Gender Ideology

If it means practices which are coercive, abusive or involuntary, or includes things like electric shock therapy or ‘anti-gay boot camps’, then we can all agree such things are inhumane and must be condemned. These types of ‘therapy’ should not be part of any community, let alone a faith-based one. Therapy or counselling should never be forced on anyone. Sadly, in the past, many state institutions sanctioned inhumane treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), being stripped naked and being locked in a small room, massive doses of medication, lobotomies and screaming patients chained to chairs.

Fortunately, these are not part of current practice and certainly not part of any religious organisation. However, banning ‘conversion therapy’ has expanded to mean stopping someone who experiences unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria from getting counselling or support of any sort that they may themselves desire. In passing the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022, Parliament has effectively criminalised the discussion by parents, pastors, counsellors & medical professionals of alternatives to hormones, surgery and confusion for gender dysphoria – and more troublingly, they have criminalised self-determination of how a person wants to live their own life.

Six important amendments which Family First supported were proposed as the law was debated in Parliament included:

• The law doesn’t criminalise any conversations between a child and their parent or legal guardian.

• The expression of any opinion is not a ‘conversion practice’.

• A parent, or caregiver, withholding consent for medical intervention in relation to gender transition (e.g. puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones) for what they consider to be the child’s best interests is not a ‘conversion practice’.

• A health practitioner frankly outlining the risks, consequences and merits of medical intervention in relation to gender transition is not a ‘conversion practice’.. This amendment would ensure that there is no doubt that a medical professional can deliver frank and honest advice to a prospective patient without the delivery of such advice being considered a ‘conversion practice’.

• Remove “prayer based practice” as an example of a ‘conversion practice’.

• A formal review of the law in three years and every five years after that.

All proposed amendments were defeated!