Parents at odds over child’s transgender therapy

A parent hoping to block their transgender child from taking cross-sex hormones to become a boy says they accept the child’s gender dysphoria but don’t believe the underlying reasons were properly assessed.

The case is before the Federal and Family Court.

A parent hoping to block their transgender child from taking cross-sex hormones to become a boy says they accept the child’s gender dysphoria but don’t believe the underlying reasons were properly assessed.

Lawyers for the parent, referred to as Parent B, cited family dysfunction, adverse child experience, and internalised homophobia as other explanations for gender dysphoria.

But the child’s other parent, referred to as Parent A, who supported the prescription of testosterone, told the Federal and Family Court that Parent B was too “fixated on the why”.

“One of the themes in the respondent’s case is that there must be a ‘why’, there must be a cause, and frankly it’s a distracting line of inquiry,” Parent A’s lawyer told the court in the closing submissions.

Lawyers for Parent A referred to the evidence of the child’s doctor, who works for one of Australia’s largest public gender clinics and who said they found a differential diagnosis was “not appropriate” in this case.

The proceedings are governed by strict suppression orders preventing The Australian from printing key details about the family.

Barrister Belle Lane, leading Parent B’s legal team, argued the gender clinic should have “slowed down” the process from first appointment to gender dysphoria diagnosis and had issue with the fact the diagnosis and informed consent assessment took place over just two appointments. The court heard the time between the child coming out and being diagnosed with gender dysphoria was two years and eight months.

Parent B, wants their child to wait the 17 months until they turn 18, in order “to develop his own sexuality and idea of himself before it is impacted irreversibly”, the court heard, due to side-effects such as vaginal atrophy, sexual dysfunction, pelvic floor dysfunction, and infertility.

Justice Peter Tree asked if ameliorating the symptoms of gender dysphoria through testosterone was still appropriate treatment, and compared it to putting aloe vera on sunburn

. “It doesn’t change the condition, it changes the symptoms of pain,” he said.

The lawyer responded that “testosterone will have dramatic effects on (the child’s) female body, and those will be lifetime effects” but that sunburn was “very transient”.

An independent children’s lawyer assigned to the matter accepted there were risks of cross-hormone therapy but that it was not known to what extent the child would be affected.

Parent A’s lawyer said there were also risks to “not permitting the treatment”.

The court heard the child’s education had been disrupted, as they had been bullied.

Justice Tree has reserved his decision.