Parents’ grief as ‘trans teenager’ taken into care

A transgender-identifying teenager has been taken into care after parents resisted the push for irreversible hormone treatment.

A teenager has been taken into care in Australia’s first known case of parents being judged abusive and potentially harmful for failing to consent to their child’s self-declared transgender identity and wish for irreversible cross-sex hormone treatment.

A state children’s court magistrate cited the risk of self-harm when making the protection order in October — almost a year after the teenager, who was born female and cannot be named for legal reasons — was removed from the family by police at 15 after discussing suicide online.

“(The authorities say) we will not allow her to change gender, so it’s dangerous for her to come back to our house because we will mentally abuse her — they want us to consent to testosterone treatment,” the father told The Weekend Australian.

The parents, who migrated to Australia a decade ago, said they felt a kind of grief at the loss of their much-loved child, and objected to what they describe as bullying by authorities. The mother said family and friends were shocked at their story — “especially Australians, they just can’t believe that it happens in Australia”.

The parents said they knew their daughter had been depressed and in need of help, but they wanted an independent psychologist to consider all possible underlying causes, not just gender issues, and to look into non-invasive treatment options.

The teenager had lost friends after a family move at age 13, lacked social skills, had anxiety about eating and body image, and a difficult start to puberty, her mother said.

Queensland University’s dean of law Patrick Parkinson, speaking in a personal capacity as a family law expert and critic of “gender affirming” medical treatment for young people diagnosed with distressing “gender dysphoria”, said he believed the child removal was the first of its kind and “a very troubling development”.

Child protection authorities have yet to back hormone treatment and have agreed to the parents’ request for a second opinion before any decision.

On November 20 the parents’ lawyer filed papers seeking to appeal the magistrate’s ­decision, setting up the first ­potential test case on gender medicine in a mainstream superior court in Australia. The magistrate made an error in insisting the protection proceedings had nothing to do with the causes of gender dysphoria or treatment options, lawyers acting for the parents will argue.

The magistrate had found on the balance of probabilities that the teenager suffered verbal abuse “directly related to his feelings and expression of gender identity”. The parents deny any abuse.

“It’s controversial because different doctors can come up with different diagnoses and different treatments, so for parents to seek a second opinion before going along with irreversible treatment is wholly appropriate,” the lawyer, who cannot be named, said.

Stuart Lindsay, a former Federal Circuit Court judge and critic of how the Family Court has handled gender treatment cases, said the request for a Supreme Court appeal was “an opportunity for a fresh look at this hotly contested area of medicine”.

But lawyers acting for the teenager have filed separate action — on November 7 they applied for approval to begin hormone therapy, with a preliminary hearing on Tuesday in the Family Court. It will be the first such case in which both parents oppose treatment.

The Weekend Australian sought comment from a support group representing parents of trans children.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14