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Speaker 1: A note before we start this episode mentions suicide from

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Speaker 1: The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot. It's

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Speaker 1: Thursday October sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Former Alice Springs School

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Speaker 1: principal Gavin Morris has been found guilty of four counts

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Speaker 1: of aggravated assault. Magistrate Anthony Hopkins found the former Yepparinia

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Speaker 1: principle choked two Indigenous pupils and forcefully pulled the ears

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Speaker 1: of two others in a judgment handed down on Wednesday.

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Speaker 1: The matter will return to court on December eighth. Former

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Speaker 1: Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan has urged federal and state

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Speaker 1: governments to cut spending and reduce reliance on taxes. A

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Speaker 1: twenty billion dollar budget black hole is looming after Treasurer

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Speaker 1: Jim Chalmers dumped his big superannuation tax reform. Those stories

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Speaker 1: are live right now at the Australian dot Com dot

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Speaker 1: a U. Victorian parents have accused Premier just to Alan

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Speaker 1: of being alarmist and sensational about transgender children. What they

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Speaker 1: actually want is to be involved in potentially life altering

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Speaker 1: decisions about their kid's well being, but the state's Education

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Speaker 1: Department is leaning on a loophole that means they're being

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Speaker 1: kept in the dark. That's today's episode.

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Speaker 2: So I would hope Rachel.

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Speaker 1: I would hope Rachel.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're going to dispute the higher rates of suicide

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Speaker 2: amongst transgender kids.

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Speaker 1: This is Victorian Premier Justin to Alan, speaking at a

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Speaker 1: press conference on Wednesday.

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Speaker 2: Rachel, I will answer your questions if you give me

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Speaker 2: the opportunity to complete the question that you have asked

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Speaker 2: before you interject with another one.

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Speaker 1: Rachel, who the Premier is referring to, is The Australian's

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Speaker 1: senior reporter, Rachel Baxendale.

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Speaker 2: So if we can have this responsible discussion, that would

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Speaker 2: be the most appropriate way and then we can finish

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Speaker 2: up this press conference.

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Speaker 1: The Premiere was riled up over reporting by The Australian

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Speaker 1: which revealed Allan's government doesn't know how many children enrolled

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Speaker 1: in public schools have socially transitioned their gender without their

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Speaker 1: parents knowing or consenting to it. Here's Rachel.

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Speaker 3: So it's not the same as just being gender non conforming.

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Speaker 3: It's actually being known by a different name. If someone

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Speaker 3: is biologically female, it's them actually being referred to as

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Speaker 3: if they are a boy, they become he him and

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Speaker 3: vice versa. The psychologists and the experts I've been talking

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Speaker 3: to are very careful to make that distinction. They're not

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Speaker 3: seeking to make people feel uncomfortable for being who they are.

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Speaker 1: In Victoria, the Education Department advises teachers and school staff

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Speaker 1: to treat kids who exhibit signs of gender discrepharia as

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Speaker 1: mature miners.

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Speaker 3: So this is a legal definition that's been used in

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Speaker 3: other medical contexts, where essentially, in a situation where parents

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Speaker 3: are deemed to not be capable of supporting their children

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Speaker 3: in making a decision, another authority will decide that the

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Speaker 3: child is mature enough and sufficiently understands the gravity of

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Speaker 3: the decision they're making to make that decision for themselves. Unconventionally,

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Speaker 3: this is being used in Victorian schools to enable students

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Speaker 3: to make the decision to socially transition without their parents'

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Speaker 3: consent or knowledge. The problem that a lot of critics

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Speaker 3: have with it is that there is no framework in

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Speaker 3: place to establish what actually constitutes unsupportive parents, and there's

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Speaker 3: a huge spectrum between parents having completely reasonable, legitimate concerns

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Speaker 3: about the potential for this to lead down a pathway

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Speaker 3: to reversible consequences and more sinister concerns that a lot

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Speaker 3: of transactivists and the government like to insinuate, such as

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Speaker 3: simply being transphobic. And I'm yet to talk to a

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Speaker 3: parent who I regard as transphobic. The parents I'm talking

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Speaker 3: to are perfectly comfortable with the fact that their child

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Speaker 3: might be gender nonconforming. They're perfectly comfortable with the fact

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Speaker 3: that some of their children are same sex attracted. That's

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Speaker 3: not a problem. What they are concerned about is whether

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Speaker 3: or not this is sending their kids down a path

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Speaker 3: towards irreversible, lifelong negative consequences.

