KATE EMERY: Federal transgender health review a powerful opportunity to take politics out of crucial question

Transgender people exist.

When the most powerful man in the world seems determined to argue otherwise, it’s worth repeating that trans people exist and have likely existed since shortly after our ancestors decided they’d give this “walking on two legs” thing a shot.

Trans people are not a modern invention.

They are not a creation of the “woke left”.

Nor are they the bogeyman under JK Rowling’s bed the Harry Potter author seems to imagine.

What they are is in the spotlight, most recently since Friday, when the Australian Government announced that it had tapped the National Health and Medical Research Council to review treatment guidelines for young trans and gender diverse Australians.

Those who think trans identity is a mental illness, the way homosexuality was once classified, or a modern invention, like the iPhone, will probably welcome the review.

But those who think trans people are human beings entitled to freedom, joy and respect should welcome it too.

Trans people have become a particularly low-hanging punching bag in the political culture wars.

That’s partly down to a big spike in the number of young people questioning what they see as a mismatch between what’s in their head and what’s in their knickers and the growing visibility of trans women in public life.

In the UK, a nationwide review of gender affirming care for young people led to a ban on what are known as puberty blockers, hormones that can be prescribed by a doctor to stop or delay the onset of puberty. I might not be qualified to criticise that review but the British Medical Association sure is and they want to see the ban lifted.

In the US, President Donald Trump has signed executive orders targeting trans people, including banning gender affirming care for those under 19 and banning trans troops from the military.

Given Mr Trump believes trans women enjoy an unfair advantage in women’s sport, you’d think he would welcome the presence of these alleged super soldiers on the field of war.

Again, while my medical qualifications may come straight from a Weet-Bix packet, both the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics are alarmed by the ban on gender care for young people.

The Australian review was prompted less by those overseas rumblings and more by the Queensland Government’s surprise move to block new child patients from accessing hormone treatments. That ban and a related Queensland review was triggered by alleged bad governance at one Cairns clinic.

A 2024 review into Queensland’s children’s gender service found patients were receiving “effective care” and not being “hurried” into making decisions.

A separate review by the NSW Government concluded the use of hormone treatment remained “safe, effective and reversible” but also called for more long-term research.

In WA the Opposition has promised to ban puberty blockers, undaunted by the fact that the chances of them winning in March are roughly equivalent to the likelihood of Mr Trump presiding over precedented times.

The Federal review, by the country’s premier health and medical research body, should stop States from running their own politically-motivated attacks on trans people and avoid a piecemeal approach that could see Australians crossing State and Territory borders to access care like a 12-year-old Texas rape victim in search of an abortion.

What matters now is that the NHMRC is allowed to get on with its review without political interference — from either side.

Clarity on what the science says, what doctors report and what trans people have personally experienced is needed to take the heat out of what should be a matter between individuals and their doctors.

Australia’s gender treatment clinics have an international reputation for best practice — very different to the UK, for example — and should welcome the scrutiny and whatever recommendations might come from an evidence-based review.

When it comes to kids, the public needs to have confidence that medicine, science and the kids themselves come first, not ideology or political expediency.

And while we wait on the outcome of that review, Australian politicians, wannabe politicians and social commentators looking for clicks from vocal anti-trans activists, should try to remember that trans people already exist and they are listening.

Unless you’re a shut-in you’ve probably shared a café, a bus or a public bathroom with a trans or gender diverse Aussie, who represent an estimated 1-2 per cent of the population.

Did you notice? Exactly.

If you think trans people don’t exist, try talking to one. Maybe listen to the many stories of finding peace and happiness after years, often decades, of living a life that always felt wrong to them.

If you think trans people don’t exist or are a sickness in need of a cure, consider the possibility that you are on the wrong side of history, advancing the same arguments that were once widely made about gay people: that same-sex attraction was nothing a little conversion therapy couldn’t fix.

Because trans people are real and they don’t disappear if you stop believing in them.