The conflicting evidence needs to be examined and taken into consideration

Former Family Court judge Steven Strickland has warned about the risks of puberty blockers. He was a part of a landmark case in 2013 that allowed parents, rather than the court to make decisions regarding puberty blockers for children. 

He says the medical advice has changed in the past decade and doubts he would make the same decision given the information available now. The case is known as Re Jamie.

“The medical evidence was the other way in Re Jamie, namely that the court could at least authorise that first step, because the medical evidence was that there was no risk involved,” he said.

“But now that’s quite different and there’s no dispute about that, that there are risks involved.”

In 2013, the three judges were led to believe that puberty blockers were reversible. It is now known this is not factual with irreversible harm done to fertility, sexual function, and other complications to brain and bone development. 

Mr Strickland told The Australian he had “no concern” about the outcome reached in Jamie, ­because “a judge can only reach a decision on the basis of the ­evidence before him or her, ­because a judge is not a medical ­expert”.

“Very much so in this area, the judge will be very reliant upon the expert before him or her,” he said.

However, he said Justice Strum was afforded access to a “significant” amount of medical evidence that did not exist in 2013, including Britain’s landmark Cass review, which recommended restrictions on medication for children with gender dysphoria.

Mr Stickland noted that Justice Strum, when making his recent decision, had a lot more evidence to inform his decision. Read more about Justice Strum’s decision here.

“That expansive evidence before Justice Strum allowed him, I think, to explore the issue in greater detail than had previously been able to be done, and allowed him to make his decision far easier. His decision wasn’t easy, no decision’s easy, but it gave him food for thought from both sides of the argument.”

In the Devin decision, Justice Strum found there was “no clinical consensus amongst the professional expert witnesses called by each of the parents and the Independent Children’s Lawyer”.

“If the medical experts cannot agree on the best way forward for the child, then great caution should be exercised when the treatment proposed by the ­mother and her experts is potentially life altering and irreversible,” he wrote.

It is way beyond time that Australia held an extensive and deep inquiry into the medical and legal practices surrounding gender treatments in Australia. 

It is time to stop ignoring the overwhelming evidence that these treatments harm children, and that children cannot possibly consent to such harm.