Child psychiatrist Jillian Spencer

could lose her medical licence for the offence of questioning gender based treatment for all children who, it is claimed, need it or want it without first reviewing their mental health carefully and thoroughly.

I would have thought that what she is advocating would be sound medical practice. Investigate the problem. Is what appears to be the problem really the problem? Is it perhaps a different problem? Is there another problem? What treatment is available? Is it the best possible treatment? What are the potential side effects? Can they be avoided?

I could go on asking questions but I won't. I am not a doctor. I am not a doctor but I am in the business of asking questions. My job involves asking questions all the time. I need to know what it is you think you want to know. Yes, complicated.

We do not ask enough questions. We assume we know things when we really know very little. Yes, I am as guilty as everyone else when it comes to that. I fail to ask questions I should ask, that I would have asked if I had sat there and thought a problem through. I should be more careful than I am at times.

When I started teacher training I thought we might be taught about the importance of questions. We were taught nothing at all. The art of asking questions was not even mentioned. Apparently it still is not mentioned. I managed to learn something about the art from my parents, particularly the Senior Cat. He knew how to ask questions, all sorts of questions. I once, just once, taught a group of doctors about this. They said it was useful. I hope it was because I hear doctors asking questions and realise they need to know more about the art. It isn't their fault. They simply don't get taught. They do not get answers because they are asking the wrong questions or asking the question in a way that is not understood. They use language others do not understand. It can be frustrating and confusing. It can lead to outcomes which are not the desired outcomes. It can also mean that questions sometimes do not get asked. 

But Jillian Spencer is asking questions. They are uncomfortable questions. They are questions we may not always be able to answer. They may go against what the current policies and practices say is "right" but that does not mean it is wrong to ask those questions. It is all the more reason to ask them. It is all the more reason to ask even more questions. It is not questions which do harm. It is the answers... and not listening to those  answers. 

 

  

"No, you should not be driving"

is what I want to say to someone I know.

J...phoned me yesterday. This happens occasionally. It usually happens when she is worried about something.

I reminded her to turn her clocks back an hour and then waited.

"I had to go up to the hospital," she told me. She has a range of medical conditions so this was not unusual in itself. "I had a medical for my driver's licence."  

That is not unusual either. She is some years older than I am and she is classed as "disabled". Her licence to drive means she can go out alone. I know it has been a lifeline for her even though someone else now takes her to do her shopping.

"They said I had to do a driving test." 

I responded to that with a neutral comment but I was thinking, "This is the person who did the medical test thinking they do not want to tell you it is time to give up your licence."

J... has had three quite serious accidents in the last three years. Nobody has been injured, one collision related to a bus stop, another to a car parked across the street and the third to a stationary car. She has also been pulled over by the police for straddling a line ("I couldn't see it properly") and failed to renew her licence and her registration on separate occasions. I have personally observed her back into a tree and remove the bark from it. She was getting "lost" coming to a group even when I gave her a very simple map to follow. She no longer comes to the group.

On the last occasion she was without her car for several weeks. It had to be towed. It could have been driven but she was not prepared to take it to the other side of the city and get a taxi back. It was "too expensive" and her insurance would pay for towing. In reality I think she knew she could not safely drive that long distance on a particularly busy route. 

She should not be driving. I know she should not be driving. I may not be able to drive myself but I can observe others who do. I also know I am not the only person who believes she should not be driving. It is quite likely her own doctor believes this but does not want to say it. It is likely that doctor sent her off to the hospital with some sort of excuse and the hospital is passing it on to an unfortunate driving tester. 

The driving tester may even give in and allow her to drive "only in day light" and within a small radius of her home. I do not think that is the answer. It is other road users who need to be considered. 

This is what does not happen of course. I can understand it. Take away someone's licence to drive and you take away all sorts of other things as well. I think of it often as I head out into extreme weather and think how nice it would be to "just hop in the car and go". If you have had a licence then the lack of one can mean major changes to the way you live. I do not want to wish that on her but I also think other road users need to be considered. 

