the article concludes:
It is highly likely that more cases will come before the courts concerning transgender rights (see this upcoming challenge to a County Council’s transgender policy). Nor is it the first time that courts have run into trouble handling the issue (consider, for example, the troubling case of Re J (A Minor) [2016] EWHC 2430 (Fam)). It’s time for the judiciary to make full use of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, a resource already available to them which dedicates a chapter to transgender people and their treatment by the courts. So too, judges should take care not to say more than they need to when deciding a case. The decision in Miller is a good example of this. The bare bones of Knowles J’s judgment are sound. Some of the additional observations, less so.
Alice Irving is a pupil barrister at 1 Crown Office Row. She tweets at @ AliceLIrving.
She would like to thank Tara Hewitt for providing content, comments and edits. Tara is a Director and Leadership & Inclusion Consultant at Purple Infusion Ltd. She also co-founded the Trans Equality Legal Initiative. She tweets at @ tarahewitt. Also check out: @ purpleinfusion @ UKTELI."
The "troubling case" referred to above was heard in July 2016 www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2430.html
OCTOBER 26, 2016Julian Vigo covered it for Feminist Current:
'When lobby groups like Mermaids dictate policy and discourse around gender identity, kids lose'
(extract)
"The judgment of this case, which includes a critique of the section 37 report prepared by Social Services, which Justice Hayden describes as “very disturbing reading,” though, begins to clarify things.
Justice Hayden writes that J’s mother caused “significant emotional harm” to her child and critiques the local authority social services staff responsible for the youngster’s welfare.
He goes on to detail the acts of a controlling mother towards her child, M’s personal diagnosis of J’s alleged gender dysphoria, and a system which failed this child. Together, these various failures demonstrate a pattern of abuse and a mother who, Hayden writes, “deprived [her son] of his fundamental right to exercise his autonomy in its most basic way.”
What the judgment shows is that reports made by the Local Authority’s Housing Department, J’s school, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), and Social Services gave M’s behaviour towards her child (including her approach to J’s “gender presentation”) a pass simply because she was receiving support from Mermaids, a UK-based charity that claims to support parents of children who identify as transgender. Observations like these show major conflicts of interest between Mermaids and the government agencies named in the judgement.
Susie Green, the CEO of Mermaids, began her trajectory into the transgender debate through personal investment. She took matters into her own hands regarding her son’s gender dysphoria, leaving the country for the USA, then Thailand, when the National Health Service (NHS) would not undertake the treatment she thought her child needed. Mermaids is entirely comprised of parents like Green, who have either a child who self-identifies as having gender dysphoria or have started seeking professional help for their child. Despite the fact that Mermaids is not a professional organization, it has managed to push its way into government policies such as the House of Commons Select Committee “Transgender Equality” report (within which Mermaids is referenced twenty times) and has successfully convinced local school systems and councils that its form of “support” is tantamount to professional ethos.
In short, we have governmental policies being decided via a support group that functions as a political lobby — a political lobby which justifies its authority because of government championing. (The NHS, for example, cites Mermaids as “a charity that helps children with gender identity issues and their families.”) More surreal is the fact that some of the Mermaids members regularly give lectures to nursing students and NHS staff. The fact that medical and legal documents are produced by basically taking the word of desperate, if not confused, parents equates to both a shocking oversight and the tail wagging the dog." (continues)
www.feministcurrent.com/2016/10/26/lobby-groups-like-mermaids-dictate-policy-discourse-around-gender-identity-kids-lose/
Its unclear what exactly Alice Irving/Tara Hewitt mean by describing this case under Mr Justice Hayden as evidence of how a court has "run into trouble handling the issue"