A landmark judgment that stripped custody from a mother who wished to give her 12-year-old puberty blockers threatens to undo precedents allowing treatment for children without court intervention, a former Family Court judge says.
Stuart Lindsay KC, who presided in the Family Court from 2004 to 2014, has warned of the damaging effects of secrecy statutes anonymising key details.
He said it may be in the “best interests” of children and parents that the identities be known.
The comments come days after judge Andrew Strum published a significant judgment rejecting a hospital’s diagnosis that the 12 year old suffered from gender dysphoria, and criticising activist who use legal proceedings to promote a pro-transgender ideology.
Justice Strum’s judgment has made waves among family lawyers, paediatricians and psychologists, after he 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 suggested that the Full Court may need to reconsider precedent that allows children questioning their gender identity to access medical treatment without legal intervention, due to emerging research contesting gender-affirming models of care.
The treatment by the courts of children who raise concerns over their gender has been largely shaped by three major court cases.
In Re Jamie in 2013, the Full Court established parents could consent to their children taking puberty blockers without court authorisation, finding the treatment is reversible.
Four years later in Re Kelvin, the Full Court removed the requirement for court authorisation of the provision of cross-sex hormones.
Re Imogen in 2020 clarified that while Re Kelvin relaxed the need for court oversight, authorisation was mandatory if there was a dispute over treatment.
Justice Strum said the Full Court may reconsider the categorisation of puberty blockers as reversible “in the aftermath” of the landmark British Cass Report, which recommended limitations on medication for gender-dysphoric children.
“There’s no more of this pretend consensus,” Mr Lindsay said. “The Chief Justice of the Family Court should make it plain that on the first opportunity a case stated should be put up by the judge who’s got one of these before him or her, and a court of five should be convened. A court of five to undo Kelvin.”
The Australian is unable to publish details identifying the witnesses – including the state in which the matter was heard – due to secrecy laws to protect the identity of the child.
But Mr Lindsay said: “Why shouldn’t, in the interests of children and parents in that state, why shouldn’t that be released?
“This has always been the problem here,” he said.
“You read about one of these cases and there might have been some feature of the treatment or some witness who was called who had one view or another that you, as a legal practitioner, wanted to follow up or as a litigant, and you could never find out who they were.”
He continued: “It’s the sort of order you only usually see in a state security matter.”
[Ed: The recent case in question is Re Devin 2025]
Thank you Justice Strum for halting the indefensible mutilation of confused children in the name of freedom and tolerance.