VINDICATED: Dr Jillian Spencer Cleared After Standing Up for Vulnerable Children
After three years of being punished for asking basic medical questions, Queensland psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer has finally been vindicated.
On the 17th of July, Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service (CHQ HHS) quietly discontinued the disciplinary proceeding it had brought against Dr Spencer, a senior child and adolescent psychiatrist with more than twenty years of service to Queensland Health. Days earlier, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) had closed its own investigation into her conduct, taking no further action. Her only "offence" was insisting that children in psychological distress deserve a proper assessment before anyone reaches for a prescription.
What Dr Spencer Actually Asked For
Dr Spencer never refused care for a single child. What she refused to do was pretend that gender distress in a child can simply be waved through without first ruling out anxiety, trauma, autism or depression. From 2022, working inside Queensland Children's Hospital, she called for every gender-distressed child to receive a full mental health assessment before being placed on any medical pathway, objected to staff being forced to use a child's preferred pronouns rather than record their biological sex, and argued that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones should wait until adulthood.
For raising these concerns, Dr Spencer was stood down from clinical duties in 2023 after a patient accused her of transphobia, referred to AHPRA, and eventually handed termination papers. A senior doctor was pushed out the door for daring to say that a distressed child deserves more than automatic affirmation before receiving puberty blockers.
Three Years, One Settlement, and an Extraordinary Admission
Dr Spencer fought back through the Queensland Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court. It took three years, but on the 17th of July, CHQ HHS finally agreed to settle. In its own statement, the hospital conceded that Dr Spencer's concerns were "grounded in her training and background as an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist," and admitted that how to treat gender-distressed children remains a genuine matter of professional and public disagreement, an extraordinary concession from an institution that spent three years trying to push her out the door.
Dr Spencer said the hospital had finally admitted, in public, what she had spent three years trying to tell it: that "the gender affirmation approach is not the right approach for children with gender distress."
Also read: South Australia Moves to Protect Children From Irreversible Puberty Blockers
The Tide Is Turning
Dr Spencer's vindication is not an isolated event — and neither was her warning. In Adelaide, the Women's and Children's Hospital was forced to publicly apologise in 2025 after admitting it had approved gender-affirming treatment, including puberty blockers and hormones, for 22 children, some as young as 11, without the psychiatric assessment its own guidelines required. Chief executive Rebecca Graham conceded the clinic's model of care "was not strictly followed as it should have been." Independent MP Frank Pangallo, who had spent years demanding scrutiny of the clinic, said he feared the hospital's own review would turn into "another whitewash."
Queensland's own government has since paused the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to new child patients, a pause now extended to 2031, after an independent review found the evidence behind these treatments too limited to justify their use. The UK's landmark Cass Review reached the same conclusion. Sweden, Finland and Denmark have all tightened restrictions on so-called "gender-affirming care" for minors, and the Northern Territory has now banned the practice outright for under-18s.
One senior doctor, punished for three years for telling the truth, has finally been proven right. How many more children were affected while hospitals like these dragged their feet?
References
1. Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service, media statement, 17 July 2026.
2. AusDoc, "Hospital bosses drop misconduct claims against Dr Jillian Spencer following gender dysphoria row," 17 July 2026.
3. Catholic Weekly, "Queensland psychiatrist vindicated after gender care dispute," 22 July 2026.
4. The Advertiser (via Gender Clinic News and The Noticer), reporting on Women's and Children's Hospital (Adelaide) gender clinic guideline breaches and CEO Rebecca Graham's public apology, April 2025.