A former Family Court judge just admitted his 2013 ruling greenlighting puberty blockers for kids may have been a terrible mistake.
“There are risks involved,” he now says.
- Another judge found gender clinic evidence misleading.
- Key architect of Aussie gender guidelines exposed in court.
How many more children must suffer before politicians act?
Family First welcomes the extraordinary admission last week by retired judge Steven Strickland that his landmark 2013 ruling allowing puberty blockers for children without court oversight may have turned out differently if today’s medical evidence had been available.
Strickland, who sat on the Full Court in Re Jamie, told The Australian that the court had been assured at the time that there was “no risk” in prescribing puberty blockers. But today, he says,
there’s no dispute … that there are risks involved.
This follows the Re Devin decision earlier this year by Judge Andrew Strum, who stripped a mother of custody after she sought puberty blockers for her 12-year-old boy.
Strum ruled that the treatment should not proceed, citing a lack of clinical consensus and concerns about irreversibility.
“Great caution should be exercised,” he said, when children face “potentially life altering and irreversible” interventions.
Crucially, Judge Strum had access to the UK’s Cass Review, which exposed the weak evidence base for puberty blockers and called for a more cautious, therapeutic approach.
Strickland’s comments in the Australian today acknowledged this was a significant shift:
You’ve got to look at other alternatives,
he said, praising the balanced evidence presented in Re Devin.
Even more damning is Justice Strum’s criticism of Associate Professor Michelle Telfer, architect of Australia’s radical gender medicine guidelines.
Telfer, anonymised in the ruling but later named, was found to have provided misleading evidence and omitted key findings from the Cass Review that contradicted her advocacy.
This entire saga confirms what Family First and others have been warning for years: Australian children are being subjected to experimental and ideologically-driven treatments, often with little medical consensus and gross ethical oversight.
It is unconscionable that our courts—guided by flawed evidence in Re Jamie and Re Kelvin—cleared the way for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with so little scrutiny.
It’s a scandal that Labor and Liberal politicians continue to allow the child gender clinics to operate.
Family First renews its call for an immediate national moratorium on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for children.
All current treatment pathways must be reviewed in light of the Cass Review and the expert testimony exposed in Re Devin.
The law got it wrong in Re Jamie. Children have paid the price. It’s time to put their safety above politics and ideology.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Add your comments below...
Lyle Shelton is National Director of the Family First Party. He started his career as a rural journalist before being elected as a member of the Toowoomba City Council and serving the Australian Christian Lobby for 10 years, half of that decade as ACL's Managing Director. He was a Director and spokesman for the Coalition for Marriage during the 2017 postal survey campaign which resulted in the legal undefinition of marriage. He also blogs here.
