- Feb 5, 2002
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One of Australia’s foremost child gender medicine experts has been ruled to have misled the Family Court when giving evidence to support a mother who wished to prescribe her child puberty blockers.
One of Australia’s foremost child gender medicine experts has been ruled to have misled the Family Court when giving evidence to support a mother who wished to prescribe her child puberty blockers, in a judgment that calls into question the integrity of one of the nation’s peak gender clinics.
Justice Andrew Strum’s extraordinary judgment, which stripped the mother of custody and effectively prevented the child from accessing treatment, 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”.
He also found the gender clinic that treated the 12-year-old failed to formally give a gender dysphoria diagnosis until the court proceedings had commenced, despite having treated the child since they were six.
The case marks the first time a sitting judge has blown a hole in the country’s gender-affirming treatment of care guidelines. While Justice Strum does not comment generally on the gender-affirming care model adopted by the gender clinic at the child’s hospital, the judgment raises big questions regarding the treatment of gender-incongruent children.
The matter centred on the biologically male child whose mother believes is gender dysphoric and should be prescribed puberty blockers, but whose father wanted to hold off on treatment and “let the child be the child”.
In handing down his judgment, Justice Strum sided with the father who did not wish to “pigeonhole” his child, and decided “all options” in the child’s life should be open.
Continued below.
One of Australia’s foremost child gender medicine experts has been ruled to have misled the Family Court when giving evidence to support a mother who wished to prescribe her child puberty blockers, in a judgment that calls into question the integrity of one of the nation’s peak gender clinics.
Justice Andrew Strum’s extraordinary judgment, which stripped the mother of custody and effectively prevented the child from accessing treatment, 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”.
He also found the gender clinic that treated the 12-year-old failed to formally give a gender dysphoria diagnosis until the court proceedings had commenced, despite having treated the child since they were six.
The case marks the first time a sitting judge has blown a hole in the country’s gender-affirming treatment of care guidelines. While Justice Strum does not comment generally on the gender-affirming care model adopted by the gender clinic at the child’s hospital, the judgment raises big questions regarding the treatment of gender-incongruent children.
The matter centred on the biologically male child whose mother believes is gender dysphoric and should be prescribed puberty blockers, but whose father wanted to hold off on treatment and “let the child be the child”.
In handing down his judgment, Justice Strum sided with the father who did not wish to “pigeonhole” his child, and decided “all options” in the child’s life should be open.
Continued below.
