ABC 7.30: VIDEO: Decades-old study influences modern trans youth healthcare debate
Michael Barnett OAM
VIDEO: Decades-old study influences modern trans youth healthcare debate
Decades-old study influences modern trans youth healthcare debate
DR ANJA RAVINE, MURDOCH CHILDREN’S RESEARCH INSTITUTE: It's a scary time for trans people globally.
REPORTER: The topic of gender has also been on the executive order list.
DONALD TRUMP, US PRESIDENT: There are only two genders, male and female.
ANJA RAVINE, MURDOCH CHILDREN’S RESEARCH INSTITUTE: We can see the rising anti-trans rhetoric. We hear it.
REPORTER: It’s the bombshell ban that has left teenagers in Queensland facing an uncertain future.
MON SCHAFTER, REPORTER: Dr Anja Ravine, a specialist in transgender youth health and wellbeing, discovered an alarming trend - decades old studies are shaping decisions affecting the lives of trans kids today.
ANJA RAVINE: One of the papers I came across was an old paper from 38 years ago published in Australia, and it's become prominent again.
MON SCHAFTER: The 1987 report in the Medical Journal of Australia describes a little-known treatment program for trans and gender diverse children.
It ran from 1975 to 1980 at a state-funded psychiatric hospital in Perth.
ANJA RAVINE: They were referred to as “gender disordered” children. It's implicit that they were expecting gender identity to return to what was expected. So that is really within the definition of conversion therapy.
MON SCHAFTER: The paper is currently being cited favourably by opponents of gender affirming care in submissions to lawmakers, US courts and medical regulators around the world.
Even in Australia, the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, has written a clinical guide on how doctors should care for gender diverse youth. It also cites the paper.
ANJA RAVINE: Efforts to suppress or change, conversion therapy, is illegal in many parts of the country.
Also, we know now that people who've been exposed to this actually carry long-term psychological scars. It's very harmful.
MON SCHAFTER: The report, written by WA’s then director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services, Dr Robert Kosky, said the children’s gender non-conformity was influenced by their parents.
ANJA RAVINE: It was decided that the way of dealing with this was to separate the children from the parents.
MON SCHAFTER: It referenced the experience of eight primary school-aged children who were hospitalised, one at a time, for up to six months.
Thirty-eight years later, Dr Anja Ravine thinks she may have found one of those kids.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: When I looked at the actual admissions sheet, it actually stated on there that my reason for admission was to stop me from being transsexual in an adolescence.
MON SCHAFTER: Through mutual friends, Anja came across Jayne McFadyen.
Jayne was admitted to the Stubbs Terrace Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in Perth, in 1975. She was 10.
In the National Library of Australia Jayne can access the research paper.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: No conscious attempt was made by staff members to encourage masculine or feminine role behaviours. Pfft. That's wrong.
When I was young and knew the difference between boys and girls, I always thought for some reason my body was wrong.
My mum caught me with some girl’s clothing on and being sort of mid-seventies, not knowing what else to do, um, she went and spoke to our local family doctor.
MON SCHAFTER: Jayne says once admitted, she was closely monitored by staff at the facility.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: I was subjected to random checks of my clothing just to make sure I wasn't wearing any sort of female under clothes.
Had to sort of go to the toilet, if I was going to a cubicle, have the door open so they could check that I wasn't just sitting down to pee. That I actually stood like a boy and urinated.
MON SCHAFTER: After being hospitalised for nearly six months, Jayne was finally allowed to go home.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: When I came out, I had suppressed my sense of gender so far down. because I was worried that I would be sent back to the psych hospital.
MON SCHAFTER: The study checked in on her one year later and again when she was 18.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: Age last seen 18. Cross-dressing occurred three years previously but stopped of its own accord.
MON SCHAFTER: After being discharged, it would take 22 years for Jayne to come out.
Before then, she fell in love and started a family but over time, her wife Deb noticed Jayne was hurting.
DEB: I said what's going on. And she kind of told me, and then she told me what happened at Stubbs Terrace.
So I said, why don't you just like, move out for a bit and decide who you want to be or who you need to be, um, and then we'll see what happens from there.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: I was in a stage where I started suffering quite a major depression. My personal view was I could only see two ways out. One was suicide and the other one was to transition.
After that I made the decision to transition. I felt a lot lighter in myself that I could finally see myself being who I always believed myself to be.
MON SCHAFTER: Jayne, now 60, was not aware her experience at the facility may have been one of eight case studies in Dr Robert Kosky's report.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: The one I immediately identified with was case study five.
MON SCHAFTER: Because of privacy laws, the actual names of the children who were admitted aren’t accessible, but Jayne's hospital admission and medical records align with case study five.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: Ten, male. Well that fits. I was 10 when I went there. Wears females under clothes. Wants to be a girl. Yep.
ANJA RAVINE: From what I’ve learnt from Jane, these other people, it would be very surprising if they haven't had similar life experiences as Jayne and that is deeply troubling.
MON SCHAFTER: Now Jayne, Dr Anja Ravine and a team of researchers have written a critique of Dr Robert Kosky’s 1987 report. Ahead of its release, they’ve revisited the site of the facility in Perth.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: At the front was the living type space. Supposedly they'd, in their words, cured me. I'll summarise it into their words as having cured me. And yet here I was, I was trans.
MON SCHAFTER: Their report has been published in the Medical Journal of Australia today.
ANJA RAVINE: I think it's important for the lawmakers, the courts and policy makers to be aware of this report and to understand that past reports like this are really in the category of misinformation.
MON SCHAFTER: Dr Robert Kosky, the author of the 1987 paper, declined to comment.
Through the ups and downs, Deb has been by Jayne’s side. They remarried in 2019.
DEB: Jayne's outer shell was different, but intrinsically she was still the same person and, it was really nice for her to be able to be a bride as well.
JAYNE MCFADYEN: I absolutely feel good in my skin now. I know who I am. I'm Jayne, that is it. If you don't like me, you don't like me. If you do like me, you do like me. But this is who I am.
SARAH FERGUSON: And if you need help now, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
A decades-old psychiatric study is influencing current debates over transgender youth healthcare.
Monique Schafter reports.