The Victorian government cannot say how many children in the state’s schools have been enabled to socially transition their gender without their parents’ knowledge or consent. State Education Department documents show it is departmental policy for teachers and other school staff to use the concept of “mature minor” consent to enable children to socially transition in instances where their parents are deemed unsupportive. The situation has sparked vehement criticism from distressed parents and eminent medical and legal experts, prompting a psychiatric specialist in gender dysphoria to warn there is no scientific consensus that social transition improves mental health and wellbeing outcomes, and clear evidence that it leads many young people toward medical transition, with associated irreversible harms, such as the loss of fertility and sexual function.
Not only are there no guidelines in the departmental policy regarding what constitutes an “unsupportive” parent, there is also no requirement for staff to document or account for this life-altering decision, nor for them to consult medical practitioners. Teachers are also advised they must not tell parents about a child’s desire to change their gender without the permission of the child. The media has obtained emails between education department LGBTIQA+ student advocacy agency Safe Schools and teachers seeking advice, after the communication was requested under Freedom of Information. One email, with the subject, “Pronouns and unsupportive parents,” cites a scenario for a teacher in which “A student asks you to use a different name and pronouns for them, and to change their name and pronouns on CASES21 (the Department of Education computer system)”.
The teacher is advised: “You should do this, with the parent/carer’s permission or with the child as mature minor. Do not talk to parents/carers without seeking permission from the student first. If there is no parent/carer permission or mature minor classification, no changes can be made.” Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll says the education department ‘does not collect data on Victorian government school students who have been declared mature minors’. The Victorian Department of Education website states: “There may be circumstances in which students wish or need to undertake gender transition without the consent of their parent/s (or carer/s), and/or without consulting medical practitioners”. “If no agreement can be reached between the student and the parent/s regarding the student’s gender identity, or if the parent/s will not consent to the contents of a student support plan, it will be necessary for the school to consider whether the student is a mature minor,” the website’s section on “LGBTIQA+ Student Support” states.
“If a student is considered a mature minor, they can make decisions for themselves without parental consent and should be affirmed in their gender identity at school without a family representative/carer participating in formulating the school management plan.” In his response to a Victorian parliamentary question on notice put by Liberal MP Moira Deeming, who also obtained the Safe Schools correspondence, Education Minister Ben Carroll stated: “There is no formal process of declaring a student to be a mature minor, and these decisions are made at a school level”. Mr Carroll said school staff should consider the human rights of the student and parents, as set out in Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. It is not clear how this works in practice, nor how a parent’s rights could be protected if a decision was made without their knowledge. In response to another question from Mrs Deeming in relation to how many children had been enabled to socially transition without parental consent, Mr Carroll said: “The department does not collect data on Victorian government school students who have been declared mature minors by an adult on school grounds for the purpose of affirming their gender identity at school”.
Melbourne psychiatrist Alison Clayton, who has published peer-reviewed papers on gender dysphoria, said social transition was “often the first intervention of the gender-affirmative treatment pathway”. “Subsequent interventions can include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and various surgeries – all of which have significant associated harms, for example to sexual and reproductive function,” Dr Clayton said. She said despite social transition for children and adolescents being promoted in The Royal Children’s Hospital’s (RCH) guidelines as being of benefit, there was “no international evidential or clinical consensus that social transition improves mental health and wellbeing outcomes”. “In fact, two studies undertaken by the RCH Melbourne have not found any association between social transition and improved mental health outcomes (Engel et al. (2023) and Dahlgren-Allen et al. (2021)). The Engel et al. paper actually found that adolescents who had socially transitioned had lower quality of life scores than those who had not socially transitioned.”
Dr Clayton said there was also evidence that undertaking a full social transition in childhood led to an early medicalisation pathway, “with all the associated harms this entails”. “For example, a recent US study has reported that around 80 per cent of ‘transgender’ children who socially transitioned in childhood commence an early medical pathway” she said. “This finding is the inverse of earlier studies, prior to the vogue of early social transition, showing that most (around 85 per cent) of children’s gender-related distress did not persist through adolescence and did not result in commencing hormonal treatments (Ristori and Steensma, 2016).” Dr Clayton said a decision as complex as whether or not a young person should socially transition required a “comprehensive and extended biopsychosocial assessment by a trained mental health clinician”. “Unfortunately, according to my experience, Australian clinicians who follow the RCH guidelines are likely to promote and support social transition as desired by the child/adolescent and are unlikely to undertake the necessary comprehensive assessment and provide the requisite accurate information – regarding risks and benefits – to the young person and their parents. This leaves caring but cautious and concerned parents/carers in an invidious position,” she said.
