Back in 2021, we wrote about Media Watch’s apparent bias in reporting on the medicalisation of trans-identified minors. At the time, Dr Michelle Telfer was the head of the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne’s Children’s Gender Clinic. She had made a 42-page complaint to the Australian Press Council about reporting on gender clinics by Bernard Lane in The Australian newspaper. Only 5 out of 12 alleged breaches were upheld, with Media Watch preferring to focus on the viewpoints of Dr Telfer than explore the issues evenly.
The segment ends with the reading of a text message from Dr Telfer:
This is a big win for everyone who believes that the truth and the facts matter. We must continue to insist that the reporting on trans issues be accurate, fair and balanced. The rights, health and well-being of the trans community depend on it.
– Text message, Dr Michelle Telfer, Paediatrician, Adolescent Physician, 3 September, 2021
Media Watch Episode 28
Paul Barry exclaims: “Let’s hope Dr Telfer’s optimism is justified“.
We here at Women’s Cooee agree with Dr Telfer that reporting on trans issues should be accurate, fair and balanced. We are yet to see these qualities in mainstream reporting, particularly from our Dear Aunty the ABC.
Time Marches On
In August 2023, Dr Telfer was promoted out of children’s gender medicine and into a role as the Chief of Medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne.
Media Watch has on rare occasions sailed close to the wind. On 15 August 2022, Media Watch noted that the “ABC Skips Tavistock” closure in the UK, Paul Barry accuses the ABC of being “one-sided” and “ignoring legitimate debate”. On 17 October 2022, Paul Barry fronted an episode of Media Watch criticising the ABC’s relationship with lobby group ACON.
The Tavistock was closed a result of the release of the interim findings of the Cass Review. Now the full report has been published and recommends sweeping changes to the provision of gender medicine in the UK.
The Cass Review examined the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines For Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents developed by Dr Telfer and her team at RCH and found them lacking in rigour. Similarly, the WPATH Standards of Care that the Australian Standards document is based on.
Cass commissioned several meta-reviews of the global evidence base. These found that despite gender medicine being widely practised since the 1990s, there was no robust evidence to justify the way it has been rolled out as a first-line treatment for minors. The evidence produced by Australian clinics was examined as part of this review. Out of 105 studies, only 2 were rated as being “high quality”. One of these was the “Westmead Study” that suggested some ‘trans’ children may be suffering complex mental health comorbidities and that some children will ‘grow out of’ their trans identification. This prompted a vitriolic intervention by ABC’s 4Corners (which we wrote about here).
ABC’s Response to Cass
The ABC did offer 2 pieces regarding the Cass Review: a written article and a radio broadcast. The article was surprisingly balanced but ensured a lengthy comment was given to trans-activist endocrinologist Associate Professor Ada Cheung and embedded several links to the 4Corners episode Blocked.
On the radio’s The Health Report, Dr Norman Swan interviews Associate Professor Elizabeth Scott and Professor Ian Hickie, both of the Brain and Mind Centre. Here is Professor Ian Hickie being examined about gender medicine on 7Spotlight.
Dr Swan notes that the Cass Review has taken “many years” (4) and that the report recommends that puberty blockers not be given to children. He then throws to Elizabeth Scott tries to frame the Cass report as not applicable in Australia. She says that the Cass Review deals with boys who feel “trapped in the wrong body” but in Australia we see mostly trans-identified “girls with mental health problems”. She clearly has not read the Cass Report, because there is a chapter dedicated to the changing demographic of trans-identified children.
Instead of challenging her, Dr Norman Swan agrees “So what you’re seeing is that gender fluidity is nothing new, we’re just seeing it, it’s just being revealed.”
Cue Professor Ian Hickie to talk about how the single-clinic service model in the UK makes the Cass Review irrelevant in Australia, and to justify a field of medicine founded on a lack of evidence. Dr Swan props him up uncritically with “… the critics here have relied on the headlines around the Tavistock rather than what we’re actually doing.”
Aged Like Vinegar
In light of the Cass Review, ABC’s activist reporting of gender issues has aged like vinegar, not like a fine wine.
Paul Barry, we’d like to suggest that you revisit your earlier remarks about the reporting in The Australian now that the Cass Review has exposed the lack of a global evidence base for, and acknowledged the risks and harms of children’s gender medicine.
You might want to make comment on how well programs like ABC 4Corners, The Health Report and even Media Watch live up to Dr Telfer’s optimistic standard of “accurate, fair and balanced” reporting on gender issues.