Children Cannot Consent

 
Key points to tell your MP

• The Equality Bill lets children secretly change their ‘legal sex’
• The Equality Bill will make it easier for children to access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones
• Parents will not be informed
• The Equality Bill will allow a child under 16 to choose the counsellor who approves their application for gender change

Your MP needs to know

• The Equality Bill makes it easy for children to legally change gender and access irreversible medical treatments

The Equality Bill proposed by Alex Greenwich will allow children under 16 to apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to legally change their sex.

All they need to do is submit a statement from a person who has provided them counselling. The person doesn’t need to be trained counsellor or registered child psychologist.

Children will be able to do this without the knowledge or consent of their parents or carers. If one parent consents and the other doesn’t, the child can still ‘change’ their sex.

NCAT can’t tell the child’s parents about it if the child believes it will ‘adversely’ affect them.

The Bill will also make it easier for children under 16 to decide on their own medical treatment, meaning they will be able to access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without their parents or carers being involved.

Tell your MP

Children don’t have the maturity to understand the impact of these decisions!

Key Evidence

• Australia is lagging behind other countries where puberty blockers are now banned
• Puberty blockers are irreversible and dangerous

Research shows that when children ‘socially’ transition by changing their appearance, name and pronouns, this almost always leads to them taking puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones.

There is growing evidence about the dangers of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and many countries around the world are pulling back or stopping gender affirming medicine for minors because of the risks.

Why this matters

• Children cannot drink alcohol, drive, get a tattoo or join the military… how can they make irreversible medical decisions that cause sterility?

We also know that if left alone, most gender confused children will eventually accept themselves as the sex they are and will likely be gay or lesbian. This bill encourages ‘transing away the gay’ for same sex attracted minors.

Children are not considered mature enough to drive, vote, get married, drink alcohol of even get a tattoo – but this Bill would make it possible for them to access dangerous hormones and ‘change’ their sex without any real adult supervision.

More details

• The Equality Bill will allow a child under 16 to choose the counsellor who approves their application for gender change
• ‘Mature Minors’ can access gender medicine without parents being informed

The Equality Bill seeks to amend the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 No 62 to allow minors to apply to the NCAT to change their sex. They only need to provide ‘a statement’ from a person who has provided counselling’ to the child and show that ‘the counselling was provided by a person, chosen by the applicant, who the applicant considers has suitable qualifications, training or experience to provide the counselling.’

It’s not clear how a child could have the experience and knowledge to be able to assess if a person is qualified to provide counselling. In fact, the counselling could have been provided by a transgender advocacy organisation.

The Bill also seeks to amend the  Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 No 157 by inserting a new section giving children the right to decide their own medical treatment. This is the same as the ‘Gillick competence’ test which is already a rule in Australian law. Under the test a ‘mature minor’ can consent to their own medical treatment without parental/carer consent if their doctor believes they understand the consequences.

Why does this need to be inserted into an Act that claims to be about LGBT equality? The only reason is to strengthen the ability of children to access puberty blockers and cross sex hormones without parental consent.