A spokeswoman for Parents of Adolescents with Gender Distress – which represents more than 50 parents of children who have sought to change their gender – said schools were enacting mature minor consent to enable social transition “indiscriminately”. “When a young person wants to be known as a different name, different gender, in our experience that is accepted at face value, and the concept of mature minor just seems to be applied straight away,” said the spokeswoman whose name has been suppressed to protect her child’s privacy. “There is no real process. There is no criteria that a young person is evaluated against in terms of determining whether they’re a mature minor. There is no requirement for a qualification of the person determining they’re a mature minor, and as far as I know there’s no documentation either. “In our experience, the education department will automatically assume that the child is a mature minor and follow their direction accordingly, more often than not without even thinking to consult parents.
“So, you’ve got people who have no full understanding of the child’s medical and psychological history, no medical or psychological qualifications to make that determination, and they’re running with it.” The spokeswoman said schools were “intentionally alienating parents”. “It sets up this really destructive triangulation against the parents that completely undermines the family unit,” she said. “It isolates young people from their most important support structure at a time when they need it most.” The spokeswoman said “almost 100 per cent” of the children of the parents represented by her group were dealing with other health issues. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s government has been accused of subverting the law, parental rights and child safeguards by ‘allowing undocumented school-based mature minor declarations for gender affirmation’ behind parents’ backs. “Most are diagnosed with neurodiversity or display neurodiverse traits. Most have experienced trauma or suffer from mental illness,” she said.
“There’s complete diagnostic overshadowing. The minute a child mentions gender, everything else gets ignored.” University of Queensland emeritus professor of law, Patrick Parkinson – a family law and child protection expert – said it was “grossly unethical” for a school to engage in social transition of a child without parents’ knowledge or consent. “I do think that there will be negligence suits further down the track, probably from kids themselves,” Professor Parkinson said. “If they have been encouraged to socially transition at school and that leads them to make irreversible medical choices, then I think the education department, as well as the hospital, are likely to be in the frame for a negligence action.” Professor Parkinson said the absence of documentation regarding decisions to grant mature minor status for the purposes of social transition showed there was “no administrative system in place to ensure that such a decision is made only rarely and at the most senior levels”.
He said teachers and principals were “not qualified at all” to make such a decision. “Competence to make decisions of this kind is an issue for child and adolescent psychologists,” Professor Parkinson said. “It requires very careful evaluation, of not only the young person’s understanding, but also their capacity to contemplate what life might be like for them in the future.” Mrs Deeming said the Allan government had “subverted” the law, parental rights and child safeguards by “allowing undocumented school-based mature minor declarations for gender affirmation” behind parents’ backs. “If the declaration was negligent there will be no way to prove it without any record of who made the declaration or why, and if children are harmed by these serious psychological interventions, they and their parents will have no recourse to justice,” she said. “There is no audit trail, no clinical accountability, and no pathway for parents or children later to challenge what was done.
This deliberate and elaborate reclassification suggests not neutrality but an intent to evade the legal safeguards that parliament deliberately attached to medical decisions and mature minor declarations.” In response to a series of detailed questions, an Allan government spokeswoman provided a three-line statement that is identical to that provided almost two months ago, that biologically male students who identify as female are entitled to play sport on girls’ teams. “Whether you’re gay or straight or transgender, we’ll always support you in Victoria. That’s our record,” the spokeswoman said. “Our schools will always support all students, and staff are trained to create the most supportive spaces. “Transgender young people are 15 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population, and we know that when young people are supported to affirm their gender identity we get better outcomes.”
The government’s reference to the likelihood of suicide attempts among transgender young people comes from the website of advocacy group LGBTIQ+ Health Australia, which does not cite a source for the claim. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website states “there are … no reliable national data on rates of suicide and self-harm among LGBTIQ+ communities in Australia. Data from the world’s largest gender clinic, Britain’s Tavistock Clinic, shows that rates of suicide among youth referred to the clinic were slightly higher than the general population, and the same among those receiving treatment and those who were not. Pediatrician Hilary Cass’s landmark independent review of gender identity services for children in Britain last year found that “the evidence does not adequately support the claim that gender-affirming treatment reduces suicide risk”.
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports