Kim Darcy, this response (and all your other comments on this article, and on so many other articles on the forum) feels like, looks like, smells like... concern-trolling, by someone who hates academics who stand up for gays and trans people.

There is nothing wrong with Dr Jones quoting the paper, that's common practice! She was clearly asked as an expert to write about homophobic bullying because she is always in the paper being asked about it because she is an Australian expert on homophobic bullying (you'd know that if you studied this area). She would have been asked to comment on it BECAUSE she is in the papers!!!

Kelly, perhaps as a student, you have not yet reached a point where you are taught critical thinking skills. One of the things you will learn is to assess the vested interests behind anything you read, especially when what you read presents itself as "research". What you call 'concern trolling' is actually skepticism, especially towards what is known as "advocacy research". Examples of advocacy research include, for example, tobacco companies publishing 'research' that purports to show no connection between cigarettes and lung cancer. Any adult must be skeptical of academics trying to inflame "transgender panic" among school children in schools.
As for MSM links, you are wrong. The Conversation was set up to provide an alternative to the overwhelmingly uninformed and dodgy reports typical of inexpert newspaper reporters. If The Conversation is using MSM reports as authority, then by definition The Conversation is in fact a lower authority than the MSM.

So you are likening a PhD research project (which gets put to a research panel and then an ethics panel before it even begins, and is then marked by 3 to 5 international and national experts, and then by 2 to 5 reviewers for every publication or talk from it) to "cigarette advocacy research"? I'm a PhD student, and a member of a skeptics club that looks at good and bad research all the time. This research has several reports and peer-reviewed journal articles on it and having read some today, I can say it is nothing like the (I wouldn't even call it) 'research' done by the tobacco companies you're referring to, who followed none of the processes we are (and Dr Jones was) made to follow.

I don't think you are a skeptic, or critical thinker. I think you just don't want to believe gays or transgender kids are real.

Kelly, good luck with your doctoral research. If I may offer a little advice, 'good' research relies on appropriate methodology. A methodology is not simply a description of the methods, it is an argument as to how the methods employed are appropriate for the research to be undertaken. When you write up your methodology chapter, you should remember this. It is a (if not THE) key chapter in the dissertation. A methodological argument needs to be defended and subjected to a proper peer review, and withstand scrutiny of even the most ardent detractors. Jones' research is quite vulnerable in this process because, as Kim pointed out, it is undertaken and written from an advocacy perspective and, I daresay, 'reviewed' within particular 'expert' circles. For me, because it obviously tries to justify pre-determined answers and policy suggestions, it loses objectivity. Any competent and objective social researcher can discredit research reports when the methodology does not hold up. The analogy with the tobacco research is quite good, actually. Why wouldn't research which is conducted by mostly activist gay scholars, drawing on literature generated mostly by other gay scholars, and using samples of respondents selectively recruited through social media and gay organisations, be viewed as more objective than research funded by tobacco companies?

Thanks Dania. Reading the thesis from the online repository (my professor and I have been going through award-winning examples, good examples that are passed and also examples that were not passed as PhD) we found Jones' methodology impressive. It won awards from mainstream international methodology organisations, but what got me was that if you actually read it, the very first part says she did the policy analysis study because she was suspicious of gay and education activist claims about how policy would prevent gay suicide that were made without research. Data was needed on whether policy had any power over bullying or suicide or other areas it looks at, or made things worse, or did nothing (or too many other options to write here). As a research skeptic I did look to see if I thought this work was biased as you claim, but it was not trying to "prove" a foregone hypothesis, but just exploring outcomes to see what they were. So I appreciate your advice as a retired factory worker. But I have to go with my own reading, what my Professor says and what an international methodology organisation recognises.

I think you will find there are quite a few children with gender identity conditions - I have often seen these reported in the mainstream media. It is something that is only now getting the attention it deserves.

More concern-trolling Kim? Dr Jones even links to her research! The study was of over 3000 kids nationally and over 500 in QLD! That is all over the internet right now even if you can't find it right here. And 3% of the kids were trans, and that's just the kids who answered her study. So, obvi, there are more trans kids than that in QLD.

3% of QLD school kids are transsexuals? Bullshit!

Again, it is like you purposely misread things to have a troll attack. I said 3% of the students surveyed (all either gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex or questioning if they were) were transgender, not 3% of all QLD school kids.

