Yes, Andrew, it’s hard to know who at Ahpra understands that they give the impression of adopting a partisan stance in a debate about how to help vulnerable kids. Clearly the incentives favour adoption of or at least gestures of support for gender ideology.
A couple of years ago the BBC program Nolan Investigates uncovered undue influence of activist organizations like Stonewall on the BBC and Ofcom in breach of their own Charter and broadcasting code. Once exposed this was hastily corrected. This is even more worrisome as it seems activist groups have infiltrated and unduly influenced publicly funded regulatory bodies which must be scrupulously nonpartisan and stick with evidence-based policies. That our politicians and senior public
servants have allowed such infiltration of public sector bodies - including medical regulatory bodies - is telling in itself. There will be some massive massive legal cases coming down the pipeline if this is not corrected. Let's not go to the potential for real harm to be done to patients.
Also this older BBC program from 2019 (complete with the inaccurate terminology of being "assigned" a particular gender at birth) . Tavistock, Mermaids etc were so sure of themselves in this report but have since been discredited.
The weaponisation of professional bodies demonstrates that a very effective way of achieving the appearance of clinical consensus is to persecute anyone not spouting the required ideological gibberish. Stalin was exemplary at this tactic, as demonstrated by his support for Trofim Lysenko, a crackpot Soviet biologist and agronomist whose agricultural methods condemned millions to starve to death.
Lysenko was:
'the controversial “dictator” of Communistic biology during Stalin’s regime. He rejected orthodox genetics in favour of “Michurinism” (named for the Russian horticulturist I.V. Michurin), which was begun by an uneducated plant breeder fashioning explanations for his hybrid creations. After Michurin’s death in 1935, Lysenko led the movement and transformed it into an assault on orthodox genetics...The Soviet chiefs began to support Lysenko during the agricultural crisis of the 1930s. On the basis of rather crude and unsubstantiated experiments, Lysenko promised greater, more rapid, and less costly increases in crop yields than other biologists believed possible. Under Stalin, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. (1940–65) and president of the then powerful V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. By 1948, when education and research in standard genetics were virtually outlawed, some geneticists had suffered secret arrest and death of undisclosed causes." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trofim-Lysenko
I don't think anyone's being taken out the back to be shot here in Australia, but the prospect of having one's livelihood and reputation blown up is a powerful disincentive to speaking up. I recently tried to collect expressions of interest to be kept anonymously in support of an independent review of the evidence underpinning gender-affirming care. The response was overwhelmingly underwhelming. Even retired clinicians didn't want to be involved, and were reluctant to discuss the topic at all, e.g. stating: "it's not a matter of burning interest to me" and "I don't want to go there".
Yes, it was seen that way under Stalin but in reality it's totally incompatible with Marx's theories, as explained by Zhores Medvedev in his book "The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko" published in English in 1969. He was put into a mental hospital in the Soviet Union in 1975 for unmasking Lysenko as a charlatan, which experience also became a book: "A Question of Madness", co-written with his brother Roy. Lysenko was only removed from his lofty position in state agriculture in 1965.
Here's how Lysenko's theories were framed as being Marxist-compatible:
"In the political storms that ravaged the Soviet Union following the rise of Stalin, Lysenko's idea that all organisms, given the proper conditions, have the capacity to be or do anything had certain attractive parallels with the social philosophies of Karl Marx (and the twentieth-century French philosopher Henri Bergson) that promoted the idea that man was largely a product of his own will". https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/disastrous-effects-lysenkoism-soviet-agriculture
The idea that organisms can become anything, regardless of reality, sounds strangely familiar!
While Mr Fletcher, CEO of AHPRA, is proud of the organisation’s commitment to being an accessible and safe regulator for LGBTIA + people, I assume that he remains mindful of AHPRA’s responsibility to 'protect the public and set standards and policies that all registered health practitioners must meet'.
Of particular concern in that context is as it relates to the LBBTIA+ community and ensuring the safety and efficacy of experimental untrialled intervention in children and young people that includes use of off-label hormonal treatment, irreversible, mutilating and sterilizing surgery.
The complaint process should logically include feeling unsafe in the presence of people who belong to political groups with a history of hostile harassment.
