Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne has criticised the Queensland Government’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for young people experiencing gender dysphoria and welcomed a class-action lawsuit challenging the policy.
In January 2025, the Crisafulli Government introduced a ban on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for patients under the age of 18. The Supreme Court overturned the ban in October of the same year, ruling that the Government had not undertaken appropriate consultation before introducing the restrictions.
The following day, Health Minister Tim Nicholls used a different pathway to reinstate the ban, and the Government later extended the restrictions to 2030, arguing that no further action should be taken until the publication of research arising from a UK clinical trial relating to puberty blockers.
The Government is now facing representative legal proceedings brought on behalf of hundreds of families affected by the decision.
“Gender-affirming care is healthcare,” Senator Allman-Payne said in Parliament earlier today, before expressing concern that additional healthcare restrictions could be introduced.
“Now young people are banding together, represented by the Queensland LGBTI Legal Service, in a class action to uphold their human rights.
“This class action will challenge the power of governments to rip the right to healthcare from whole groups of people with just the stroke of a pen, and we must all band together to support them, because when governments attempt, on discriminatory grounds, to restrict healthcare for one group of people, you can bet they’ll later discriminate against more of us.”
Senator Allman-Payne drew a comparison between restrictions on transgender healthcare and access to abortion services.
“Just two years ago, the very same Queensland LNP wanted to reverse hard-won abortion rights in Queensland. This year the Queensland Government has opened a new public hospital in Springfield and, although it’s taxpayer funded, it’s being run by Mater, which refuses to provide services such as voluntary assisted dying, abortion or contraception.
“These types of decisions are not made with genuine healthcare concerns in mind. They are motivated by control, transphobia and misogyny.”
Senator Allman-Payne said it was disappointing that the legal action was necessary.
“I commend the young people in Queensland who are brave enough to hold the LNP state government accountable through this class action, but it is ridiculous that this fight has to be fought in the first place.
“Gender-affirming care is safe, it is life-saving and it must be protected.”
In June, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) handed down a decision allowing a representative complaint, a class action-style discrimination case, to proceed over the Queensland Government’s restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone treatment for people under 18.
The Tribunal ordered that Health Minister Tim Nicholls also be joined as a respondent to the proceedings.
In its decision, QCAT found the complaint would proceed on behalf of all young Queenslanders diagnosed with gender dysphoria who had not commenced puberty blockers or hormone treatment before the restrictions were announced in January 2025.
The Tribunal heard there were 491 patients waiting for treatment through Queensland’s public gender service as of June 2024.
At the time, Heather Corkhill of Equality Australia commented on the proceedings.
“Trans young people deserve access to evidence-based healthcare free from political interference. Governments should not be able to deny healthcare to an entire group of young people without being held accountable for the consequences,” Corkhill said.
“These are deeply personal decisions that should be made by young people, their parents and the doctors who know them best, not by politicians.
“The Tribunal has recognised that rather than an isolated complaint from a single young person, this is a systemic issue affecting large numbers of trans young people and their families.”
It has been suggested by legal advocates involved in the case that successful applicants may seek damages for “hurt, humiliation, embarrassment and distress” caused by the Government’s decision. However, any question of compensation would ultimately be determined by the Tribunal.
