Gender Affirming Care National Review and the Australian Christian Lobby

On January 28, the Queensland government announced it would not allow trans minors to commence medical gender affirming care (GAC). Those who were already in a program involving the use of puberty blockers and hormones could continue to access those medications, but those who had yet to be assessed (and there is a significant backlog) would be summarily denied. The Health Minister, Tim Nicholls, also said that there would be an “independent” review into GAC, which would deliver its findings sometime in 2026.

All of this was kicked off because of an internal review that identified problems, some serious, in one clinic – one – in Cairns. Rather than continuing to investigate that clinic, however, the Queensland government has chosen to be cruel to an entire state. From this one example, the Liberal National Party has built a narrative of children in danger of irreversible harm. So maybe an independent review wouldn’t be a bad idea?

Here’s the thing, though. Two things, actually.

Queensland has already conducted an internal review into their GAC programs. Just last year. That review found issues with governance, and ways in which GAC programs could be included, but, crucially, found no evidence of patient harm.

Nicholls also declined to mention exactly who would be conducting this “independent” review, and that should start alarm bells ringing. We’ve already seen how the so-called “independent” Cass Review wreaked havoc in Great Britain, virtually shutting down GAC. That review has been analysed, critiqued, and, frankly, shredded for its selective sampling, biased language, and rejection of any studies that didn’t serve its anti-trans agenda. Here are just a few examples:

Yale University’s response, which features a Who’s Who of experts in psychiatry, paediatrics, and public health.

Oxford Brookes University research fellow Dr Cal Horton’s response, which identifies problems of prejudice, cisnormative bias, pathologisation, and inconsistent standards of evidence.

The response from the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (AusPATH), calling out the Cass Review’s use of language and advocacy of “conversion” therapy and criticising its lack of any peer consultation.

Clearly, then, it matters who would undertake such a review.

Perhaps that’s why federal Health Minister Mark Butler announced, on January 31, that there would be a national review into GAC. It would be overseen by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia’s peak medical research body. In light of this review into a “national approach” to GAC, Butler advised the Queensland government to set aside its planned review.

The federal review has been cautiously welcomed by LGBTQIA+ organisations, and by AusPATH. It was also embraced by anti-trans activists – right up until they realised that this report would likely not be the same kind of dog’s breakfast of bad science and prejudice found in the Cass Review.

At that point, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) swung into action.

The ACL will tell anyone who asks that they are just “a strong and united grassroots movement with over 250,000 Australians”¹quote taken directly from their website, which I won’t link on principle, who want politicians to follow Christian values.

The truth is considerably murkier than that. For a start, the ACL is a public company.

The ACL’s opposition to LGBTQIA+, Indigenous, and reproductive rights and action on climate change is both hateful and chock-full of lies. Hand in hand with that is their oft-repeated lie that Christians in Australia are persecuted and prevented from religious freedom. Their declarations and activism are toxic to the extent that they have been labelled a hate group by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (an international body created by members of the Southern Poverty Law Centre).

Notwithstanding that, both major parties regularly engage with the ACL (and kudos to Greens leader Adam Bandt for not doing likewise), apparently taking at face value the company’s claim to represent “Australian Christians”.

In the past, the ACL have been involved with lobbying campaigns against LGBTQIA+ rights that were deceptive and full of bad science, and relied on the laziness of politicans and media to get away with it. Here’s just one example: their attempt in 2012 to paint marriage equality as medically unsafe, exposed by Chrys Stevenson, nickandrew, and myself.

Now, in 2025, the ACL is employing the same tactics. In their alarm over the possibility that a federal review into GAC might not be a transphobe’s best friend, the company hastily penned a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, attaching to it the names of “over 100 prominent Australians including doctors, academics, lawyers, politicians, and detransitioners”. This letter, relying on a claim to authority, called for an immediate cessation of all GAC and a thorough review – and attempted to dictate the scope of that review.

Sounds all very impressive – but who, exactly, are these “prominent Australians”? Well, first of all, many of the names on this list couldn’t be called “prominent” at all if you’re using the word as it’s commonly understood. After all, what is the influential reach of the editor of a tiny, self-published journal, or a junior lecturer in a waning program run by a second-tier university? For that matter, can someone really be considered “prominent” if their sole claim to fame is existing in an echo chamber of transphobic hatred?

Of course, that’s the point. The ACL would have the Prime Minister – and the rest of us – believe that simply being an anti-trans activist is enough to qualify you as prominent. It’s not a courtesy they’d extend to anyone who opposes them. It’s not a claim that stands up to even cursory scrutiny, and they know it. But just to err on the side of caution, they’ve bolstered their list with a handful of politicians of varying degrees of influence.

Right off the bat, we have misrepresentation at work. The ACL is relying on people not to look beyond the words “prominent Australians” to see what’s really there.

So, in my next article, I’ll be looking into who these “prominent Australians” are, and the histories and agendas behind them.

Most of the letter is concerned with repeated tired old lies about trans folk and GAC. But then we get to what’s arguably the most gobsmackingly arrogant part of the ACL’s demand.

It wants to dictate the terms of the national review. And I quote:

“An independent public inquiry needs to be carried out at the federal level with the cooperation of the states and territories, involving an espert, or panel or distinguished experts, independent from the practice of gender medicine.” (my emphasis)

Yes, that’s right. The ACL is demanding that any review of gender affirming care actively exclude anyone with expertise and experience in the field. That would include anyone who is, you know, actually trans – the only people with the lived experience to represent the community.

It’s not hard to guess what kind of “experts” it would accept – ones with a pre-determined belief that GAC is a terrible, horrible, awful thing.

It’s called stacking the deck.

“Such an inquiry will need to consider how this was allowed to happen, the impact on the children and their families, and make recommendations as to how to protect other children from harm.” (my emphasis)

See the implication there? “Someone” is responsible for this. “Someone” took advantage of Our Precious and Innocent Cherubs and transed them! Why didn’t the government do something?!

“Such an inquiry does not need to ‘reinvent’ the wheel in terms of the medical and scientific evidence, for this has been systematically reviewed multiple times by different expert bodies, with the same conclusion. What the inquiry needs to do is consider whether, in the light of the evidence, current ‘gender-affirming’ practices should continue, and if so, to what extent.” (my emphasis)

Don’t worry your pretty little heads about actually looking into GAC and what happens there. Just accept the lies we tell you and the bogus studies we wave around, and figure out how to Save Our Precious and Innocent, etc.

The funny thing is … the medical and scientific evidence has been systematically reviewed multiple times by different expert bodies. And those bodies have come to the same conclusion. Gender affirming care works. The use of puberty blockers is both beneficial, and reversible should a teen decide against further transition. Mental and physical health outcomes are significantly improved.

Naturally, that’s not what the ACL means, oh no. It wants the PM to completely ignore all those inconvenient facts in favour of flawed and discredited studies like the Cass Review (which it cites in glowing terms in its diatribe), and rightly criminalised practices like “conversion therapy”. In fact, the ACL is terribly concerned that having laws against this astonishingly harmful abuse might stop transphobes from bullying kids into anxiety, depression and suicide.

This is unconscionable. The ACL is a religious lobby group that trades on hate and exclusion – and here it is, demanding the right to dictate the terms of a review on which it isn’t even remotely qualified to comment. And they’re trying to protect the illusion of authority to do so, with this list of signatories designed to fool people into thinking that golly gee gosh, if all these “prominent Australians” think it’s a good idea, maybe we should just go along with it.

So let’s take a look at just who signed their names to this outrageous nonsense, shall we? Step right this way.