An Australian couple have had their teenage daughter taken into state care after they were judged to be abusive and potentially harmful for failing to consent to the teen’s irreversible gender transition treatment.
According to The Australian, Police removed the 15-year-old from her home in October after a state children’s court magistrate said the teen was in danger of mental abuse and at risk of self-harm.
“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 girl’s father told the paper.
On November 20, the parents’ lawyer filed papers seeking to appeal the magistrate’s decision.
Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, a 23-year-old woman who was given puberty-blocking drugs at 16-years-old filed legal action against the UK’s first gender clinic for children.
If the High Court case is successful this week, doctors could be forced to go to court before prescribing puberty-blocking drugs to children.
Keira Bell, who filed the lawsuit earlier this year, said as a teen she was unaware of the real consequences of taking the hormone blockers, which were prescribed by the clinic to halt the development of her female body.
In the landmark case, the judge, Mr Justice Supperstone, granted permission for the trial to go ahead, saying it was “plainly arguable” the clinic was acting unlawfully in giving children puberty blockers, The Sunday Times reported.
Ms Bell said she is involved in the case “because I do not believe that children and young people can consent to the use of powerful and experimental hormone drugs like I did.”
“I think talking therapies when you’re under-18 are always going to be more beneficial than immediately putting yourself on life-altering drugs that are going to affect the rest of your life and I wish that’s what I had for example,” she said.
Ms Bell went on to say, “At the time, I thought it was the best decision I was making, it’s a time will tell sort of situation because nothing else will indicate whether you will stay on that pathway for the rest of your life or not.”
In a later interview with BBC News, Bell said, “When you are that young, you don’t really want to listen to anyone, and a lot of things won’t get through. So, I think it’s up to these institutions, like Tavistock, to step in and make children reconsider what they’re saying, because it is a life-altering path that you’re going down, and it’s not guaranteed to work.”
