An Australian judge has ruled that a teenage girl can be given “sex change” hormones despite the opposition of one of her parents, and the risk she could become infertile.
Family Court Justice Peter Tree, a homosexual who once said that requiring minors to get court permission to be given hormones was “inhumane”, decided that the teenager should be given access to testosterone so she can “transition” into a male, The Australian reported, even though it it not possible for humans to change sexes.
One parent of the 16-year-old had applied to the court to be given sole parental responsibility in order to administer the hormones, while the other parent opposed the so-called treatment.
Justice Tree ruled that although giving the teen testosterone could result in infertility or blood disorders, and cause irreversible physical changes after just three months, the risks were “not unacceptable” and the teenager should be afforded the “dignity of risk”.
He said he “earnestly tried to ascertain what is best for Ash” but rejected the recommendations of the UK Cass Review, which led to a UK ban on puberty blockers for under-18s, because he believed there was an “overt political imperative” behind it.
“The then UK prime minister is on record of having publicly said on 5 October 2023 – whilst the Cass Review was being finalised: ‘And we shouldn’t be bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man and a woman is a woman’,” Justice Tree said.
Instead, he said he put “great weight” on guidelines developed by the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, which are informed by radical gender ideology, advocate for giving children puberty blockers and hormones, and state that removing the breasts of female adolescents “may be appropriate”.
Justice Tree made the ruling despite admitting that giving Ash testosterone may not resolve her gender confusion, and said that even if she became infertile, “having children is not precluded, although they may not have a genetic connection with Ash”.
“It is likely that most Australians would now think the lack of direct genetic connection between a child and their parent is irrelevant. Likewise there remains the prospect of adoption and surrogacy,” he ruled.
Justice Tree’s decision has been harshly criticised by many Australians, including anti-radical gender ideology campaigners and female detransitioner Mel Jefferies.
Ms Jefferies, who was given a Victorian taxpayer-funded mastectomy at 25 but now regrets having the procedure, told Noticer News the courts appeared to be trying to hedge their bets by acknowledging the dangers of giving minors hormones and puberty blockers while continuing to allow them to be administered.
“They can see the ripples on the water, so they know the current is changing but they have no desire to halt ‘gender affirmation’ practices,” she said.
“Informed consent actually needs to mean something. If someone is manipulated into doing something, did they consent? If you make someone believe they will die if they don’t do a certain action, is that proper consent?”
And in an X post about the court ruling she wrote: “The ‘dignity of risk’. How about competent healthcare?
“I restructured my entire life for a lie which took me further from the very things I was seeking (happiness, sense of belonging, positive connection with others, feeling comfortable in my skin).”
Tech entrepreneur and women’s rights advocate Sall Grover, who is appealing a controversial court ruling that her female-only social media app Giggle indirectly discriminated against a man who claimed to be a woman, also spoke out against the judge’s decision in the hormone case.
“While common sense re-emerges in other parts of the world, Australia continues to run in the opposite direction of it. Judicial activism has to stop,” she wrote in one X post.
“The issue is, no one transitions from female to male or male to female. No one. Humans do not change sex. No transition occurs. The whole thing is a lie,” she said in another, referring to the judge’s comments on the Cass Review.
Header image credit: Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