Kelly, I asked "Tiffany, just how many "transgender" school kiddies are there in QLD?" You answered "The study was of over 3000 kids nationally and over 500 in QLD!" From that I assumed the 3,000 kids was a random sample of school kids. My apologies. I did not realise the 3,000 surveyed was restricted to "all either gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex or questioning if they were". In which case that amounts to 90 school kids, which even assuming this "3,000" number is legit (which I highly doubt), 3% of the student body which is GLBTQI amounts to less than 0.1%.

You are right to doubt that there were 3,000 kids in the study because you haven't read any of the report or even a report on the report. There were in fact 3,134 same sex attracted and gender questioning people (SSAGQ) aged 14-21 in WTi3 and not many of them indentified as heterosexual (but there were some).

Now if you think about the study design, it doesn't tell you anything about the proportion of all students who are SSAGQ, so it is silly to mess around with meaningless caluculations. Any estimate is going to be a poor because of how difficult is for young GQ people to express what is happening and trust - which is why it is GQ not trans. Show a bit of compassion -or rationale at least.

Eric, where did I say I "doubt that there were 3,000 kids in the study"? I don't. I DID say I call bullshit on the claim that 3% of QLD school kids are transgenders. I always believed there 3,000 kids in the sample. I just presumed - completely appropriately - from Kelly's wording that the 3,000 was a random sample of ALL school kids. The issue of "compassion" is completely irrelevant to the veracity of the claims being made here, the demands on curriculum changes, let alone the research all this is based on. As Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Here, I'll be satisfied with ordinary standards of academic evidence.

I quote you:
"which even assuming this "3,000" number is legit (which I highly doubt)"

And don't blame Kelly - remember you appologised and you haven't read the report.

Sorry, the first link should have been: https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/comittees/viewdocument.aspx?id=d8e11f41-c80f-4a4d-a101-3b6050d780d9

Oh wow thanks Dania this report looks so interesting.

Dania, I found your expression of everyone's obligation to stop bullying "whatever the source or reason" disingenuous and dishonest by what followed where you lament the teaching of the basic biology of sexuality - you have no intention of supporting SSAGQ anti-bullying measures. And don't forget Google shows us your past examples of campaigning against SSAGQ diversity too.

Seeing this made me read WTi3 again (for objectivity). Your quotes from WTi3 were cherry picked for being the most divisive or confusing that can be found there, otherwise you would have mentioned some of the other details from Chapter 7 on abuse and the religion section of Chapter 13 where you would have seen that Jones quoted from there in her Senate submission - and she was morally obliged to do so particularly given public funding of WTi3. Furthermore, this quote is a summary of the results discussed in pages 91-96. I struggle to see how, with your history of interest in religion, you could have selected the quotes you used without seeing that the report contained so much other material more relevant to your post and the topic - hence my tag of dishonest.

Page 95 talks about the increasing number of SSAGQ people who reconcile being both gay and religious and they mention supportive churches and congregations. Why shouldn't they have their religious freedom? Indeed why shouldn't agnostics, atheists and those who don't know or care have freedom of religious belief rather than have it thieved by others?

You portray the harm caused to young people by religious institutions as the author's opinion but it is the voice of the participants that is summarised with example quotes of the key themes - it isn't "barely masked"; it is exposed raw. Page 40: " that im going to hell because im gay.....that i dont know myself enough to know im gay. that i should be shot at or killed". Thalia was rejected by her mother and sent to a Catholic boarding school but was " expelled after attempting suicide because Suicide is a sin and so it was not acceptable to take part in the school" (pg 52). So much on religion but no question on religion was asked - it was because the SSAGQ youth thought it was important to them. People should listen with respect. Anything else is the same as throwing punches.

