This past weekend, The Weekend Australian published a provocative feature: “How the gender-affirming care model failed our families”.

It offers an unflinching look at the realities facing families caught in the current model of youth gender medicine in Australia, featuring several leading experts in paediatrics and psychology. Standing out in the article is the courageous stance of Dr Jillian Spencer, a senior child and adolescent psychiatrist who has played a pivotal role in the growing medical trans ideology reckoning in Australia.

Dr Spencer was suspended from her clinical duties in Queensland after raising concerns about the treatment of gender-distressed young people in her hospital. She spoke up after witnessing teenage patients being placed on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without proper assessment of the long-term consequences. HRLA is now assisting her challenge her suspension by the hospital.

When clinicians like Jillian are punished for doing their jobs – assessing risk, weighing evidence, asking questions – we are no longer practising medicine. We are enforcing ideology.

In the months since her suspension, however, it has become increasingly clear that Dr  Spencer is not alone – and that the tide is turning.

Across the world, countries like Sweden, Finland, and the United States have conducted their own reviews of gender medicine for minors, and reached the same sobering conclusion: the evidence base for puberty blockers and hormones in children is weak, the long-term risks are not fully understood, and a more cautious, holistic model of care must replace the uncritical “affirmation” approach.

Earlier this year, Queensland froze the prescription of puberty blockers for new patients and announced an external review of public gender services – driven, in part, by the very concerns Dr Spencer had raised.

What is most striking in The Weekend Australian’s feature is the human cost of the system now in place. Families report being pressured to consent to treatment or risk losing them to suicide, being sidelined from their children’s care, and being made to feel like bigots for asking questions.

 Transgender ideology has replaced common sense and made many parents and medical professionals fear speaking out or asking questions. But we can go back.That is why Dr Spencer’s stand matters. She is not only defending her own reputation – she is defending the very principles of ethical medicine: open inquiry, informed consent, and a duty to do no harm.

At HRLA, we believe her case is a turning point.

Dr Spencer’s courage has made it harder for institutions to ignore the harms being done under the banner of “affirmation”. Her case has helped catalyse policy reviews and spark national debate. And the support she has received shows that Australians want a model of care that puts children’s wellbeing above ideology.

This is not about denying care or compassion to those in distress. It is about ensuring that care is based on robust evidence, informed consent, and open clinical judgment. It is about listening: to parents, to whistleblowers, to international reviews, and most of all, to the long-term outcomes of the children caught in the system.

Dr Spencer stood up when others stayed silent. She asked the questions that many were too afraid to ask. And now, step by step, the system is being forced to answer.