Cailin Here’s the few important final paragraphs:
“The judge, who suppressed details of the case before her of a 16-year-old biological female wanting to begin testosterone injections to make her body masculine, noted the new policy of court approval for treatment would apply while the children’s hospital gender clinic underwent a review. Even in cases where the child was 16 or older, able to give informed consent, and parents and clinicians agreed on treatment, the hospital said it was likely to remain neutral, neither consenting nor opposing the application to the court.
The unidentified gender clinic appears to be the first in Australia to take the precaution of shifting responsibility from doctors back to judges when it comes to deciding if a minor is mature enough to give informed consent to treatment under the common law Gillick competency rule.
This shift to caution undercuts a long and successful campaign spearheaded by the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne to persuade Family Court judges it was safe to trust clinicians with testing the capacity of minors to understand and authorise their own medicalised gender change”
Helle It is a reassuring step towards caution and sense in treating vulnerable young people. I was very surprised to read about it because, from what I could glean from news reports, Australia seems to be heading the way of Canada and the US in its treatment methods.