"People should listen with respect. Anything else is the same as throwing punches".
Google works for everyone, and so we, too, can see who you are and what you stand for. I am sorry for you, I wish that I can wave a magic wand and make all that you have endured disappear. But all I can do in fact is to pray for you, and ensure that I continue to do everything I can to protect our society and our young people from harm. Despite of who you are, the thing is that you have no license to muzzle me, and I am truly thankful that you and yours still can't do this. I am not going to simply 'listen with respect' to propaganda, and never will. And so I will speak the truth as I see it. I can only be saddened if this is inconvenient for you or other activists.
The point I made is that Jones advocates for more homosexualist education in schools, while also advocating for restricting religion. The argument is apparently based on research which ostensibly points for the necessity to do this, hence the reference to the report in question. However, the report doesn't really do this, does it? The research underpinning the findings in the report contradicts her argument by pointing to the fact that religion and CALD are positively associated with better outcomes for young people on important indices used in the research, as I indicated. So you can rhetorically "struggle to understand" why I selected the particular sections I quoted all you like. This still does not retract from the fact that I was right on point, because I set out to demonstrate that Jones' (and et al's) own research results contradict the argument she mounts here and in the submission. As for the qualitative responses you highlighted, of course it's terrible to see what these young people endure. But that is not disputable, therefore the tactic employed in your comment is obviously to distract us from the point I was making, and to portray me as dishonest. This is a tiresome strategy, easily shown for what it is - straight out of the agenda set for your movement in 'After the ball'.
To maintain that (Christian) religion is alone responsible for the way young people have been treated is ridiculous. It is also wrong, especially in view of the "solution" offered by Jones (and, I assume, yourself), where any moral compass is removed by the idea that young people should be afforded sexual 'freedom' interpreted from an anti-heterosexual perspective. I am old enough to have known other times, when 'gay suicides' were almost unheard of. I had to deal with constant discrimination and bullying to which my three children have been subjected at school for many years, simply because they look Asian. But we dealt with it with dignity, and we didn't blame Christianity, or the European culture, or anything else. We taught our children how to be resilient, and not to blame society, but to accept it and make their way within it by working hard and by being true to themselves. We didn't ideologise what or who we were (new refugees and migrants), we simply were what we were and so I think we earned the respect of society and thus I feel we contributed to changes in it for the better. Just go to any new migrant community, and discover this for yourself. So you and the likes of Jones have nothing to teach me on the subject of bullying, and I find it extremely patronising to be told to 'listen with respect'. I put it to you that it is the propaganda spewed by activists that is inflicting more harm on our young people than the Christian moral framework. Stop blaming heterosexuality, Christianity or whatever. Stop preaching hate to young people. Children need safe spaces to grow in and to find their own identities. They need good role models. They don't need political activism and indoctrination. Whatever their sexual orientation, they need the truth about the risks associated with sexual activity undertaken BEFORE being mature enough to make responsible if not rational decisions, whatever their sexual orientation. Your own [bear?] community does not understand such risks well enough to be allowed the privilege to teach our young people about 'safe sexual practices and identities'. So I suggest you and Jones sort out the issues plaguing your own communities, which I see you have not been very successful at (e.g., http://bipolarbear.com.au/2012/05/12/there-is-no-vaccine-for-hiv/ - see comments), before attempting to teach my grandchildren anything about sexuality.

The report did not argue for "more homosexualist teaching" or against Christians or heterosexuals. Jones argues religious schools do not "need" to be exempt from the legal requirement to protect kids from homophobic bullying (physical, verbal) to be consistent with their religious values. I agree, caring Christian religions do not require kids or teachers to bully or allow bullying (yet the abuse is worse there)! Jesus was an activist who sat with lepers and prostitutes and adulterers. He would wash the feet of the gays BECAUSE they are treated like outcasts.

I found the part you said where despite the bullying at the religious schools, some gay kids want to be religious. To me, those researchers who you call gay (did you ask?) have no problem with religious schools teaching religion, but just want them to be safe for kids. Also, I'm straight but could get AIDS and it would not be those researchers fault (they DO report on stds anyway in that report with the religion findings). No, I blame AIDS on the lack of sex ed . I at least agree with you Dania that no matter their sexual orientation, all kids need it so qld should shape up.

Thanks, Dania. You have provided a live example of why bullying occurs. You take later sexual deubt as a more important endpoint than suicide and self-harm. My sexual abuse was nothing compared to the agony of my homoeroticism that robbed my childhood and my teenagehood. I am a survivor. I want to make things better.

You can brag about teaching your kids resilience because you could see and feel the stigma yourself. But you would deny us GLBTI reslience. That's selfish and immoral.

Why doest thou persucute us? Is that part of your religion?

Michael, I do not want my children's school time taken up with all these very, very minor, petty "identity" anxieties; especially when those anxieties are overwhelmingly provoked by academics and other adult vested interests. Teachers are flat out trying to teach Maths, Science, Literature, Geography, and History. They are the last people I want teaching my kids about sex, let alone "sexuality", and god forbid "gender confused" blah, blah, blah. While I think intersex should definitely be taught in Science class, and probably the transition process for transsexuals, I do not want moderately educated people in subject domains branching out into areas that are best left to me, my family, and our community. Every hour they spend on all this trannie nonsense, is an hour less of Maths, English, and Science.