A father gains custody of the child, prohibiting the mother from placing the child on harmful drugs

Justice Andrew Strum has ruled that a 12 year old child is too young to give consent and understand the harmful consequences of taking puberty blockers.  He has granted full custody to the father of the child to stop the mother proceeding down this harmful and experimental pathway.

In handing down his judgment, Justice Strum sided with the father who did not wish to “pigeonhole” his child, and decided “all options” in the child’s life should be open.

“This is a case about a child, and a relatively young one at that; not one about the cause of transgender people,” Justice Strum wrote. “As this child grows, develops and matures, and explores and experiences life, the child might, with the related benefits of the passage of time and the acquisition of balanced understanding, come to identify as a transgender female and might elect to undergo some form of medical treatment, to ­affirm and/or align with that identity. But, similarly, with those benefits, the child might not do so, and for a variety of reasons.

“At this stage in the child’s life, all options should be left open, without any unacceptable risk of harm to the child.”

Justice Strum acknowledged that many factors influence a child’s sense of identity and medicalisation is not the only or necessarily best way forward.

He took issue with the “concerning” evidence given by one of the nation’s leading child gender experts – anonymised as Associate Professor L – in relation to the landmark UK Cass Review.

“It is submitted by the Independent Children’s Lawyer ... and I agree, that Associate Professor L’s responses were ‘misleading or omitted findings/material that ­detracted from (their) opinion’ contrary to the obligations as an expert witness,” he wrote.

“Some of the many examples proffered are concerning.”

He found Associate Professor L and their colleague, Dr N, provided weak evidence to support the mother’s opinion that gender identity was “internal” and “not open to external influence”.

“The mother, in cross-examination, rejected even the possibility that external factors or influence might have any role to play in the child’s gender identity,” Justice Strum wrote. “However, neither of those experts were able to point to any empirical or substantive basis for their opinion but, rather, only to anecdotal reports from transgender adults about their experience of their gender identity.”

Unlike other Australian judges, such as Justice Peter Tree, Justice Strum relied on the Cass Review to inform his decision.

The Cass Review is highly critical of medicalising children with experimental, off label drugs that can cause irreversible harm. The Cass Review also indicates many other pathways of more effective treatment for children. So far Australian clinics have ignored or rejected the findings. 

The judgment takes aim at the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines, developed by the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and which endorse a gender-affirming model of care. Justice Strum said that while they were lauded as the country’s primary standards for treating ­gender-dysphoric children, they “do not have the approval or imprimatur of the commonwealth or any state or territory government, including any such government minister for, or department of health”.

Justice Strum criticised the medical care the child had received to date, noting that underlying issues had not been addressed or tests issued for things such as Autism. 

“Without such a diagnosis (or diagnoses), it is nigh inconceivable that the mother could have seriously prosecuted her application in relation to puberty suppression, let alone had any prospect of success. 

The judge also rightly pointed out that the child is just a child who cannot comprehend the serious and permanent effects of taking puberty blockers. 

“Whilst in no way howsoever endorsing the practices referred to, and identified, as ‘conversion or reparative therapies’, it is concerning that an oddly binary approach is adopted in relation to children, especially of the age of the child the subject of these proceedings; that is, to affirm unreservedly those who present with concerns regarding their gender, brooking no questioning thereof,” Justice Strum said.

Justice Strum ultimately rejected the hospital’s diagnosis of the child as being gender-­dysphoric, and found the mother had attempted to use the child’s gender fluidity to damage the relationship with the father.

He said the court was “not concerned ‘in what the community thinks’ or ideologies, but only what, on the evidence, is in the child’s best interests”. “Ideology has no place in the application by courts of the law, and certainly not in the determination by courts exercising jurisdiction under the (Family Law Act) of what is in a child’s best interests,” he wrote.

This could signal a return to common sense and justice for child safeguarding in Australian courts.

There is still a long way to go, as there is a false narrative that humans can change sex, and preferred pronouns should be used when referring to adults in court.