Submission No 17 s exualisation of children and young people organisation

[Gender] is now erroneously applied to children who are expected to understand and 
embody a theory usually only the purview of researchers. Suddenly we must scrutinise, 
analyse and even pathologise natural child behaviour as “gendered.”
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Gender Dysphoria 
Central to the SSCA approach is the claim that there is a crisis of homophobic bullying in schools, and 
that affirmation of children’s sexual identity is the best way to address the issue. It may be, however, 
that such an approach has the potential to cause serious damage to students’ mental health and 
sexual development.
SSCA promotes a book about gender dysphoria for kindergarteners called ‘The Gender Fairy’. The book 
also contains notes for teachers and parents, which were written by Roz Ward, the Manager of Safe 
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Hillier et al, Writing themselves in, 1998, accessed 18/01/2016, 
http://www.glhv.org.au/files/writing-themselves-in.pdf
p 24. 
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Psychologist: Too much sex ed too soon bad for kids' brains,
Sunshine Coast Daily,
31/07/2015 
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/too-much-sex-ed-too-soon-is-bad-for-brain/2724464/.
68
Laura McNally, Gender Neutrality or Enforcement? 'Safe Schools' isn't as Progressive as it Seems,
ABC Religion and 
Ethics
, 24 Mar 2015, 
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/03/24/4204018.htm
. 

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Schools Coalition Victoria. The book is “for young children aged four years+ to read with their parents 
or teachers”.
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The Gender Fairy begins with a story of two babies who are bought pink or blue coloured presents. 
This ‘gender stereotyping’ is contested by the gender fairy (who is non-binary) answers questions for 
two young transgender children. For example, the biologically female child asks if she can use a male 
toilet, to which she is told that she can, because she is a boy.
The author says the story is ‘about two transgender children who are not fluid and make the choice 
to socially transition. It's up to children to decide where they are on the gender spectrum. As the 
Gender Fairy says, “No one can tell you”’.
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It is now emerging that one possible consequence of the promotion in schools of all things LGBTI has 
been an increase in gender dysphoria among Australian children. Columnist Kate Legge, in an article 
for the 
Weekend Australian Magazine
entitled, “Transgender children: what’s behind the spike in 
numbers?” (18th July 2015), writes:
Requests to help transgender students have skyrocketed since mid-last year when the 
federal Education Department funded a national initiative called the Safe Schools 
Coalition aimed at creating “inclusive” learning environments. In the past three 
months calls have exceeded those received during the preceding six, with one state 
tripling its appeals for assistance.
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According the Legge’s article, Melbourne’s Royal Childrens Hospital is expecting to treat 200 children 
and adolescents this year for gender dysphoria (i.e. transgenderism), up from only one case in 2003. 
According to Paul McHugh, Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School, the affirmation 
approach is the incorrect response to children experiencing these issues. He writes:
Gender dysphoria – the official psychiatric term for feeling oneself to be of the 
opposite sex – in fact belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about 
the body, such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. Its treatment 
should not be directed at the body as with surgery and hormones any more than one