I wonder whether the tester will have the courage to say, "No" or whether I will get another call down the track telling me, "I had a bit of an accident today." The problem is that it likely will not be an accident and someone else may get hurt.  

The "treaty" in a neighbouring state

has, if media reports are correct, now resulted in a situation where any law must also be approved by the members of an unrepresentative minority group before it can become law. 

The "treaty" between "indigenous" members of the community and everyone else has resulted in a situation which is potentially very, very dangerous. It is, if correctly reported, the way apartheid once worked in South Africa.

Why on earth would anyone give so much power to such a small group? Don't misunderstand me here. I still believe there is far too big a gap between the lives of some indigenous people and the rest of the population. I also believe there is a rich and diverse cultural heritage there that we will be the poorer for losing. Those things matter.

What does not matter is the alleged disadvantage of many urban "indigenous" people. I put "indigenous" in inverted commas here because I do not believe that having a single great-grandparent who was "aboriginal" disadvantages you. It is much more likely that, unless you claim to be "indigenous" nobody will even recognise you as such. They will walk past you in the street and not see it. Yes, it might be important to you. You are welcome to feel it is an important part of your heritage. It is. It is not however so important in every day life that you should feel or are disadvantaged by it. It is much more likely you are disadvantaged by other life choices, those of your own as well as your parents.

And yes, it is some of your own direct ancestors who have contributed to the very disadvantages you now claim to have. The blame for all these things cannot be placed at the door of other people. That you should now be able to choose how the rest of the community will be governed, under which laws the community will operate seems wrong to me. I know the "that's not the intention" and "that's not the way it will work" arguments but put a test case to the courts and it is very likely it is the way it will work. The courts will look at what the legislation says.

In this state there is a "voice". It was brought into being by the government after the people of this state voted against a similar voice at federal level. It was a deliberate attempt to go against the wishes of the electorate. The government did not go so far as to try and bring in a "treaty" or give similar powers to the "voice".  It was not democratic however. Only "indigenous" people could vote to be part of it. 

It has already shown signs of failure. The vote to be part of it was voluntary. Only ten percent of those who were eligible bothered to vote. There are forty six members of the "voice" and some were "elected" with no votes at all. (They are females and just being on the ballot paper was sufficient.) Others received just fifteen votes, a few just twenty-three. There was plenty of publicity about the vote, about the opportunity to stand for election. It was a very expensive exercise and perhaps done with the best of intentions. It simply did not work. 

Indigenous people I know were mostly opposed to the entire idea. They do not see such things as necessary or likely to work. One or two might grab the idea of being able to dictate to the rest of us but most  would see it as ridiculous.  

My friend M... refused to be part of the process. He does not believe it is right or necessary. I have yet to talk to him about the law in the neighbouring state. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say.  

  

There is a bike ride which

is a rite of passage for the young around here. It involves putting your bike on the train at the local station and then going to the end of the line. 

The line ends up in the hills behind me. You exit the station and then you do the hair raising ride down the hill. The road is steep and winds around. It is often busy. 

The ride is a thrill. It requires skills you cannot develop anywhere else. It is something which can occupy several hours of your time on any weekend - and right through the school holidays. If you are in your teens and your parents are not supervising your every activity during the day then you might even be able to do the ride twice in a day. 

I have never done the ride. I would not even consider it. I do not have the skills or the right sort of bike. It is not designed for tricycles at any point.

Middle Cat and the Black Cat did the ride once. Our parents did not want them to do it but agreed they could do it just the once. Once was enough. They found out what it was like. 

They also did the ride more than fifty years ago. They did it when the ride was not nearly as popular as it is now. It was not nearly so common to see dozens of young riders coming down the hill at terrifying speeds. Yes, you can break the speed limit coming down the hill - and they know it.

Now, if the weather is good, any weekend and daylight train into the hills is likely to be crowded with bikes. They are going "up to do the ride". It is almost exclusively the male of the species who participates in this activity. I have seen a female just once. 

