The Queensland state government in Australia has halted puberty blocker and hormone therapy prescriptions for minors and launched an investigative review of transgender drugs on adolescents. Queensland is the first Australian state to place restrictions on transgender prescriptions for patients under 18.
The decision and the resulting investigation followed the discovery that Cairns Sexual Health Service (CSHS) in north Australia had been providing unauthorized treatment to 42 children, some as young as 12. Seventeen of those children received hormone therapies or puberty blockers. CSHS is alleged to have ignored necessary consultation before giving drugs to minors. Instances included the absence of parental consent as well as delayed blood tests or bone mineral density tests.
On Jan. 28, Queensland announced that all puberty blocker and hormone therapy prescriptions were no longer permitted to be “prescribed or otherwise given to a New Patient for Gender Dysphoria” by any Queensland hospital or health service provider. However, patients already receiving prescriptions were permitted to continue receiving them.
“There is contested evidence surrounding the benefits of Stage 1 and Stage 2 hormone therapy for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria emerging from studies throughout the world, said Tim Nicholls, minister for Health and Ambulance Services in Queensland, in a media statement. “France, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have all tightened regulations around prescribing hormone therapy to children and adolescents. More recently, the Government of the United Kingdom has changed legislation to restrict the prescription and supply of puberty blockers to children.”
Jillian Spencer, a former psychiatrist at the Queensland Children’s Hospital who was fired after she expressed concern about gender dysphoria treatment through medical interventions, applauded the decision in an interview with The Australian.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that, finally, some members of the government have shown courage and are leading the way,” Spencer said.
Michelle Pearse, CEO of Christian-conservative advocacy group Australian Christian Lobby, believes the decision is a step forward in protecting Australian children from experimental drugs.
“For too long, ideologically driven practices have put vulnerable children at risk,” Pearse said. “Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are experimental treatments with potentially irreversible effects. The Queensland Government’s action is a critical step toward protecting children and implementing scientifically backed, evidence-based care. … This decision sets a powerful precedent for other states to put children’s welfare above ideology. No child should be subjected to life-altering medications that block natural puberty and pose serious long-term risks.”
Decision Magazine, founded by Billy Graham in 1960, works through its website and monthly magazine to communicate the Gospel, as well as inform and challenge readers about key cultural and Biblical issues.
Editor’s Note: ‘God’s Design For Us Is Either Male Or Female’
Michelle Pearse, in her ACL video series, “The Truth Behind The Gender Agenda,” warned that “millions of children are being taught that their identity is found in their ‘gender identity’ rather than their God-given biological sex, and that they can choose from any number of different ‘gender identities.”
As a result, “many of these children are uncomfortable with their bodies, they’re disturbed by their sexual organs, and deceived by harmful ideologies. They seek treatment to block their natural development through puberty-blocking injections and then cross-sex hormones. Often ultimately leading to surgery to either castrate themselves or have healthy breasts removed in the hope of transforming their bodies into the opposite sex,” she said, adding that hundreds—if not thousands—of children in Australia were currently on the road of surgical abuse.
Answers In Genesis Founder and CEO, Ken Ham, recently highlighted that “the gender madness sweeping through our Western cultures is nothing short of horrific child abuse.”
“Children, who are highly susceptible to suggestion and peer influence, are having the seeds of gender confusion planted in preschool, watered through social media pages (such as TikTok), and then that seed blooms as their peers begin to ‘come out’ as trans,” he wrote. “These children and teens then go on to take puberty blockers or have ‘trans-affirming’ surgeries that mutilate their bodies and permanently sterilize them. It’s horrifying, and the fallout will be enormous and so costly to the individuals swept away in this madness.”
“God’s design for us is either male or female (Genesis 1:27). Rejecting that truth and instead creating themselves in their own image rather than recognizing God has made them in his image, they have experienced devastating, tragic, and often lifelong consequences,” Ham underscored. “Help your children to understand the truth by teaching them that they are created by God, not created by themselves. Show them how God’s Word gives us the basis for our identity—male and female, made in God’s very image. Explain to them how the gospel is the answer to our pain and suffering, not body-mutilating surgeries to try to make our bodies match with our minds. Help them understand that what we feel is not always the truth (after all, our hearts are sinful and they lie to us), rather it’s God’s unchanging Word that is truth. Above all, pray for your children. Pray that God will use the seeds of truth you plant in their minds as you help them trust the Lord and develop a biblical worldview to protect them from our enemy who seeks to devour each of them.”
