While Labor states are rolling out anti-conversion therapy laws to force health professionals and parents to support a gender-questioning child to transition to the opposite sex, a recent Family Court judgement has done just the opposite. It banned a gender incongruent child from receiving any further affirmation treatment.
The 58,000-word, re Devin judgement of Justice Andrew Strum, from the Federal Circuit and Family Court, brings into question the operation of such laws in Victoria, NSW, the ACT and Queensland.
Due to court orders, the names and the state of residence of those involved in the case are suppressed.
Justice Strum agreed with one expert witness who said it was “doubtful that puberty blockers may be best viewed as a ‘pause button’ … rather they may ‘lock in’ a child to ongoing gender dysphoria and progression to cross-sex hormones, by impeding the usual progress of sexual orientation and gender development”. The judge assessed the risk of puberty blockers as “unacceptable”.
Justice Strum expressed concern at the gender clinic’s single approach to treating gender dysphoria: “To affirm unreservedly those who present with concerns regarding their gender, brooking no questioning thereof … No alternative treatment options … other than prescription of puberty blockers.”
He ordered that the father take custody of Devin from the mother, and that unless there was agreement between the parents, the child was banned from attending the unnamed gender clinic, from puberty blockers and sex-change hormones being administered, and the parents banned from changing the boy’s name.
Justice Strum disputed a claim by the independent children’s lawyer that providing alternative treatments to the affirmation model would not breach Victoria’s Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act. The lawyer presented a letter from Victoria’s Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission saying it was “unlikely” that alternative treatments would be counted as an “illegal conversion practice” under the Victorian Act.
However, Judge Strum said it was clear that health practitioners refused to treat gender dysphoric children in Victoria because they feared prosecution. He noted how the father “had contacted very many (in fact, he said, “hundreds” of) therapists who were not interested in treating children with gender issues, because of” Victoria’s draconian legislation.
Three earlier child transitioning cases (re Jamie, re Kelvin, re Imogen) shifted the Family Court away from making decisions about children transitioning. Now Justice Strum’s comprehensive decision means that expected future child transitioning cases would have competing single-court views on the evidence, following Britain’s Cass Report, which challenges the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines.
According to Stuart Lindsay, who presided in the Family Court from 2004 to 2014, Justice Strum’s judgement has paved the way for the Full Court of the Family Court to undo earlier cases.