Talk:Transgender rights in Australia

Discrimination protections

Material on discrimination protections has been copied from LGBT rights in Australia. Trankuility (talk) 03:14, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Gender dysphoria treatment for children

The Drover's Wife Hello, I'm B20097. I noticed that you recently removed content from Transgender rights in Australia without adequately explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the removed content has been restored. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you B20097

A paragraph was reverted.

A Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Western Sydney, with 50 years of career experience has raised concerns about the use of blockers and cross-sex hormones for children. Two reports (cited), in turn link to dozens of supporting references. One conclusion of his work is: "Blockers and cross-sex hormones cause structural alterations in the brain. No one knows the long-term effects. Their use in treating childhood gender dysphoria is utterly experimental. There is no reliable evidence of long-term benefit to recipient children. Most will grow out of gender dysphoria by puberty". In the light of these eminent-specialist-concerns, there is need to provide balance the current-article's supportive presentation of gender dysphoria treatment for children.

Recommend the removed paragraph be reinstated. B20097 (talk) 02:07, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

This is an article about rights; the specific section under discussion relates to the rights of children to access the medical treatments mentioned and the processes involved in getting that access. So I think it is somewhat off-topic to discuss the appropriateness of the treatments in this article. There appear to be other articles that are more focussed on the treatments (rather than the rights), such as Sex reassignment therapy, Hormone replacement therapy (transgender) and Gender dysphoria in children, one or more of which might be a more appropriate place for raising these concerns. A second comment is that generally discussion of medical matters requires a higher standard of sources, see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). I am not an expert in that area (I don't write medical content) but a quick skim seems to suggest they are expecting peer-reviewed medical journals rather than magazines like Quadrant. You might like to take advice from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine on how best to raise these concerns and the standard of sources required (it may be that they would prefer some of the medical articles cited in the Quadrant article rather than the Quadrant article itself). Kerry (talk) 05:45, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. The current article focuses 100% (and positively) on 'the right' to gender reassignment. You say this article about rights. However 'rights' for Gender dysphoria treatment for children involve children's rights, medical rights and political rights. All involve balancing of competing rights.

I understand for Wikipedia, "medical matters require a higher standard of sources". Consider within this article under the heading: Gender dysphoria treatment, Access for children.

1 a Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Western Sydney, with 50 years of career experience writing in The Quadrant, is dismissed.

however

2 an Associate Professor, Law School, La Trobe University (hardly neutral on matters transgender) writing in The Conversation, is cited [at 25] five times.

At least, Sex reassignment therapy, Hormone replacement therapy (transgender) and Gender dysphoria in children should be added under, See also and the two Whitehall articles added to the Bibliography. As I said, more balance is needed in this Wiki article. Again thank for your comments. B20097 (talk) 10:55, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I was discussing, as you had requested, the disputed edit. Is there another disputed edit involving citation 25? My quick glance is that it is used to support the sequence and recommended age for various treatments. I agree with you that The Conversation is not a medical journal and I think those citations could/should be replaced by the medical journal articles The Conversation article links to, e.g. Endocrine Treatment of Transsexual Persons:An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline. You say that the current article focuses 100% and positively on the right to gender reassignment; I don't see a problem with a Wikipedia article on "Transgender rights in Australia" focussing 100% on the rights of transgender people in Australia (I'd say it was "on topic"). Is it in some way "too positive" (which seems to imply Point of View)? It seems to me that it states relatively neutrally the rights transgender people have and also on rights they don't have (e.g. to remain married to an existing spouse (after sexual reassignment surgery) and on situations where it is "in between" (e.g. different govt agencies having different requirements about changing legal gender, differing entitlements to medical treatments via Medicare). All of this seems on-topic. As for professors and academics, they can and do have opinions (like everyone else) and The Quadrant and The Conversation are places they can express their opinions, in a way they cannot do in an academic journal that expects a more rigorous approach. An obvious example of the difference of opinion in one's scientific life and one's public life is religious beliefs. A scientist could know the statistics on when abortions can be safely performed, but their religious beliefs could still dictate that they are opposed to abortion. I think we have to be careful to understand which hat an academic is wearing when they write in popular forums as opposed to academic journals. The Whitehall article in Quadrant is not NPOV (and it does not have to be NPOV in that magazine). It argues quite strongly and with quite emotive and perjorative language (the article title includes the phrase Surgical Abuse) against transgender treatments in children on the argument that "scientific studies prove that the vast majority of transgender children will grow out of it through puberty if parents do little more than gently watch and wait." Now I do not know the science of transgender children, I do not know if the current clinical guidelines took these studies Whitehall mentions into consideration or not, but I do know the place to debate the science of transgender children and hence the clinical guidelines in relation to their treatment should be in the medical journals. I certainly don't think this Wikipedia article is the place for it. Just to be clear about this, I have no strong view on the appropriateness of transgender treatment for children (I imagine it is a very difficult decision for parents); my concern here is for the best interests of this Wikipedia article and the question of the disputed edit in terms of furthering the best interests of this article. In my opinion, the current article (to which I have made no contributions) is on-topic and reasonably NPOV and the disputed edit appears to me to be somewhat off-topic and somewhat too POV for this article. I invite other Wikipedians to express their thoughts on the matter. Kerry (talk) 15:30, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Transgender pride "map"

