Down Under Update

The Chickens Come Home To Roost

Moira Deeming seeks Defamation Costs

Moira Deeming’s attendance at the Let Women Speak rally in March 2023 nearly ended her career as a Victorian Liberal MP. Accused of associating with neo-Nazis, she faced expulsion from the Liberal Party. Instead of backing down, Mrs Deeming sued party leader John Pesutto for defamation and won her case in the Federal Court.

Justice O’Callaghan awarded Deeming $300,000 in damages and noted that Pesutto’s actions were driven more by “fear of the political damage that would be inflicted upon his fledgling leadership,” than by genuine concern for the Liberal Party’s reputation.

Pesutto is currently doing the media rounds to resurrect his political fortunes while his backers set up an online fundraising site to help pay his eye-watering costs of $5m. Pesutto rejected an offer to settle with Moira Deeming for $99,000 before the trial, betting on a win and to position himself as a ‘progressive’ leader of the Liberal Party.

On a recent ABC panel show called Q+A, John Pesutto was asked by a female audience member:

“Do you think the Liberal Party is haemorrhaging votes due in large part, to the lack of empathy and tolerance for female dissenters within the party ranks. I’m talking specifically about the witch hunt against Moira Deeming and the lack of accountability you have demonstrated when dealing with female people within your own party?” Pesutto sidestepped the question to deliver this prepared speech;

“There are divided views over how we mediate between competing rights when it comes to gender identity and equality before the law…. I was trying to position the party as broad-based…. I was acting in good faith. I acknowledge that I could have handled that situation better. I don’t go by a day when I don’t think about what I could have done differently or better, and I’m better for the reflection. Not happy with the results. But I do accept that I could have handled things a bit better. I was always trying in the best of faith to make sure that the party can appeal broadly in the community.” Righto then.

The studio host, Patricia Karvelas failed to ask Pesutto a single clarifying question on what this word salad meant and instead, turned to the Liberal MP Dave Sharma to ask him;

“Obviously that’s the situation that played out in Victoria, on those issues where there’s a tension, very deeply, inside the party - what are the lessons about how to manage those sorts of tensions?

The exchange between Karvelas and Pesutto and redirection to Sharma prevented any further discussion of the substantive issues covered in the case - Deeming’s sex-realist views, Justice O’Callaghan’s criticism of Pesutto’s behaviour and the harms of gender medicine.

Karvales’ role as the host of the publicly-funded ABC show enabled her to frame the issues as little more than procedural and of “managing tensions” within the Liberal Party itself.

The ABC, like much of the Australian media frame gender identity ideology as ‘progressive’ and fail to investigative the growing medical scandal and loss of women’s sex-based rights in Australia.

Following the ABC show and media coverage of Pesutto’s financial woes, Moira Deeming posted on X:

Legal Update

Pesutto failed to come up with the money by the court-ruled deadline of Friday 30 May and will now enter bankruptcy. Deeming’s legal team will subpoena the communications between Pesutto and his donors and pursue payment of Pesutto’s costs from party colleagues and former premiers Jeff Kennett, Ted Baillieu, and Denis Napthine. Stay tuned.

Medical Harms Denied

Australian psychologist Katherine Llewellyn-Davies in her May 21, 2025, article on the ABC Religion and Ethics site points out that the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents (ASOCTG) were not endorsed by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The NHMRC is Australia’s leading statutory body for health and medical research, tasked with developing evidence-based clinical guidelines to ensure high-quality, safe, and effective healthcare. Its guidelines are developed through rigorous, transparent processes involving systematic evidence reviews, multidisciplinary expert panels, and public consultation. The fact that ASOCTG were not endorsed by the NHMRC, means they have not undergone the NHMRC’s rigorous approval process to verify their evidence base, methodological rigor, or clinical safety. This raises serious issues in the governance, evidence base, and ethical oversight of gender-affirming care in Australia.