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Speaker 1: What is required of teachers and school stuff in this situation.

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Speaker 1: What are they advise to do.

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Speaker 3: There's not a whole lot of documentation around this, and

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Speaker 3: there aren't very firm guidelines. What I did find in

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Speaker 3: my reporting was some communication between Safe Schools, which is

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Speaker 3: a division within the state Education Department that advocates for

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Speaker 3: the rights of LGBTIQA, plus students and teachers who were

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Speaker 3: asking I've got a gender dysphoric child in my class,

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Speaker 3: what should I do? And the information that we found

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Speaker 3: in that freedom of information request was that Safe schools

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Speaker 3: is advising teachers that in a situation where a child

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Speaker 3: wants to socially transition their gender, then the teachers advised

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Speaker 3: that they should do that either with the parents or

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Speaker 3: care as permission or with the child as a mature minor.

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Speaker 3: They're advised not to talk to the parents or cares

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Speaker 3: without seeking permission from the child first, and then their

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Speaker 3: further advised that if there's no parent or care of

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Speaker 3: permission or mature minor classification, no changes can be made.

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Speaker 3: And what I'm hearing from the parent group I've been

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Speaker 3: talking to that represents more than fifty parents in Victoria

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Speaker 3: of children with gender to stress is that they have

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Speaker 3: accused schools in Victoria of using this mature minor designation

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Speaker 3: indiscriminately was the word they used, And their concern is

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Speaker 3: that essentially teachers are making these decisions without the knowledge

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Speaker 3: that parents have, of the full picture of who the

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Speaker 3: child is and of their health considerations. And many of

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Speaker 3: the students who are wanting to make this decision have

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Speaker 3: very complex health situations. A lot of them are neurodiverse

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Speaker 3: so autism spectrum disorder, and a lot of them have

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Speaker 3: a history of trauma and other mental health issues, and

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Speaker 3: they're also concerned that they, as the parents and as

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Speaker 3: in very many cases, the most important support network for

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Speaker 3: their child, are essentially being isolated at the most difficult

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Speaker 3: point in their children's lives and prevented from playing a

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Speaker 3: part in helping their children make life changing decisions.

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Speaker 1: Victoria's Education Minister Ben Carroll told the States Parliament the

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Speaker 1: department doesn't collect data on how many school children have

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Speaker 1: been designated mature miners because the decisions are made by

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Speaker 1: individual schools. That was in response to a question on

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Speaker 1: notice by Liberal MP Moi Redeeming, who's a woman's rights

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Speaker 1: advocate and former school teacher. She says the lack of

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Speaker 1: a paper trail means it can become impossible to unpick

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Speaker 1: the decisions later.

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Speaker 3: So Ben Carroll did state in response to that question

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Speaker 3: from Moi Redeeming that the school staff should take into

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Speaker 3: consideration both the rights of the students and the rights

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Speaker 3: of the parents as set out in the Victorian Human

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Speaker 3: Rights and Equal Opportunities Act. But it's very difficult to

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Speaker 3: understand that there's absolutely no detail provided there are no

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Speaker 3: guidelines explaining how the teacher or other schools staff member

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Speaker 3: should go about doing that, and it's very difficult to

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Speaker 3: understand how that could be done, how a parents' rights

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Speaker 3: could be taken into account if they're not even told

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Speaker 3: about this decision.

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Speaker 1: According to the experts, there's no evidence that socially transitioning

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Speaker 1: improves the mental health of gender dys for kids, and

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Speaker 1: it can set them on a path that can be

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Speaker 1: difficult to reverse if it's not the right one.

