Letter to QLD premier: Dr Jillian Spencer Must Be Reinstated, Act Now on Transgender Ideology

Download the PDF version of the letter here.

11 July 2025

The Hon David Crisafulli
Queensland Premier

By Email Only: premier@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Subject: Dr Jillian Spencer Must Be Reinstated, Act Now on Transgender Ideology

Dear The Hon Premier Crisafulli,

We write to express our deep regret that your Health Minister, Tim Nicholls, has not only failed to reinstate suspended child psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer, but is further damaging her reputation by allowing her dismissal to go ahead without challenge.

And he has failed to direct Queensland Health to cease all of the pointless actions against Dr Spencer in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.

And he has failed to abolish the gender clinic and return it to the realm of regular child psychiatry. We have already made our position on this issue clear to our members.

The bullying of Dr Spencer for calling out transgender activism at the Queensland Children’s Hospital has been described as a travesty of justice. And so it is.

We urge you not to ignore the growing public outcry, Mr Premier. You came to power promising fairness and transparency and we have little of that.

We write to you on behalf of almost 24,000 nurse, doctor, and teacher members.

We caution against alienating the thousands of health professionals who trusted your government to bring balance, transparency and integrity.

We ask that this matter not be deflected to Minister Nicholls, who has made it clear he will not engage constructively. Every response to date has come from the Director-General, as the Minister asserts it is a departmental decision and defers the matter to the DG.

The gender clinic at the hospital is still open and referring patients to private practitioners. Your Health Minister won't address our concerns so we ask you to do so.

It appears to us Mr Nicholls is sticking to the same discredited ALP/Green transgender affirmation policies that have since been dumped by 23 countries.

It’s worth noting that the NPAQ now has nearly 25% of all Queensland Health nurses as members. They are being ignored by you. By the time of the next election we believe 50% of all Queensland nurses may be our members.

We are mounting a campaign to have Dr Spencer reinstated, starting with a public forum at Bowen Hills  on the 30th July. We have invited Minister Nicholls to attend to put his side of the story.

Our commercial competitor, the QNMU, is, as you well know, an arm of the Australian Labor Party.  Mr Premier, we face the same opponent. Your loyal Deputy, Jarrod Bleijie, stated while in Opposition that the union was exploiting its members. In his words to Parliament: 'The QTU and the QNMU are essentially charging frontline workers about $400 more than the cost required to provide core industrial services.'

That excess is being used to fund partisan campaigns, including the recent state and federal 'Put the LNP Last' campaigns.

Irrespective of whether you maintain the union monopoly which Health Minister Nicholls appears to support and which you know funds the ALP, he should still exonerate Dr Spencer.

Her “crime” was to ask legitimate questions about the efficacy of the gender transition protocols and  wanted to know what the data was and what the expert medical opinion was that supported the propagandising and sexualisation of children confused about their future sexuality and gender. She questioned why the public children’s wards were inundated with activist gay and trans pride flags.

Dr Spencer also asked where the data and support expert medical opinion was the demonstrated that these children would commit suicide if their gender selection was even questioned or that they would not be allowed to begin transition therapies and treatments?

Her managers were Craig Kennedy, Dom Tait, Dr Lynne McKinlay, and Dr Stephen Stathis. Remember it was those four people, who asked her to speak at the forum.

Not long after, she was summarily suspended by them - you can read the letter of suspension. No, she was not asked for her side of the story until four months later. We believe the effect of the suspension on 2/5/2023 was to silence every medical professional, not just in the clinic, but in Queensland Health generally.

Now Queensland Health staff know only too well they can not publicly support Dr Spencer without facing suspension themselves. Dr Catherine Llewellyn, a leading Queensland psychiatrist and a fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists also questions the impartiality of Queensland's gender clinic.

In a recent research paper, Gender-related healthcare for children in Queensland, Clinical concepts and questions, she criticised the apparent lack of approval by the hospital ethics committee in setting it up in 2016-17.

The ethics committee involvement was vital to ensure the evidence was robust enough and that outcomes were monitored, Llewellyn wrote.

“I think there is a significant risk some will experience irreversible harm,” she says.

You should be aware Mr Premier that the gender clinic opened at the Queensland Children’s Hospital in 2016 by the Palaszczuk government without ethics committee approval.

The guidelines were written by Professor Michelle Telfer who has since been discredited in the  Family Court.

Judge Andrew Strum found that Dr Telfer gave misleading evidence in support of a mother who wanted her child to be prescribed puberty blockers. In his judgment that has called into question the integrity of treatment of gender-dysphoric children, just as Dr Spencer did.

Justice Strum also questioned the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans  and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents, authored by Professor Telfer, for not recognising  children may not be capable of making life-altering medical decisions about their gender identity.

So  Dr Spencer has clearly been vindicated.

We call on you, Mr Premier, to end the politically motivated campaign against Dr Spencer. Reinstate her with a formal apology.

Furthermore, we request the suspension of the four senior staff who orchestrated her removal and an open investigation into whether their actions were clinically justified or politically driven to silence dissent.

We welcome scrutiny. So should your government.

The truth is clear and Queenslanders deserve it.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Duncan Syme
President, Australian Medical Professionals Society (AMPS)

Kara Thomas
President, Nurses Professional Association of Australia (NPAA)
Secretary, AMPS