Landmark court case welcomed by transgender advocates

TRANSGENDER advocates have welcomed a landmark Family Court decision which means teenagers in Australia can change gender a lot more easily.

The court ruling could save teens wanting to change sex time and money. Source: iStock

IT has just become a lot easier and cheaper for young people seeking gender transition to receive hormone treatment.

Australia’s top Family Court judges decided young people will no longer have to seek court approval for a vital stage of transition treatment.

The change means teenagers can start hormone treatment to change their sex with approval from just the medical profession and their parents, the Daily Telegraph reports.

“The distress caused by gender dysphoria can lead to anxiety, depression, self-harm and attempted suicide,” the court said in its judgment yesterday.

“The treatment can no longer be considered a medical procedure for which consent lies outside the bounds of parental authority and requires the imprimatur of the court.”

Transgender activist Georgie Stone hailed the decision. Source: Supplied.

The change allows for stage two treatment that “may, but does not necessarily, cause long-term infertility” and stops short of surgical intervention, the court noted, according to AAP.

It comes after a landmark case centred on a 17-year-old called “Kelvin”. Born a girl, Kelvin was confirmed as having gender dysphoria by age nine.

His parents applied to the court in early 2017 asking that he be deemed competent to authorise his own stage two treatment which would involve having testosterone to initiate secondary sexual characteristics and appearance of the male sex.

“For Kelvin, if stage two treatment was not carried out his overall health and wellbeing is almost certain to deteriorate especially as his mental and physical health is heavily dependent on the perception of himself as male,” Thursday’s decision noted.

“ABSOLUTE RELIEF”

The landmark decision has been welcomed by those fighting for transgender rights.

Georgie Stone — a transgender advocate recently crowned the 2018 Victorian Young Australian of the Year — knows first-hand the stress of going through the court process.

She told AAP she cried “happy tears” when the news broke.

“It was just like an explosion of all these emotions. Just absolute relief,” the Melbourne 17-year-old told AAP.

The judgment said gender dysphoria can lead to anxiety, depression, self-harm and attempted suicide. Source: iStock.

Born a boy, she became the youngest person in the country granted permission by a court to take hormone blockers, the first stage of medical treatment for transgender children.

By 2013 court permission was not needed for transgender children wanting the first stage of treatment. But Georgie still had to return to the court to ask for permission for stage two.

“To have a complete stranger decide what was going to happen to my body was horrible,” she told AAP.

“I wasn’t going into female puberty, I didn’t like my body, and I felt really powerless and on top of that, mental anguish.

“Having to go to court is very time-consuming and costly as well. We were lucky because we had pro bono lawyers but lots of families don’t.”

Australia is the only country in the world that requires court involvement in stage two decision-making.

It’s been a monumental year for LGBTI rights in Australia. Source: iStock.

Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, which was a party in favour of the changes in the Family Court case, welcomed the decision.

The hospital’s Dr Michelle Telfer said for the first time, transgender adolescents will now have the same rights to healthcare as their peers, noting that in the past many young people postponed treatment until adulthood to avoid having to go to court.

“For these young people, the impact of this change is enormous,” she said in a statement.

“They will now have timely access to the treatment which provides a positive difference to their physical and mental health, and their social, emotional and educational outcomes.”

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