Calls are growing for an inquiry into the treatment provided to Australian children who’ve been led to believe they have gender dysphoria, following a damning review in the United Kingdom that found “no good evidence” to support the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to under-16s.

In its final report the UK review led by Dr Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, “endorsed a fundamental shift in approach away from medical ntervention"—that is is, hormone treatments and surgeries—towards a model that addressed other mental health problems children may have. An interim report from the review last year had already led to a ban in the UK on puberty blockers being prescribed to under-18s.

The review also found that puberty blocker treatments had spread rapidly around the world based on a single study in Holland that began in 1998, that there was no good evidence that puberty blockers helped, and that the treatments had adverse health effects. It also found debates on ‘trans’ issues had led to fear among doctors and parents of being accused of transphobia.

That accusation has been thrown around freely in Australia. Senior staff psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer was last year at the Queensland Children’s Hospital over such a claim, when she was forced to comply with the ‘gender affirmation’ approach to treatment she believed may have harmed children while she favoured a neutral therapeutic approach – now endorsed by the UK review.

The accusation has also been freely thrown around Parliament on the three occasions Senator Pauline Hanson has moved for a Senate inquiry. As always under the Albanese Labor government, radical ideology with no evidential basis has trumped common sense, basic human biology, community concern and clinical scientific evidence.

But the expert calls for an investigation or inquiry continue to grow, and Parliament may not be able to ignore them much longer. Dr Philip Morris, president of Australia’s National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, said in response to the Cass report “we’re seeing much bigger issues which need to be looked across the whole of the country so the public cab reassured children won’t be harmed in the long"run"—partially a reference to the lasting health impacts of the treatments, such as infertility and reduced bone density – and that “the broad approach to the clinical area needs to be reviewed.”.

One Nation agrees. It is simply illogical to assume that every child who suspects (or has been led to believe) they might have gender dysphoria actually does have it and that the only way to treat it is to "transition," which is the "gender affirmation" strategy that "trans" activism supports. An analysis published in the UK in October last year found more than a third of children aged 12-15 reported their mental health had deteriorated after taking puberty blockers for a year – ‘Transitioning’ is clearly not a guaranteed path to happiness or better mental health for these kids as the activists claim.

With an exponential rise in the number of children being treated at public gender clinics across Australia the past 15 years, including a 100-fold increase in kids being prescribed puberty blockers, there is an obvious and urgent need for an inquiry to ensure Australian children are being treated under the best possible clinical practice guidelines backed by evidence, and not being railroaded into transitioning by the ideology-driven ‘gender affirmation’ approach. One Nation will continue to pursue an inquiry until one is established.