In reality, the action of saying someone makes an LGBTQ+ person feel unsafe should be classified as harassment as well as defamation, slander, and libel, and subject to summary judgement and substantial penalties.
This nonsense has to stop, and heavy fines and prison time tends to focus attention.
You simply can’t get away with complaining that someone attempts murder, assault, or verbal harassment, which is the implication with “unsafe”.
The task ; how to obtain the opinion of relevant clinicians? A voluntary plebiscite/ secret ballot, conducted by an independent body who could not be seen as biased . Any suggestions? I once thought AHPRA would be the obvious choice, but their spokesperson told me their position was determined by current legislation ( I am in Qld) and it would not be within their charter to canvas opinions. Pity, as a result from such a pole from a statutory body would be ethically plausible and hard to challenge.
So , dismally and inexplicably, we learn that the regulatory body of AHPRA looks to have bluffed into an ideologically based stance by the protagonists/ activists, whose genesis came out of social science, in the same way as has the relevant colleges. The activists, which include that relatively small subset within the profession who clinically participate ( in providing medical/hormonal intervention to minors) are bellicose whilst basking in their success to have also bluffed the various ALP State Government legislators into intimidating any miscreant clinician with the real threat of punitive legal response. Perhaps future lay legislators may respond differently if they were to be provided with the , intuitive, evidence that an overwhelming majority of key clinicians ( child and adolescent psychiatrists , peadiatricians, and paediatric endocrinologists) are NOT in favor of legally obligatory “ affirmation “ treatment protocol, and would support redacting all “ anti conversion therapy “ State legislation. If the medical profession is paralyzed then perhaps the politicians, armed with the likely majority, hitherto silently held ,opinion of relevant clinicians, could lead the way back to protect future vulnerable children, with courage of their convictions, knowing the medical profession is largely, silently, .,aghast
Yes, Andrew, it’s hard to know who at Ahpra understands that they give the impression of adopting a partisan stance in a debate about how to help vulnerable kids. Clearly the incentives favour adoption of or at least gestures of support for gender ideology.
A couple of years ago the BBC program Nolan Investigates uncovered undue influence of activist organizations like Stonewall on the BBC and Ofcom in breach of their own Charter and broadcasting code. Once exposed this was hastily corrected. This is even more worrisome as it seems activist groups have infiltrated and unduly influenced publicly funded regulatory bodies which must be scrupulously nonpartisan and stick with evidence-based policies. That our politicians and senior public
servants have allowed such infiltration of public sector bodies - including medical regulatory bodies - is telling in itself. There will be some massive massive legal cases coming down the pipeline if this is not corrected. Let's not go to the potential for real harm to be done to patients.
Also this older BBC program from 2019 (complete with the inaccurate terminology of being "assigned" a particular gender at birth) . Tavistock, Mermaids etc were so sure of themselves in this report but have since been discredited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDi-jFVBLA8
The weaponisation of professional bodies demonstrates that a very effective way of achieving the appearance of clinical consensus is to persecute anyone not spouting the required ideological gibberish. Stalin was exemplary at this tactic, as demonstrated by his support for Trofim Lysenko, a crackpot Soviet biologist and agronomist whose agricultural methods condemned millions to starve to death.
Lysenko was:
'the controversial “dictator” of Communistic biology during Stalin’s regime. He rejected orthodox genetics in favour of “Michurinism” (named for the Russian horticulturist I.V. Michurin), which was begun by an uneducated plant breeder fashioning explanations for his hybrid creations. After Michurin’s death in 1935, Lysenko led the movement and transformed it into an assault on orthodox genetics...The Soviet chiefs began to support Lysenko during the agricultural crisis of the 1930s. On the basis of rather crude and unsubstantiated experiments, Lysenko promised greater, more rapid, and less costly increases in crop yields than other biologists believed possible. Under Stalin, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. (1940–65) and president of the then powerful V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. By 1948, when education and research in standard genetics were virtually outlawed, some geneticists had suffered secret arrest and death of undisclosed causes." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trofim-Lysenko
I don't think anyone's being taken out the back to be shot here in Australia, but the prospect of having one's livelihood and reputation blown up is a powerful disincentive to speaking up. I recently tried to collect expressions of interest to be kept anonymously in support of an independent review of the evidence underpinning gender-affirming care. The response was overwhelmingly underwhelming. Even retired clinicians didn't want to be involved, and were reluctant to discuss the topic at all, e.g. stating: "it's not a matter of burning interest to me" and "I don't want to go there".