I have also talked with them occasionally. We may not have said a lot but they will sometimes make a remark like "cool bike" of my tricycle. My response will be something like, "Thanks. Runs on banana power". That will usually produce a similar silly sort of response. I cannot say I feel comfortable crammed in with them and I avoid it if I can. The driver is usually happy to have me in the first carriage although the rear carriage is the "bike" one. They will tell me to come to the first carriage along with any wheelchair, gopher, pusher or pram.  Yes, I prefer that.

All that said I cannot help wondering about the woman who attempted to film the young who were "abusing" her in the rear carriage. I know any group of young can behave in ways they would not behave on their own or even in pairs. I know they can show off and even do harm. I have also discovered the best policy is to ignore that sort of behaviour, ignore it for my own safety. 

If I need to exit the train and they are trying to crowd on before I am off then the "hey guys more room for you if I can get out of the way" usually works wonders. They might even say "sorry".  

I know there will be renewed calls to try and stop them using the train to get to the start of the ride, perhaps to stop them doing the ride. I do not think that would be right. It would cause more trouble.  Let's face reality. Most of them will grow up to be law-abiding citizens if they can let off steam now.    

An address to the nation

or an encouragement to do the opposite? That is the question.

Our Prime Minister is not well liked. This is not simply because he is a politician and the "leader" of the party currently in power. He is not liked within the party itself. Their internal rules would make it very difficult to replace him so we are stuck with someone who is not liked and, from all accounts, not competent. 

I do not say that simply because I do not like or trust the man but because the evidence is there. He is not a leader. He dithers. He does not make bold decisions.

There he is with a huge majority in the House of Reps. He could do almost anything with it...and the threat of a double dissolution. He has done nothing of note. 

We seem to be stuck with "Net Zero". He is so captured by the increasingly unrepresentative trade union movement and their demands that we are not increasing manufacturing. We are increasing red tape and form filling. He seems terrified of investigating the unsustainable National Disability Insurance Scheme. Don't talk to him about anti-Semitism but do mention Islamophobia because of the votes not supporting concerns about that will lose. Allow a Human Rights Commission to deny rights to almost half the population. Encourage the leading medical body to deregister doctors who express concerns about potentially harmful practices after anonymous complaints are made by lay people.

Stand in front of three flags instead of one national flag for announcements of national importance while you tell us we do not have a fuel shortage - yet. Oh and don't forget to remind us that we won't have a fuel shortage because we are going to "net Zero" and show the world how it is done.

Yes, the Prime Minister may have meant well last night but he has just made the problem worse. Like it or not "oil" is not a dirty word. It is an essential part of human existence in the  21stC. We need it. Without it we are going nowhere. It is time to recognise that.    

Chocolate for Easter?

I am not sure when chocolate became a "thing" for Easter. It has to be a commercial thing of course. It is something which can be sold to us as "traditional"...and expensive.

The big bars of chocolate have more than doubled in price over the last two years. I bought the last bar of "the good stuff" for the Senior Cat around five years ago. It took us several months to eat it. Yes, we liked it but it was not something we wanted every day.  Prior to that my Easter chocolate consumption was limited to a chocolate "bilby" given to me by a very elderly woman I kept an eye on. I shared some of it with the Senior Cat but most of it was eaten by visiting children. 

The late Whirlwind tried to make me an egg one year. It was marshmallow and supposed to come out of the mould cleanly. It was a mess. I hugged her for the thought and we had hot chocolate without marshmallows. I still can't face marshmallows with hot chocolate. 

When I was a kitten Easter came with eggs...two eggs. There was the chocolate egg from my paternal grandparents and the sugar one from my maternal grandmother. (My maternal grandfather never played a role in these things.) We were not permitted to open them or eat them until Easter Sunday. They were rationed out on the Sunday and then in pieces until we had eaten them.  

