not a scientist. That’s not my area of expertise.
Senator ROBERTS: If a person was born male, that’s XY. Someone born female is XX.
Dr Cody: Not always.
Senator ROBERTS: No?
Dr Cody: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Can you give me an example of when not?
Dr Cody: Because there are also people who have innate variations of sex characteristics, so they may be identified as male at birth, but in fact later find out that they have XY chromosomes or XX chromosomes. So it is more complex than just XX being female and XY being male.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll agree with that, but it’s a very, very tiny proportion of the population. Someone who was born a man, a boy, has XY chromosomes and cannot change to XX—is that correct?
Dr Cody: If their chromosomes are XY, then I don’t believe their chromosomes can change. But, I repeat, I’m not a scientist, so I haven’t studied whether or not they can change it.
Senator ROBERTS: So, if you’re not a scientist, how do you know which side to take in a court case?
Dr Cody: I’m not taking a side within a court case. Our role is as amicus—that is, to provide clarification and help to the court in understanding the legal issues that are in dispute.
Senator ROBERTS: So how can you clarify if you don’t understand?
Dr Cody: I understand the law. What I don’t understand is the science around the XX and XY, unless the evidence is before the court. So my role is to assist the court with understanding the legal argument.
Senator ROBERTS: On my reading of what you’ve said in Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd v Roxanne Tickle, the position on biological males in female spaces seems pretty clear at the Human Rights Commission. Could you explain?
Dr Cody: What would you like me to explain, Senator?
Senator ROBERTS: What your position is.
Dr Cody: On which issue?
Senator ROBERTS: The Human Rights Commission’s position on biological males in female spaces. Could you please explain your position on that.
Dr Cody: What do you mean by ‘biological males’, Senator?
Senator ROBERTS: Someone born as a male, XY chromosomes.
Dr Cody: If they are a man, and depending on which space they are wanting to enter and why that space has been created—if it’s a special measure, for example, for ensuring the quality of women—then there may be good reason to exclude men from that space.
Senator ROBERTS: What would be some of the reasons?
Dr Cody: For safety reasons, for example.
Senator ROBERTS: What sorts of safety reasons?
Dr Cody: There is certainly a reason why men would be excluded from a domestic violence refuge for women.
Senator ROBERTS: Female prison?
Dr Cody: Female prisons are also made for women, and therefore men would be excluded from a women’s prison.
Putting biological reality and mass migration under scrutiny
Australia has a Sex Discrimination Commissioner who isn’t sure what we mean by ‘biological men’ and a Race Discrimination Commissioner who refuses to attribute unprecedented levels of mass migration to the housing crisis and cost-of-living nightmare.
Both these individuals are paid roughly $400,000 + super.
At last week’s Senate Estimates I was able to question these commissioners on their recent dealings as part of my role holding the bureaucracy to account to you, the taxpayer.
What I heard in response was not only frustrating, it begs very serious questions about their standard of work.
‘What do you mean by biological males?’ – Dr Anna Cody, Sex Discrimination Commissioner
Here are some highlights from my questioning of Dr Anna Cody, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner in the context of the Giggle vs Tickle case and, more generally, the interference of sex-based protections in law through the inclusion of trans individuals.
Roberts: So, what sort of chromosomes does she [transwoman Roxanne Tickle] have – XX or XY?
Cody: I can’t answer that, Senator.
Roberts: You can’t?
Cody: No, I can’t answer that.
Roberts: Wow. [headshake]
Roberts: On my reading of what you’ve said in Giggle vs Tickle, the position on biological males in female spaces seems pretty clear at the Human Rights Commission. Could you explain?
Cody: What would you like me to explain, sorry Senator?
Roberts: What your position is.
Cody: On which issue?
Roberts: The position on biological males in female spaces – could you please explain the Human Rights Commission – your position on that?
Cody: What do you mean by biological males, Senator?
Roberts: Can someone who was born on XY chromosomes change to XX chromosomes? A male change to female?