Lysenko’s theory was seen as more compatible with Marxism, wasn’t it?
I know someone whose Russian ancestor was sent to country NSW to learn about agronomy—between the wars, I think—& never returned.
Yes, it was seen that way under Stalin but in reality it's totally incompatible with Marx's theories, as explained by Zhores Medvedev in his book "The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko" published in English in 1969. He was put into a mental hospital in the Soviet Union in 1975 for unmasking Lysenko as a charlatan, which experience also became a book: "A Question of Madness", co-written with his brother Roy. Lysenko was only removed from his lofty position in state agriculture in 1965.
Here's how Lysenko's theories were framed as being Marxist-compatible:
"In the political storms that ravaged the Soviet Union following the rise of Stalin, Lysenko's idea that all organisms, given the proper conditions, have the capacity to be or do anything had certain attractive parallels with the social philosophies of Karl Marx (and the twentieth-century French philosopher Henri Bergson) that promoted the idea that man was largely a product of his own will". https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/disastrous-effects-lysenkoism-soviet-agriculture
The idea that organisms can become anything, regardless of reality, sounds strangely familiar!
Your acquaintance's ancestor was lucky to escape.
I have wondered why vexatious and/or politically motivated and/or inane complaints by trans activists
are taken seriously and even sometimes upheld.
This article makes it clear that the people handling the complaints may well be supporters of gender ideology.
Also, the definition of woman in the midwife's code of conduct is very muddled. How did that ever get in there?
And yet we know of at least one case where Ahpra preferred no further action on a complaint brought by an activist psychologist.
As for that definition of a woman, it seems to me utterly meaningless.
While Mr Fletcher, CEO of AHPRA, is proud of the organisation’s commitment to being an accessible and safe regulator for LGBTIA + people, I assume that he remains mindful of AHPRA’s responsibility to 'protect the public and set standards and policies that all registered health practitioners must meet'.
Of particular concern in that context is as it relates to the LBBTIA+ community and ensuring the safety and efficacy of experimental untrialled intervention in children and young people that includes use of off-label hormonal treatment, irreversible, mutilating and sterilizing surgery.
The complaint process should logically include feeling unsafe in the presence of people who belong to political groups with a history of hostile harassment.
In reality, the action of saying someone makes an LGBTQ+ person feel unsafe should be classified as harassment as well as defamation, slander, and libel, and subject to summary judgement and substantial penalties.
This nonsense has to stop, and heavy fines and prison time tends to focus attention.
You simply can’t get away with complaining that someone attempts murder, assault, or verbal harassment, which is the implication with “unsafe”.
The task ; how to obtain the opinion of relevant clinicians? A voluntary plebiscite/ secret ballot, conducted by an independent body who could not be seen as biased . Any suggestions? I once thought AHPRA would be the obvious choice, but their spokesperson told me their position was determined by current legislation ( I am in Qld) and it would not be within their charter to canvas opinions. Pity, as a result from such a pole from a statutory body would be ethically plausible and hard to challenge.
So , dismally and inexplicably, we learn that the regulatory body of AHPRA looks to have bluffed into an ideologically based stance by the protagonists/ activists, whose genesis came out of social science, in the same way as has the relevant colleges. The activists, which include that relatively small subset within the profession who clinically participate ( in providing medical/hormonal intervention to minors) are bellicose whilst basking in their success to have also bluffed the various ALP State Government legislators into intimidating any miscreant clinician with the real threat of punitive legal response. Perhaps future lay legislators may respond differently if they were to be provided with the , intuitive, evidence that an overwhelming majority of key clinicians ( child and adolescent psychiatrists , peadiatricians, and paediatric endocrinologists) are NOT in favor of legally obligatory “ affirmation “ treatment protocol, and would support redacting all “ anti conversion therapy “ State legislation. If the medical profession is paralyzed then perhaps the politicians, armed with the likely majority, hitherto silently held ,opinion of relevant clinicians, could lead the way back to protect future vulnerable children, with courage of their convictions, knowing the medical profession is largely, silently, .,aghast