One year we were also given hard boiled eggs which had been dyed red and beautifully decorated by the woman next door to the house we were living in at the time. She came from the old Yugoslavia and the eggs were traditional.  It was years later that I came across such eggs again. Middle Cat's mother-in-law did not decorate but she did dye eggs red. Other people gave Middle Cat's boys chocolate eggs. Unlike most children they were not interested. After they had gone to waste one year the older of her two told her to give the next lot away. I doubt we could have done that as children.

Now I look around the supermarket and wonder at the amount of chocolate on display. It has doubled and even tripled in price because of the cocoa shortage and other shortages. People still seem to buy it. At our library knitting group last Saturday the community officer appeared with those small gold covered chocolates and told us they were "Easter eggs". After he had gone they sat there until two small boys appeared with their grandmother. They ate some. The rest of them got taken home to others who would eat them. I have some sitting here which Middle Cat is supposed to collect today. They have a visitor coming for the weekend. He apparently likes chocolate. I wonder about that. He's a retired dentist.

Eggs. Maybe I could have a boiled egg for breakfast on Easter Sunday morning? 

  

The "gender" debate seems ro be

heading in even more directions.

I have always believed people who feel very strongly about the need to alter their gender should be given support. They need it. Making such a change is not easy. It can work well, very well. It can also work badly. It can cause people to lose the support of family, friends, colleagues and careers. We all need to step in and accept their decision. 

That said I also think there are lines which need to be drawn. If a five year old tries to cut off "her" penis then that is a matter for serious concern. It is not a result of a child being "denied" the right to attend a group which has hitherto been "girls only". Five year old children do not, whatever a gender advocate or a journalist might want to say, reason "I am a girl even though I have a penis. I am being told I cannot go to Guides because I have a penis. If I cut off my penis then I can go to Guides."  Yesterday I was told I did not support "gender diversity" because I did not believe a five year old could think this way. The person who told me this and showed me the article in question has extreme views about diversity, so extreme they are of concern to more than one person. Their views impact their job and that is one which involves young children.

I know I am in very dangerous territory here and that the most radical advocates will say that even a three year old can make an informed decision to change gender. All I can say is that many others will disagree with you. It is not so long ago that I came across the mother at the playground who, after I had thrown back the ball which had landed in the road, informed me of her child's "confusion". She had been told by the child's play group leader that children should be "asked" what gender they are. This child was a boy one day, a girl the next and then back to being a boy. He was either very confused or playing a game or perhaps just thought his parent was being silly. You will notice I have used the masculine. His mother said he was "all boy" and "into all the boy things". We may not like the idea that there are objects and ideas which many still relate to the old masculine ideal of sport, cars, engines and the like but the reality is that the idea is still there. "Anything with wheels" is still considered acceptable for boys. It doesn't mean girls cannot be interested but we do not consider it unusual if a boy is. It is simply considered "part of being a boy". 

I do not believe that the move to "ban" some from competing in events at the Olympics is surprising. Apart from anything else there is no "ban" at all. If the athlete is good enough then they can still compete but they may need to compete against a different set of athletes. They will simply not have a potential physical advantage. Whether this is "fair" or not is still being debated of course but I believe it goes further than a willingness to abide by the wishes of the President of the host country. It is a decision which has almost certainly been coming for some time.

There was someone in the chemist this morning. That person was wearing a pink frilly blouse and floral trousers. They had long hair tied back with a pink ribbon. There were sandals with sequins on their feet. The same person was also wearing a mask. I am still wondering whether it was for fear of catching something or infecting someone else - or was it to hide the very obvious facial hair?  The pharmacy assistant was indiscreet enough to inform me that this same person sometimes appears dressed as a male and without a mask. Perhaps they would be happier if we accepted that it is acceptable for men to like things which are often regarded as "feminine". We do not seem to worry too much about girls in masculine work outfits so why do we worry about the reverse?

We have five year old children starting school who are not toilet trained. How can we believe they know and understand so much about their bodies they can make an informed decision about their sexuality? These are ideas being imposed on them by adults.