Australian Family Court Allows Cross Sex Hormones for Teen

Just reiterating my request for bodies to donate to in Australia working against this insidious religion - I'm well versed in the UK battleground thanks to this site but not so much here.

Will also write to my local members asking them some succinct question about all this.

Um. Australia isn't occupied by the Taliban. You need to stop believing everything you read on the internet.

It's been mentioned a few times on this thread (and sometimes on others too) that the Cass Report was commissioned by the Tories. It wasn't, it was commissioned by the NHS. The quote below is from the second paragraph on this link:

https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/

"The Review was commissioned by NHS England to make recommendations on how to improve NHS gender identity services"

The relevance of this is that the report isn't political in origin. This has been misrepresented/misinterpreted by the Australian judge when considering the weighting that he is giving to all the evidence he has seen.

Australia has gone insane. They’ve always been sexist and racist. But their latest escapades ref trans people, are the nail in the coffin of their civility. Poor women and children there.

I would be interested to learn more about any follow up paper and what it was seeking to refute.

As I said, I agree that there is no particular time of brain maturity and that is not necessarily the same thing as maturity as we understand it in society (I think my post conflated the two meanings). I also think that is is very dangerous to be basing things like sentencing guidelines on this particular research as if it were a fact that 25 is some kind of cut off for maturity. I think this only useful as something interesting and potential useful for lay people trying to understand young adults.

I found this article helpful, but perhaps it predates the paper you mention?

www.iflscience.com/does-the-brain-really-mature-at-the-age-of-25-68979

Cass says extreme caution, which is a lot more catuion than the judge has shown. The judge accepted that this might well be the wrong course of action for Ash but that's OK because a 16 year old has the right to make mistakes. Which given how devastating those mistakes could be, seems an odd decision to make.

Bloody hell. Most likely sterile with weak pelvic floor, prolapses and incontinence by 26. How is this ok? ((

@OldCrone because the judge has to make a decision based on the evidence.

As quoted in the article “He (the judge) said the Cass Review, a landmark probe that recommended “extreme caution” be taken when prescribing hormones to children …”
So even Cass doesn’t say never.

Remember Cass also recommended a clinical trial.

Essentially the judge is doing what we would want in each case and in the case of assisted dying. An individuals case is being reviewed by an independent judge. Evidence is provided and the judge decides if it is right to give cross sex hormones to this one 16 year old.

This case is not a wider debate about the issues it’s about the life of one 16 year old and what is right for them. Even Baroness Cass accepts for some this might be the right course of action.

Yes, people like Susie Green. But I suppose people like Polly Carmichael and the rest of the discredited Tavistock team are in a similar position. They clung to the lunacy until they were closed down.

It doesn't explain why the judge is taking that position though.

Harassedevictee · Today 13:13

What I have said is in an Australian court a judge has to make a decision based on the evidence presented. Sadly the “expert” was believed.

I get you and I find it very disturbing, have the other side had a proper opportunity to present evidence regarding WPATH? Or is it the case that the judge has had a short brief and made a decision that way?

He certainly seems biased, based on his comment that Cass is a politically motivated publication.

@OldCrone forgive me I can’t remember who said this but there is an issue that parents and health care professionals who have overseen and supported the medicalisation and surgery of children have a vested interest in being right.

Otherwise they have to face up to what they have done. Sterilising and mutilating children for a discredited theory is a hard thing to live with. Particularly if it’s your child.

Letting go of that in big organisations can take a long time. It’s all incredibly sad.

The only explanation is that they all lost their senses in the grip of collective delusion.

That's a good question. I assume it's because the activists managed to get their claws in before any of us realised what was going on.

But now we have the Cass review, and WPATH has been exposed for the activist-led quack organisation it is, you'd expect any reasonable health professionals to back away from any association with WPATH and its quackery.

The fact that the Australians haven't is concerning. Why are they clinging to WPATH quackery when it's been exposed by journalists who've uncovered the stuff they didn't want us all to know, and they have sensible guidelines they could use instead since the publication of the Cass review?

@OldCrone I have never said it is irrelevant. I am a huge supporter of Baroness Cass.

What I have said is in an Australian court a judge has to make a decision based on the evidence presented. Sadly the “expert” was believed.

Maybe he is. He might be a gender zealot himself. In which case, as I said earlier, he should have recused himself from this case on the grounds that he couldn't be impartial because of his quasi-religious beliefs.

@OldCrone
The real issue is why did both the NHS, the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines and multiple other heath organisations all decide the WPATH guidance was correct and based on their guidance on it?

Don’t forget the NHS, a government institution, also uses/used the WPATH guidance. Prior to Cass, a judge in the UK presented with NHS guidance would take that as the gold standard.

This is no longer the case since the Cass review was published. Why do you think it's irrelevant for Australian children? Do you think they are fundamentally different from British children? Or other Europeans (some other European countries have also stopped the use of puberty blockers for children)? It's even caught the attention of some Americans.

What do you think makes Australian children different from children in the rest of the world?

As the thread title says, this is about a Family Court. Is it too much to expect that the judge should at least be pretty well-versed in the topic? A bit more so than, say, the average tabloid reader?

@OldCrone to be clear I think WPATH is appalling.

But I can see why an Australian Judge might consider the Australian equivalent of the NHS to be more credible than a report from the UK.

If you look at the Post Office scandal the IT expert witness was believed over the post masters and mistresses. Why? Because he was an “expert”.

@OldCrone if you live in Australia it is not unreasonable to assume the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines are the most relevant.

Don’t forget the NHS, a government institution, also uses/used the WPATH guidance. Prior to Cass, a judge in the UK presented with NHS guidance would take that as the gold standard.

So he thinks a document written by activists (many without medical training) is more compelling than a serious review which took a team of experts about 4 years to complete?

You don't have to be a medical expert to understand that a senior paediatrician and a team of well-qualified researchers are more likely to produce a credible report than a bunch of activists and zealots, many without any medical training.

And that's before you start considering all the other WPATH stuff about phallus-preserving vaginoplasty, nullification and eunuchs.

What do you not understand?

The Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines are based on the WPATH Standards of Care

This part is quoted directly from the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines linked above:

the recommendations made in this document are based primarily on clinician consensus, along with previously published standards of care from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)

So the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines are based on WPATH. (I notice I've just repeated myself, but I hope that will just make this fact clearer.)

What this means is that the Australian source that you think is most relevant is actually based on WPATH, which as you will know if you've read the Hannah Barnes article I linked to earlier, is not a reputable source.

WPATH is about as far away as it is possible to get from a scientifically based, peer reviewed source. It's written by zealots and activists, many of whom have no medical or scientific training.

Is that clearer?

@SinnerBoy
It is irrelevant what any of us thinks as we are not the judge in this case.

The judge is not a medical expert and is only able to consider the evidence put before him.

Clearly the evidence provided by one side’s “expert” was more compelling than the Cass review.

And just don't mention the eunuchs!

JessaWoo · Today 09:53

I'm not on MN constantly, Sinner.

But you're here now. What's your opinion on the organisation WPATH? What do you think of a group of activists, who reference their own and their friend's papers, to make it seen as though their biased output is highly regarded? And the Australian trans groups using their stuff as guidance?

Wouldn't you rather they relied on a highly detailed, four year review, by an expert who actually knows what she's talking about? A review which was double checked by two independent teams, by the way, rather than a circle jerk of manipulated data.