Victorian Schools Allowed to Transition Children's Gender Without Telling Parents
Government policy lets Victorian schools change children's gender identity at school without parental knowledge or consent. Education minister admits there is no formal process or data collection on how often it happens.
Victorian teachers face an impossible choice under a government policy that instructs them not to tell parents when their child wants to change gender, name, or pronouns.
Freedom of Information documents reveal the Victorian Department of Education has built this silence into its official operations. Schools can support students through social gender transition without parental consent and without consulting doctors.
The policy leaves families in the dark about one of the most consequential decisions affecting their children's lives.
Education Minister Ben Carroll told Parliament there is no formal process for declaring a student a mature minor. The department does not collect data on how often schools make these declarations.
The LGBTIQA+ Student Support Policy spells out the rules in stark terms. Schools may support students who want to undertake gender transition without the consent of their parents or carers and without consulting medical practitioners.
When a student qualifies as a mature minor, the policy states they should be affirmed in their gender identity at school without a family representative participating.
Liberal MP Moira Deeming pointed out that schools can destroy these records seven years after a child leaves. The paper trail for these decisions simply vanishes.
This is not progressive education. This is a government hiding things from parents about their own children. It is a scandal, said Jane Foreman, Family First Victorian Upper House candidate.
The secrecy extends to the statistics used to justify the policy. Premier Jacinta Allan cited at an Oct. 14, 2025, press conference that transgender kids are 15 times more likely to commit suicide.
The Australian's Rachel Baxendale questioned the source. Allan dismissed the journalist's questions as deeply irresponsible and refused to engage.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states there are no reliable national data on rates of suicide and self-harm among LGBTIQ+ communities in Australia. The 15 times more likely statistic appears on LGBTIQ+ Health Australia's website with no cited source.
Medical experts warn the policy exposes children to significant risks. Social transition is often the first intervention on the gender-affirming treatment pathway leading to puberty blockers, hormones and surgery, said Melbourne psychiatrist Dr. Alison Clayton. Those interventions carry significant associated harms, for example to sexual and reproductive function.
There is no international evidential or clinical consensus that social transition improves mental health, Clayton added. Studies from the Royal Children's Hospital have not found any association between social transition and improved mental health outcomes.
University of Queensland law professor Patrick Parkinson described the policy as grossly unethical. He warned schools are not qualified at all to make such decisions and said future negligence suits are likely from children harmed by secret transitions.
The policy operates amid significant state spending on gender programs. The Allan government allocated $11.2 million in LGBTQIA+ programs in the 2025-26 state budget. The state also advertised an Equality Programs Manager role at up to $191,084 per year.
This spending comes as Victoria's public sector wages bill has blown out by $7.2 billion and state debt approaches $199.3 billion by 2030.
US courts have rejected similar parental exclusion policies. Federal Judge Roger Benitez ruled in December 2025 that California's secrecy policies violate parents' fundamental rights. The US Supreme Court blocked California's policy restricting teachers from informing parents in a March 2, 2026, emergency ruling, citing Free Exercise Clause protections.
Children do not belong to the government, parents have the right to know what's happening with their own kids, said Greg Burt of the California Family Council.
Family First has made parental notification for social transitions a central issue for the November 2026 Victorian state election. This is not compassion — it's reckless ideology, Foreman said. Victorian parents are being deliberately excluded from their children's care, and children are being driven toward irreversible harm.
Bernie Finn, Family First's other Upper House candidate, called it an appalling abrogation of parental rights. Teachers are being told to keep secrets from mums and dads about one of the most serious and life-altering issues imaginable, he added.
The policy emerges against a backdrop of international skepticism about youth gender medicine. The 2024 Cass Review in the United Kingdom found remarkably weak evidence for puberty blockers in children. NHS England stopped routine prescription to under-18s in March 2024.
Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne states 2 to 3 percent of Australian high school students identify as gender diverse. The hospital's gender service sees children under 16 at time of referral.
It's absolutely disgraceful that this government has allowed ordinary parents who have not been proven in a court of law to be unfit parents to be lied to about something so significant about their own children, Deeming said.
The Victorian Department of Education maintains its position. A spokesperson told RMIT FactLab that schools support mature minors under the age of 18 to make decisions on their own behalf when it comes to their own identity. The department stressed this does not include medical transition.
Jeremy Wiggins, CEO of Transcend Australia, called the language around gender diversity misleading and alarmist. He argued that gender transition does not automatically mean that a person will undergo medical intervention.
The policy was announced under the Andrews government but remains in force under Allan. With no formal process, no data collection, and records that can be destroyed, the system operates without oversight while affecting potentially thousands of Victorian children.