Given that this article is somewhat divisive and I have previously discouraged POV here in relation to opposition of the transgender rights discussed, I felt I should remove the Transgender pride map for the same reasons. I am in no way opposed to transgender people being proud, but this article is trying to be a factual statement about the rights of transgender people in Australia. I think, unlike the global map of gender identity rights it replaced, it does not add to or illustrate the article's content but rather advocates a point of view. I don't think a image that suggested that transexuality was wrong or shameful should be acceptable here either. Kerry (talk) 03:00, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond: Can you please describe in what way you view the Australian pride map which you removed here as being POV? What point of view do you think it advocates?

By way of analogy: can you tell me if you object to the swastika flag image at the top of Nazi Germany? Do you think that image advocates a point of view in support of Naziism, or is simply emblematic of the article topic? What about the image at the top of this article, or this one, or this one?

I hope that upon reflection, you will agree that the pride image is merely illustrative of the article topic of Transgender rights in Australia, and revert your removal of the flag image. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:48, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Kerry Raymond, but not for NPOV issues, but for illustrative reasons. It's not an informative, useful image to have at the top of the article. It's kinda just thrown there. The world map is better, providing some sort of useful information to the reader. But not ideal, it's not specific enough to the topic. The LGBT portal is best. Cjhard (talk) 08:32, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

{{edit conflict]} I hope that upon reflection, you will agree that your argument has already terminated as per Godwin's law. I also note that WP:PERSONAL specifically uses calling someone a Nazi as an example of a personal attack, something you appear to be implying about anyone who might disagree with you on this issue. I am here to write an encyclopedia and respect WP:NPOV. I would have no objection whatsoever for the Australian transgender pride flag to appear on an article like Transgender Victoria or similar (we don't seem to have an article on any Australia-wide organisation or I'd suggest it) or on an article about someone who was active in seeking transgender rights in Australia. But this article is not about advocacy; it is just documenting the situation in Australia as the laws currently stand. Yes, there are people who would like more rights in this regard, and, yes, there are people who object to the existing rights. Planting the flag "pro" transgender rights on this article pretty much invites someone else to plant their flag opposed to transgender rights in one form or another. We could open up this article to be a battle ground for those opinions but I don't think it helps the reader. Who is the reader that we really care about here? I think it's the Australian person who feels that they have an issue with gender and wants to know what their options are. I think we show more compassion for that reader by not letting this article become the shifting sands of a debate about their rights but just by telling what their rights are. But let's all discuss this and find a consensus, without making further references to Nazis etc. Kerry (talk) 08:53, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

You miss the point entirely. The Australian pride flag at the top of the Wikipedia article entitled "Transgender rights in Australia" in no way advocates for Transgender people or transgender rights in Australia, any more than the Nazi emblem at the top of the article "Nazi Germany" advocates for Nazi Germans. It's just exactly that simple. The fact that Wikipedia has a Nazi flag at the Nazi article doesn't mean that nobody can ever talk calmly about the Nazi article because someone will yell "Godwin!" and think they've won an argument; there's nothing wrong with having the Nazi flag on that article, because that is what that article is about.

I wasn't the one who put the flag on the TG rights article in the first place, and if I wanted to revert you, I could have done so already and still be operating in line with WP:BRD and then the flag would be there now while we discuss this; but you know what, I don't really care enough about this article to lose any sleep about whether you do or don't put the flag back. So, do whatever you like, just don't think that making fake appeals to Godwin means that people don't see right through your failure to respond to the question.

Having said all that, Jchard has got a point worth discussing about whether the world map is better or not, and why, and I might even get persuaded by further discussion, but like I said, I don't really care enough, so you get to work it out however you like. Happy editing, Mathglot (talk) 09:25, 1 November 2017 (UTC)