Cody: I don’t believe so, but I’m not a scientist.
Roberts: Would you agree that a piece of legislation can’t change a person’s sex? If born a man they are a man. If they are born with XY chromosomes they’re a man and they stay a man?
Cody: No, I would not a agree.
Roberts: You don’t agree?
Cody: No.
Roberts: You talked about XX / XY you didn’t really know the answer. How can you make a decision on sex?
Cody: The issue that I’m saying around me not being able to identify whether someone has XX or XY is because I haven’t tested them. I’m not a scientist. That’s not my area of expertise.
Roberts: If a person was born male, that’s XY. Born female is XX.
Cody: Not always, Senator.
Roberts: No?
Cody: No.
Roberts: Someone who was born a man – a boy – has XY chromosomes, cannot change to have XX – is that correct?
Cody: If they are born – if their chromosomes are XY then their chromosomes, I don’t believe they can change, but as I repeat, I’m not a scientist, so I haven’t studied whether or not they can change.
Roberts: So, you’re not a scientist, how do you know which side to take in a court case?
Cody: Um, I’m not taking a side within a court case, our role is as amicus so that is to provide a clarification – help to the court in understanding the legal issues that are in dispute.
Roberts: So, how can you clarify if you don’t understand?
Cody: The – the – what – I – I – understand the law, what I don’t understand is the science around the XX / XY unless the evidence is before the court.
Astonishing! This is reminiscent of the Department of Health taking on ‘notice’ the definition of a woman.
The situation was not much better with the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman. Previously the former Chair of Multicultural Australia and Member of the Queensland Multicultural Advisory Council, he seemed particularly reluctant to address the economic, social, and cultural impact of mass migration.
Roberts: Is questioning the migration intake numbers racist?
Sivaraman: In of itself? It doesn’t have to be. No. It’s a question of what’s associated with that and whether certain groups get targeted.
Roberts: Okay, thank you. Mr Sivaraman, there are currently 4 million people in this country – our country – who aren’t Australian citizens – are not Australian citizens – taking up beds while Australians are homeless. Record homelessness – after years of unprecedented levels of mass migration. We have been at record numbers for multiple years in a row. That’s not saying anything disparaging about those people who have arrived. That’s just a fact. It is just a mathematical fact that if we continue to accept arrivals at the rate we are, our schools, hospitals, dams, transport, and housing are going to become even more overwhelmed than they are. That’s a fact. Is anyone who acknowledges that fact a racist?
Sivaraman: Um, Senator, I think the first issue is to simply to – connect – in a very linear way migration to the various problems that you’ve described would not be accurate. The problems that you’ve-
Roberts: What is inaccurate about it, Mr Sivaraman?
Sivaraman: The problems that you’ve alluded to like housing, the cost of living – are complicated problems with many different sources. Migration is one of the many different factors that may or may not contribute to those issues. Directly linking them is something that I wouldn’t agree with. And it’s that simplification that often then leads to the scapegoating of migrants, Senator, and I think that can be problematic.
Roberts: Could you tell me how I’m scapegoating migrants when I am one, and can you tell me how it’s simplifying the issue?
Sivaraman: Because it is a simplification of an issue if you directly say that there is only one cause for the significant problems.
Roberts: I didn’t say there was only one cause – it’s just a significant factor.
Sivaraman: Even that in itself is a simplification, Senator, that it could be any number of factors that contribute to those issues.
In both cases, the commissioners reject simplicity.
The biological norms which underpin human gender are simple. ‘Progressive politics’ is the first movement in history to regress ideologically to such a point that it struggles with the definition of men and women. This self-inflicted ‘confusion’ has jeopardised the protection of women, made a mockery of women’s sport, and a laughing stock out of what was once the greatest civilisation on Earth.
Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has a lot to answer for on this topic. After all, it was under her watch that the amendments were made to the Act. Consider the irony of a female leader making Australia less safe for women.
