A highly qualified Australian psychiatrist who expressed concerns about gender treatments for adolescents has been sanctioned by the nation’s medical regulator and is now banned from posting his thoughts on the topic to social media.
Queensland’s Dr. Andrew Amos is barred from seeing patients and restricted from online comments on gender treatments for children after the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and the Medical Board of Australia objected to his stance.
Amos, a James Cook University academic, has been a vocal critic of the scientific evidence underlying medical gender treatments for young people, arguing current approaches are not evidence-based.
The regulatory action followed complaints lodged with medical authorities over comments Amos made on the issue.
Amos told the ABC there was a good chance children partaking in gender treatments were at long-term risk of harm.
He also expressed concern about whether medical staff were reliably demonstrating that such treatments were improving the health of adolescents.
Another complaint was lodged after Dr. Amos posted commentary on X on the topic of a male-to-female transgender person who was using medication in order to lactate to feed their baby.
Additionally, a complaint was based on an exchange between Dr. Amos and a transgender professor in the UK in which Dr. Amos used the professor’s biological pronouns.
“I think it is also important to note that the Queensland Children’s Hospital, by standing me down and then suspending me, forced me to come out publicly, fighting to protect my registration,” she said.
“However, Dr. Andrew Amos came into this debate willingly because he is ethical and capable of using his academic strength to protect children.
“A man shouldn’t lose his career for fulfilling his professional duty to protect children from harm. He’s a real hero and I’m so sad that this has happened.”
AHPRA Responds
An AHPRA spokesperson told The Epoch Times practitioners are expected to deliver healthcare without discrimination and confirmed conditions were imposed on Dr. Amos on Feb. 26.“It is important that people feel safe when receiving healthcare and have confidence in regulated health practitioners,” they said.
“We respect practitioners’ freedom of expression, including advocacy via social media, provided it does not involve abuse, discrimination, or pose a risk to public safety.”
The spokesperson said the conditions prohibit Dr. Amos from engaging on social media about gender medicine, transgender people, gender identity, and gender expression.
AHPRA’s definition of social media includes platforms such as Facebook, X, WhatsApp, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Blogger.
“Confidentiality provisions of the National Law under which we operate limit what we can say publicly about an individual practitioner or matter,” the spokesperson said.