The Australian SOC were themselves based on the guidelines developed by the American World Professional Association for Transgender Healthcare (WPATH) which was exposed as an activist organisation by the whistleblower WPATH files. The files - internal documents published by Environmental Progress, revealed discussions about serious side effects, including infertility, pelvic floor dysfunction, cancer risks and loss of sexual function following gender medicalisation. WPATH President Marci Bowers herself admitted she had never seen a boy whose puberty was blocked achieve orgasm after transitioning.

Katherine Llewellen-Davies article calls on the Australian government and medical bodies to return to a model of holistic care including care for de-transitioners;

“Meaningful change to support the improved health of trans youth requires an uncompromising return to the highest standard of evidence-based medicine. But when we do, we will also need to brace ourselves for the harm that may have already been caused.”

Katherine is a fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (FRANZCP) and completed advanced training in both Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry. She is also a fellow of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (FASLM).

Read the full article here

Justice Returned

Australian Family Court Justice Strum, in a landmark ruling in Re Devin reported on April 10 also noted the Australian Standards of Care lacked the government’s NHMRC endorsement.

Strum took the unpreceded decision to prohibit a 12-year-old boy from attending a gender clinic for puberty blockers in a serious legal challenge to the Australian SOC. While the name of the clinic is withheld in the judgement, it is likely to be the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne which is the largest gender clinic in Australia and known to follow the ‘affirmation-only’ approach.

Justice Strum criticized the gender clinic for failing to conduct comprehensive assessments for conditions like autism or ADHD, despite the boy being seen at the hospital over a six-year period right up until the court case.

Strum also criticised the clinic for failing to offer any alternative treatments - the Cass Review was published 18 months ago and recommended the need for extreme caution and a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to support gender confused children. The Cass Review’s also scored Australia’s Standards of Care a dismal 18 out of 100 for its lack of rigour.

Strum rejected testimony from a leading paediatrician who acted as an expert witness and compared restrictions on puberty blockers to Nazi persecution. The Justice called this kind of advocacy unfit for court and said that ideology has no place in judicial decisions;

“I do not accept that the child, at this age and pre-pubertal stage in life, can properly understand the implications and potential risks of puberty blockers” and expressed surprise that the gender clinic, “continues to represent to parents and children that puberty blockers are fully reversible and relatively risk-free.”

The boy’s father who opposed medical intervention was awarded sole custody.

Mel Jeffries to sue for medical harms

Victorian detransitioner, Mel Jeffries is suing Dr Jeff Wilcox, psychiatrist Jaco Erasmus and Monash Health for negligence and failing to provide adequate care resulting in serious harm.

Mel started living as a ‘trans man’ named Mason at age 18 and underwent a double mastectomy at age 26. Shortly after the surgery, Mel realized it was a mistake and began detransitioning, as she described on Channel 7’s Spotlight program in September 2023.

Despite suffering from mental health issues, Mel was not offered holistic psychological support but was encouraged towards medicalisation saying; “For years I just kept getting affirmed by the medical fraternity and the trans community for something I wasn’t.”

Mel now suffers with a permanently deepened voice, hirsutism, an enlarged clitoris, vaginal pain and pelvic floor dysfunction.

Wilful Blindness

Australia continues to ignore the growing medical scandal of gender medicine for young vulnerable and LGB people. This is particularly alarming given the irreversible nature of interventions like puberty blockers and hormones, the vulnerability of young patients, and the weak evidence base highlighted by international reviews and the WPATH Files. The absence of Australia’s NHMRC approval for the practice of gender medicine is a failure of medical ethics and government oversight.

Both Katherine Llewellyn-Davies and Justice Strum have publicly called for a return to evidence-based medicine and the removal of gender identity ideology as a driver in supporting LGB and vulnerable youth.

Mel Jeffries and other vulnerable youth will continue to pay the price of the dereliction of duty by Australian health bodies, politicians and journalists to question and investigate the harms of gender identity ideology and the practice of gender medicine.