A Victorian court has granted permission for a 12-year-old child to be prescribed treatment to block the onset of puberty, despite a hospital raising concerns that the father had not been consulted, and pointing to “ongoing uncertainty” about approvals for the treatment of children with gender dysphoria.
Judge Melinda Richards last week ruled that the mother’s consent alone is enough to allow the hospital to prescribe puberty blockers to the biologically male child, who first presented as a girl aged seven when she told her mother she was “no longer her son, she was her daughter”.
The child’s mother is supportive of the child taking puberty blockers, but the hospital raised concerns with the Victorian Supreme Court over whether they could do so without the father’s consent.
The court heard the father had not been involved in the child’s life since she was one year old. Around that time, the mother took out a family violence intervention order against the father for a one-year period.
The case comes as the Family Court continues to grapple with the complexities of gender identity, especially in the context of children, medication and surgery.
The Australian has been following a complex matter in the Federal Circuit and Family Court in which the parents differ on whether their eldest child should be prescribed with cross-sex hormones.
In a separate matter, a judge determined a father’s refusal to conform with traditional gender norms left his three children “confused” and encouraged them to “question their gender identity” after they all began identifying as non-binary, ruling the two youngest children would not be permitted to see their father for an extended period.
In another case, the mother of a 13-year-old with gender dysphoria abruptly withdrew an application seeking a Family Court order to allow the child to take puberty blockers after trying to have the independent children’s lawyer assigned to the matter thrown off the case.
All Family Court judges were last year presented with a legal paper from a top barrister arguing the court must reassess how scientific advancements should apply to the family law system.
Source: Court approves puberty blockers for 12-year-old child