Meanwhile, the undeniable reality of mass migration is a simple mathematical principle that creates a complex forest of problems downstream of the initial mistake. These additional issues are being used to talk-around the primary cause even though the average Aussie on the street has a clear view of what went wrong. Ask them. They know.
I have found that simplicity is often rejected because it allows us to identify the policy error at the heart of these tragedies befalling Australian society.
If we know which policy is causing the problem, we know who wrote it, who voted for it, and how to fix it.
In these cases, we have sex discrimination policies that have been erroneously modified to remove accurate biological qualifications of sex to suit the trending ideological movement of the day, rather than upholding the protection of biologically segregated spaces – as was their intention.
For migration, the problem is the Big Australia Ponzi scheme being run by Labor (and the Coalition in the past) to cook the economic books and obscure the per capita backwards economic trend taking place. Doing so would mean admitting that migrants are being used to prop up political parties, bureaucratic structures, and the interests of developers while the immediate needs and rights of Australian citizens are torn to shreds.
Yes, we can still ask questions about these topics – but the quality of the answers we receive speaks volumes about the ingrained nature of the bureaucratic double-speak quagmire we need to dismantle before real change can be made.
Questioning the commissioners by Senator Malcolm Roberts
Putting biological reality and mass migration under scrutiny
Grateful to be able to offer my support to Billboard Chris in person at Parliament House today after the concerning events in Queen Street Mall Brisbane.
As I’ve said many times in Senate speeches and other forums, gender dysphoria should be met with compassion and understanding, not a scalpel or hormone drugs.
Our children need support during adolescence, not automatic affirmation that could lead to irreversible harm. Given that children are not mature enough to consent to treatments that will result in permanent infertility and damage, a total ban on such treatments for anyone under 18 is necessary.
We must protect our children as they navigate this challenging period in their lives.
I stand with Billboard Chris and commend his dedication to ending this abuse of our children.
Above all, free speech and the right to peaceful protest must be safeguarded at all costs.
In his first two weeks, President Trump has secured the border, prevented a Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal, and tackled US government waste. He’s withdrawn from the WHO, WEF, and climate change fraud—moves One Nation has supported for 20 years. Executive orders have ended woke DEI and transgender ideology while supporting LGB Americans – again a One Nation policy.
President Trump isn’t a threat to democracy here or in the United States – he is, however, a threat to the Greens’ toxic ideology. Australia led the pushback against woke ideology, and Trump’s actions align with One Nation policies.
One Nation is proud to put Australia first, just as Trump puts America first.
Transcript
The election of President Donald Trump was certified in every American state, by Democrats and Republicans alike and in Congress. The 2024 election was a textbook application of the United States’ republic model of government. In his first two weeks, President Trump has secured the border against illegal arrivals, overnight adding Mexican and Canadian troops to police their side of the border and lifting threats of tariffs. President Trump has prevented the Chinese takeover of the strategic Panama Canal, and his team have made a huge stab at putting the cleaners through US government waste, some of which appears criminal and seditious in nature. President Trump has withdrawn the USA from the World Health Organization, from the World Economic Forum and from climate change tyranny and fraud. These are moves One Nation has advocated for 20 years. Executive orders have destroyed woke DEI and transgender ideology while reaffirming support for gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans. Again, this is One Nation policy.
President Trump is not a threat to democracy here or in the United States. He is a threat to the Greens, who are watching the pushback to their neo-Marxist identity politics. Their toxic ideology is rightly being dispatched to history’s sewers. President Trump did not start the pushback against woke ideology; Australia did when everyday Australians rejected the Voice proposal, and the Irish did when they rejected the fragmentation of their families in a referendum there. President Donald Trump’s actions are in accord with One Nation policies, and of that we are very, very proud. Trump puts America first; One Nation proudly puts Australia first.
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.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/non-binary-thumb-01-1080x402-1.png?fit=1080%2C402&ssl=14021080Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2022-07-28 08:47:362022-07-28 09:14:54Gender Dysphoria – What should we do?
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.
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.
