AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS ARE INVITED TO SIGN THIS LETTER
The Honourable Greg Hunt MP
Minister for Health
Parliament House
Canberra
Dear Minister Hunt,
We write as Australian doctors to support Professor John Whitehall’s call for a formal Parliamentary Inquiry into “the rapid rise of childhood gender dysphoria in Australia and the lack of scientific basis for current medical treatment.”
We agree with Dr Whitehall, as stated in his letter to you of September 4th: “It seems that public policy and medical ‘best practice’ is being declared in haste without a sufficient foundation of fact and reflection, and a formal Parliamentary Inquiry could provide that foundation.”
We appreciate your concern for this matter, as evidenced by your referring it to the RACP for consideration, but we note Dr Whitehall’s observation that, “the RACP is ill-fitted for such an investigation. It is, after all, an organisation primarily dedicated to the education of physicians. Interpretation of ethical issues that transcend the activities of physicians and involve participatory social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and surgeons are beyond its purview.”
The College has itself confirmed, in response to your invitation, that “the RACP is primarily an educational institution and does not conduct inquiries”. The College also confirmed that it “strongly supports” the type of treatment guidelines published by the gender service at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, a commitment that seems to preclude rigorous critique of such guidelines.
We appeal to you to establish a Parliamentary Inquiry into this deeply troubling matter, where parents, teachers and lawyers as well as doctors and others may bring their concerns to our elected representatives for thorough consideration.
Yours faithfully,
SIGNATURE FIELDS CLOSED, WITH APOLOGIES.
Coverage of the site ‘sabotage’ in Daily Mail
STATEMENT ABOUT EARLY CLOSURE OF PETITION, Thursday 26/9/2019
As the six coordinators of the www.GenderInquiry.com website, we have suspended further medical signatories after a spam attack late last night. Prior to the attack, we had gathered 260 valid medical signatories in just three and a half days, including 20 professors or associate professors, 14 paediatricians , 20 psychiatrists including 9 child psychiatrists, and many other doctors with a shared concern about the epidemic of childhood gender dysphoria and the lack of scientific basis for its current treatment.
While we were gathering signatories ‘under the radar’ via medical networks, we could be assured of their validity. After the story was covered in The Australian yesterday and made an impact on social media, we were concerned that people might falsely claim to be doctors to compromise our list.
That occurred shortly before midnight last night (Wednesday 25/9) with a rush of signatories, some obviously fake while others took some cross-checking to establish as fake, and some still remain uncertain.
We cannot leave any possibility of false names being added to that list by those who want to compromise this serious expression of concern by Australian doctors, so we closed the page at midnight. We deeply regret that further medical practitioners will not be able to add their name to our list.
We had planned to leave subscriptions open for two weeks before sending the joint letter to the federal Health Minister, the Hon Greg Hunt. However, we will now bring forward the joint letter from 260 Australian doctors supporting Professor Whitehall’s proposed Parliamentary Inquiry into childhood gender dysphoria.
Thank you to medical colleagues for your support of this important proposal.
COORDINATORS
Dr Rob Pollnitz, paediatrician, South Australia
Dr Georgios Liangas, child psychiatrist, NSW
Dr Chris Middleton, physician, Tasmania
Dr Con Kafataris, physician, NSW
Dr Lachlan Dunjey, GP, Western Australia
Dr David van Gend, GP, Queensland
Gender Inquiry 