What is going on with Australia’s Nurses Journal? Why are they hiding the truth about the transgender suicide myth?

The journal has reportedly retracted and apologised for an article that clearly showed the transgender narrative about increased suicide is false. They took action because the union’s “LGBTQIA+ reference group” claimed it caused “significant distress to the transgender community”. 

There was no consideration for the distress caused to families when medical practitioners falsely assert, “would you rather a live son or a dead daughter” despite it being an absolute myth.

The author of the article, New Zealand registered nurse Jason Watson, is now threatening to sue the union after it accused him of “negativity and hatred” and of harming the transgender community.

The article summarised six long-term historical studies produced in the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Finland, which, like the Cass review in 2024, do not support the claims of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health about the increased risk of suicide.

Mr Watson, who has worked as a mental health nurse for more than 40 years and has a masters degree in education, concluded in the article that the WPATH suicide narrative was “at least tenuous and at most simply incorrect”.

“This seems to fit with the Cass review narrative that the significant majority of current transgender research is of a dis­appoint­ingly poor quality and is ideologically rather than scientifically based,” he wrote.

Mr Watson told The Australian he submitted the piece because “I work in a crisis team for children and adolescents so suicide is our No 1 thing, we see it every day.

“I looked at the long-term ­follow-up studies that use 30 or 40 years worth of data. It’s research based, I haven’t muddied the data, it’s just fact.

“I’m a nurse and I thought it would be good to have nurses talk about it like we do every other subject. When there’s a new treatment, a new drug, a new methodology, how does it compare with the last one, and what is the ­science?

“This is the only area where they go well, actually, no, you can’t offer any other view because it really does appear that the lobby groups are making editors gun shy.

“They don’t want to be ­labelled the things I’ve been ­labelled as – hateful and narrow-minded.”

The journal has drawn a line in the sand and chosen to stand on the side of feelings instead of fact. They would rather protect and promote the lie that humans can change sex instead of presenting the evidence and scientific facts. Mr Watson relied on data, not emotions, yet has been penalised for his due diligence. Thankfully Mr Watson will not go away quietly and is pursuing the matter.

“I was not given the opportunity to answer any questions, clarify any concerns or make any amendments,” Mr Watson said.

“There was no mention in the apologies of the material, where it came from, the context of these long-term follow-up studies or the teams that created them.

“I was not asked for my opinion or if I wanted to respond to these apologies which describe this article and by association myself as being ‘damaging and harmful’, ‘causing immediate and significant distress’ to the trans community … ‘demonstrating discrimination’, creating an ‘unsafe environment’, being ‘unethical’ and demonstrating ‘hatred’.

“Is it common practice for the ANMF to make such emotive and damaging statements about a nursing clinician without any form of communication or consultation? I consider what you have done to be defamatory.

“Please reply promptly as depending on your response I need to decide if legal advice needs to be sought by my representative regarding this defamation.”