In allowing gender dysphoric children to ‘decide’ treatment for themselves, is society abdicating its duty of care?

Sep 21, 2021 by

from Voice for Justice UK:

Last week, in a landmark judgment, the Court of Appeal overturned the controversial 2020 ruling in the Keira Bell case, which had found that gender dysphoric children under 16 were unlikely to be mature enough to be able to give informed consent to receiving puberty blocking drugs.   Their Lordships disagreed, ruling that the court lacked competence to pronounce on matters of clinical judgement, and that the Gillick test of competence applies – meaning that it is for clinicians to exercise their judgment as to whether or not a child fully understands the advantages and disadvantages of a proposed course of treatment, and not the court (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tavistock-nhs-trust-wins-appeal-over-puberty-blockers-for-children-7k9pg9gfw).  To be precise, they said that it was inappropriate for the High Court to have given guidance, because whether or not a child can properly consent is a matter of clinical judgment (https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2021/1363.html).

At so many levels, this judgment raises concern.  Does Gillick really apply here?  A child may well be deemed competent to decide she wants to take a pill to prevent pregnancy  – but can and should the same test apply to a decision that will result in life-altering and irreversible changes to a child’s body – that will render him or her infertile and incapable of having ‘natural’ sex, and which all the evidence shows some will later bitterly regret?

Some – a very few – children genuinely suffer from gender dysphoria and feel alienated from their biological sex.  They will at some point transition.  But evidence shows that the majority of children presenting with supposed gender dysphoria will, by puberty – if given love, affirmation, support and left alone – be entirely happy with their birth sex (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0024363919873762).  It is also well established that many children presenting with gender dysphoria are in reality lesbian, gay, autistic, or suffering from mental illness and can be helped by therapy, without undergoing intrusive reassignment treatment – which indeed might prove highly detrimental.

Gay actor Rupert Everett, for example, is a case in point.  He has famously said that between the ages of 6 and 14 he didn’t want to be a boy at all, and dressed as a girl.   But at age 15 – when he realised he was gay – he suddenly changed his mind. (https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/1308380/transgender-rupert-everett-reveals-he-dressed-as-a-girl-for-eight-years-when-he-was-a-child/).

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