Lawyers say Australian gender clinics may face legal action following news that Britain’s Tavistock clinic is facing a major medical negligence law suit from youngsters who claim they were “started on a treatment pathway that was not right for them”.The legal action may have significant implications for several Australian gender clinics based at children’s hospitals across the country, where Tavistock’s contentious practices have played a strong influence in treatment.
In Britain, The Times reports that 1000 families are expected to join the medical negligence lawsuit, which is understood to allege that the gender-identity clinic “rushed” some young patients into treatment.
University of Queensland law professor Patrick Parkinson, who was involved in a landmark British High Court ruling that prohibited children under the age of 16 from consenting to puberty-blocking treatment, said the prospects of similar action in Australia were “very likely”.
“I think Australian gender clinics apart from Sydney are probably less conservative and less cautious than the Tavistock was. The decision of the British government raises serious questions about the continuation of the model in Australia and really justifies a major inquiry being set up.”
“The results of the closure of Tavistock is going to be that a mental health approach will be the first line, and I suspect that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will only be prescribed as a last resort in the most serious cases where psychotherapy does not prove to be effective,” he said.
Queensland paediatrician Dylan Wilson said he believed several young adults around the country who had been injured as result of being prescribed puberty blockers or hormone treatments as minors might have recourse to the courts.
Dr Wilson questioned the standard of care in gender clinics that take a gender-affirming approach. “The standards of care have never been held in high regard outside of gender clinics themselves,” he said.
“They publish their own papers and they say the paper we publish is evidence that what we’re doing is right.
“They write the guidelines and they say ‘We’re following the guidelines’.
“These are not internationally accepted guidelines.”
In Australia we do not even know where and how gender clinics deal with children’s misused belief that they can change their sex, the media never refer to these practices.