Queensland Children’s Hospital has formally cleared child psychiatrist Jillian Spencer of wrongdoing three years after she was suspended from work over outspoken views against gender treatment.
Dr Spencer has been in a dispute with her employer, Queensland’s largest public children’s hospital, since 2022 after raising a series of clinical concerns about the state’s gender service policy, which allowed young people with complex medical issues to be prescribed cross-sex hormones.
She was suspended in 2023 and took her concerns public.
In a statement released on Friday morning, Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH) acknowledged that gender affirming care should be debated in a professional setting and that children should not be placed on a predetermined treatment pathway.
“The CHQ HHS (Children’s Hospital Queensland and Hospital Health Services) acknowledges that these are matters of legitimate professional and public debate, and that clinicians play an important role in raising concerns about patient safety and clinical practice.
“Dr Spencer has been a strong advocate for change in Queensland in the model of care for children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. One of the features of the clinical approach that Dr Spencer has sought is the delay in medical interventions for such patients until adulthood, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, because they are serious decisions regarding their body and long-term health.
“CHQ HHS accepts that Dr Spencer’s concerns were grounded in her training and background as an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist.
“CHQ HHS acknowledges that health practitioners must take a clinical approach to the treatment of gender dysphoria that focuses on the best available research and the child’s best interests rather than directing a child down a predetermined treatment pathway.
“Health practitioners must employ a holistic clinical approach that comprehensively assesses all relevant factors – including any comorbidities or other mental health conditions – and use information gathered from that process to determine the best available mode of treatment and care for the patient.”
While all of Dr Spencer’s disputes with the QCH have now been settled, she has resigned from her position at the hospital. The statement was made as part of the settlement terms, but no other details have been made public.
The Human Rights Law Alliance welcomed the settlement. Principal lawyer John Steenhof said the outcome was “vindication” for the care of children and rights of doctors against “ideological coercion.
“Doctors must be free to exercise independent clinical judgment, speak honestly about patient safety concerns, and pursue what they believe to be the best interests of their patients without fear of disciplinary retaliation,” Mr Steenhof said.
“It is the strongest statement ever from Government that doctors need to exercise caution and ensure the best care possible to protect confused children.”
A separate investigation into Dr Spencer, launched by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency following a complaint, was dropped on Tuesday.
Public hospitals in Queensland have been unable to provide hormone therapy and puberty blockers to new patients under 18 since a statewide ban was instituted in January 2025, after it was discovered dozens of children received treatment outside of clinical guidelines. While the ban was overturned on procedural grounds in a Supreme Court challenge in October, Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls issued a ministerial directive hours later to effectively keep the ban in place. A second directive was issued in January.
In a short statement on Friday, Mr Nicholls said Dr Spencer’s settlement was exclusively an employment dispute.
“All matters between the parties have been resolved by mutual agreement,” he said.
The Australian Christian Lobby’s chief executive Michelle Pearse called on the QCH’s concessions to be the catalyst for Australia’s healthcare systems to reconsider how gender affirming care is prescribed.
“Australia should follow the growing international movement toward evidence-based care and pause experimental gender treatments that are harming vulnerable children,” Ms Pearse said.
“Every child deserves compassionate care, but compassion must be grounded in sound medical evidence rather than ideology. When irreversible treatments are involved, caution and the protection of children should always come first.”
