A Family Court judge’s unprecedented and extraordinary ruling has raised huge questions over Australia’s support of health policies that allow children to change their gender.
The Australian newspaper reports that Justice Andrew Strum awarded sole custody of a 12-year-old boy to his father who opposed the mother’s push for the child to be treated with puberty blockers.
The 58,000 word judgement found the gender clinic involved did not formally diagnose gender dysphoria until the court case began, despite treating the boy for six years.
It also noted the clinic failed to carry out a comprehensive assessment that might have found ADHD or autism, despite known links between neurodivergence and gender incongruence.
JUDGE FINDS CLINIC IDEOLOGICALLY COMMITTED TO GENDER-AFFIRMING MODEL
The Australian reports: “The judge accepted evidence that the gender clinic has an ideological commitment to the medicalised gender-affirming model.”
Justice Strum wrote: “No alternative treatment options are offered by the [clinic] for gender dysphoria diagnosed there, other than prescription of puberty blockers by a pediatrician.”
A doctor whose diagnosis of the 12-year-old boy was in dispute “could not identify a single case of a child who had been referred by her, or one of her colleagues, to a pediatrician at the [clinic] who had not been prescribed puberty blockers.”
The judge criticised the approach of hospitals to children questioning their gender, saying the decision to “affirm unreservedly” any child that raises concerns over their gender is “oddly binary”
However, he stressed: “This is a case about a child, and a relatively young one at that; not one about the cause of transgender people.”
WHY THIS UNPRECEDENTED RULING IS IMPORTANT
The Australian writes: “The case marks the first time a sitting judge has blown a hole in the country’s gender-affirming treatment of care guidelines.”
“In handing down his landmark judgment, Justice Strum sided with the father who wanted to hold off on treatment and “let the child be the child.”
“At this stage in the child’s life, all options should be left open, without any unacceptable risk of harm to the child,” the judge concluded.
He also took issue with what he called the “concerning” evidence given by one of the nation’s leading child gender experts in relation to the UK’s landmark Cass Review into the treatment of children with suspected gender dysphoria.
The independent report led to the suspension of puberty blockers being used in Britain and recommended limitations on the medical treatment of children under 18.
The expert witness who is an associate professor disagreed with much of the Cass Review, prompting the judge to find the response to be “misleading.”
JUDGE NOTES PROFOUND RISKS AMID ABSENCE OF LONG-TERM DATA
The judgement noted the profound risks and uncertainties over the use of puberty blockers amid a lack of long-term data.
“I do not accept that the child, at this age and pre-pubertal stage in life, can properly understand the implications and potential risks of puberty blockers,” he wrote.
He expressed surprise that the gender clinic involved “continues to represent to parents and children that puberty blockers are fully reversible and relatively risk-free.”
The judgment also takes aim at the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines, developed by the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, which endorse a gender-affirming model of care.
Justice Strum said that while they were lauded as the country’s primary standards for treating gender dysphoric children, they “do not have the approval or imprimatur of the Commonwealth or any state or territory government or department of health.”
SUMMING UP THE DECISION
He ultimately rejected the hospital’s diagnosis of the boy as being gender dysphoric, and found the mother had attempted to use the child’s gender fluidity to damage the relationship with the father.
He insisted in his judgement: “Ideology has no place in the application by courts of the law, and certainly not in the determination by courts exercising jurisdiction under the [Family Law Act] of what is in a child’s best interests.”
Bernard Lane writes in an opinion piece for The Australian: “The decision is the best-yet judicial guide to the debate about youth gender clinics.”
“It is devastating for the dominant gender-affirming model with its promotion of puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.”
