In a potential test case on underage transgender medical treatments, a mother is expected to argue doctors broke the law when giving the green light to opposite-sex hormone drugs for her son.
Former Family Court chief justice Diana Bryant said she believed it was the first time the court had agreed to hear expert evidence critical of the pro-trans “affirmative” treatment model that dominates children’s hospital gender clinics.
Former Federal Circuit Court judge Stuart Lindsay said it was possible the case might develop into a challenge to the Family Court’s landmark 2017 re Kelvin ruling, which is celebrated by gender clinics, the trans lobby and human rights lawyers for making it easier, faster and cheaper for under-18s to get irreversible cross-sex hormones by cutting back judicial oversight of treatment decisions.
In re Kelvin, the full court cited the justification of “advances in medical science in treating and understanding gender dysphoria (distress at feeling ‘born in the wrong body’)” and relied on expert evidence from paediatrician Michelle Telfer, director of Australia’s biggest gender clinic at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
“The way (re Kelvin) was conducted, we ended up only hearing from one side of a very keen scientific and medical controversy,” Mr Lindsay said.
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