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Speaker 3: They are warning that social transition, this very serious psychosocial step,

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Speaker 3: is very often and there are a lot of statistics

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Speaker 3: internationally that back this up, leads down a path towards

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Speaker 3: a medicalized treatment. So we're talking about puberty blockers, hormones,

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Speaker 3: and surgery. So often the defense and certainly the government

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Speaker 3: in the past has said, we don't need to be

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Speaker 3: worried about this, it's just social, it's not medical. The

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Speaker 3: response that a lot of the experts I've been talking

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Speaker 3: to have to that is that it very often leads

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Speaker 3: to that medical transition and to treatments that have very

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Speaker 3: clear side effects and consequences such as loss of sexual

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Speaker 3: and reproductive function, cancer risk, osteoporosis. There are all kinds

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Speaker 3: of consequences from hormones and then again from surgery that

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Speaker 3: are very serious and irreversible.

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Speaker 1: Coming up. Why Justinta Allen is on the defensive about

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Speaker 1: trans kids, Rachel.

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to engage with you in a debate

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Speaker 2: about what is the different levels of the rate of

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Speaker 2: suicide amongst transgender kid I'm that is that is just

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Speaker 2: so deeply irresponsible because the data that I have, the

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Speaker 2: data that I have says that transgender kids.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think Justina Allen had such a strong

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Speaker 1: response to your reporting on this issue, Rachel, despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that she said, as I understand it, she hadn't

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Speaker 1: read it.

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Speaker 3: I think the government have dug themselves into a very

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Speaker 3: deep hole on this issue. Their policy position is one

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Speaker 3: of supporting gender affirmative care no matter what, and that

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Speaker 3: position basically means that they're not prepared to even answer

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Speaker 3: questions or acknowledge the mounting evidence internationally that this may

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Speaker 3: be causing harm to children.

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Speaker 1: So why then, did the premier start talking about the

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Speaker 1: suicide risk among transgender children in response to your questions?

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Speaker 3: I think it's a classic example of deflection. She didn't

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Speaker 3: want to end age with the expert opinions, She didn't

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Speaker 3: want to engage with the concerns of parents. She just

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Speaker 3: wanted to use this suicide line, which a number of

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Speaker 3: experts and parents groups this afternoon have pointed out is

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Speaker 3: deeply irresponsible. They've accused her of making alarmist and sensational

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Speaker 3: claims that they see as being quite dangerous in the

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Speaker 3: context of the very vulnerable group that we're talking about,

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Speaker 3: And they pointed to the fact that it is very

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Speaker 3: unusual and that mental health groups advise strongly against talking

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Speaker 3: about suicide in a way that implies that it is

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Speaker 3: common among a particular group because of the risk that

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Speaker 3: may in fact have the effect of promoting suicidal ideation.

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Speaker 1: And what does the evidence say about the rate of

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Speaker 1: suicide among trans children.

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Speaker 3: So the reference that the Premier made to suicide was

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Speaker 3: a repetition of a line that her government uses every

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Speaker 3: time this issue gets written about, which is to cite

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Speaker 3: a statistic that comes from the advocacy group LGBTQ plus

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Speaker 3: Health Australia, which hasn't cited a source for the statistic,

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Speaker 3: but that states that transgender young people are fifteen times

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Speaker 3: more likely to attempt suicide than the general population. It

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Speaker 3: appears that the Premier actually misspoke because she repeated that statistic,

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Speaker 3: but spoke about it as committing suicide, which is very

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Speaker 3: different obviously to attempting suicide and the other data we

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Speaker 3: have on this issue. The Australian Institute of Health and

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Speaker 3: Welfare website states that there are no reliable national data

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Speaker 3: on rates of suicide and self harm among LGBTI plus

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Speaker 3: communities in Australia, so they're essentially saying that they'd I

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Speaker 3: don't believe that there is sufficiently rigorous data on this

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Speaker 3: for them to put forward a statistic one way or

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Speaker 3: the other.

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Speaker 1: Rachel Baxendale is a senior reporter with The Australian. You

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Speaker 1: can read her reporting on this issue right now at

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Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au