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Emanciption Day and 'gender affirming care'Dear , There are just 12 days until our Emancipation Day breakfast. Bookings are doing nicely, but they will be even nicer with your presence (if you’re one who hasn’t booked yet). And if you haven’t booked yet it might be because you are wondering why a country that never had slavery would celebrate its abolition. Good question, and that is really part of the untold story of Australia, and the West, and what we are celebrating in this event. There was a large number of reasons why settling Australia made sense: Australia had a large amount of underutilised land, ideal for settlement; there were security reasons; the US had closed its doors to convicts; and here was an opportunity to give people who had often been sentenced to death, a fresh start. In this mix was also the royal instruction that no form of slavery was to be instituted in the colony. That there was no slavery in Australia was part of the flood ot Enlightenment philosophies coursing through the Anglophone and European worlds which flow directly from the idea that all people have equal worth, through the abolition of slavery to the modern world where individual liberty and the benefits that flow from it are taken for granted. Our guest speaker Judith Sloan will be addressing some of the currents in that flood. The breakfast is Friday August 1, and will be held in Tattersall’s Club at 7:00 am for 7:30 start. To book click here. I also hope that some of you might be able to make it to the Australian Medical Professionals Society evening with Dr Jillian Spencer, the Queensland psychiatrist stood down by her hospital for questioning “gender affirming” care. That function is one week this week on Wednesday August 30 at 6:00 pm at 35 Thompson Street, Bowen Hills. To book, click here. For an eye-opening look at the gender affirming care issue, you should read this article online on The Australian: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/how-the-gender-affirming-care-model-failed-our-families/news-story/174d04830bd682cd8799992929844d98. In case you don’t have a subscription you can download a pdf by clicking here (warning it is 40 MB). The transgender issue is a difficult one. One of my favourite economists, Dierdre McCloskey, is transgender, and if she wishes to identify as a woman, I’m happy to defend her right to do so in those situations where it doesn’t offend anyone else’s rights. That’s part of the Enlightenment tradition that our Emancipation Day breakfast celebrates - you have rights but so do others. Professionals also have rights and responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to act in the best interests of their client or patient. In the case of mental health issues they would be derelict in that duty if they did not attempt a diagnosis, which is the opposite of what happens with “gender affirming care”. It is even more the case when the patient is not a fully-developed human adult, but a child, particularly as the “science” on which this care is based is strongly contested. I will be the MC at this function, and I’m looking forward to meeting Doctor Spencer. She strikes me as a commonsense and courageous person who should be celebrated rather than sacked for her strength and diligence as a professional psychiatrist. Hope to see you there. Regards, GRAHAM YOUNG 
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