Australia’s Wake-Up Call: A Landmark Case Challenges the Transgender Medical Orthodoxy

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Australia’s Wake-Up Call: A Landmark Case Challenges the Transgender Medical Orthodoxy

 

Australia may finally be confronting a difficult question that the UK and US have been wrestling with for years: how far should society go in affirming a child’s claimed gender identity, especially when it involves irreversible medical interventions? As reported in the Australian a family court ruling in Melbourne might be the turning point. It’s being compared to the UK’s Tavistock scandal — and not without reason.

 

At the centre of the case is a 12-year-old boy whose mother supported his desire to be administered puberty blockers so he could begin a transition to live as a girl. The boy, already wearing girls’ underwear and encouraged by his mother in his gender exploration, was met with firm resistance from his father. Although the father did not oppose his child exploring gender identity, he opposed any medical intervention at such a young age. Judge Andrew Strum, presiding over this deeply personal and contested family matter, made a bold and unprecedented decision: he stripped the mother of custody and issued a sharp rebuke of the hospital that treated the child.

 

This marks the first serious legal challenge to the prevailing gender-affirming treatment model in Australia. Central to the case was Dr Michelle Telfer, head of medicine at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), who supported the mother’s stance. Dr Telfer is a prominent advocate for gender-affirming care and the lead author of the RCH’s guidelines, which include early use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and even double mastectomies for girls as young as sixteen. Astonishingly, the hospital has accepted children as young as three for gender treatment.

 

Judge Strum, however, took a notably different view. “I do not accept that the child, at this age and pre-pubertal stage in life, can properly understand the implications, and potential risks, of puberty blockers,” he stated in his judgment. “The child is still a child, and not even, if it matters, a teenager.” His comments reflect a growing international concern about the ethical implications of allowing minors to make life-altering medical decisions that may have long-term health consequences.

 

Dr Telfer’s courtroom arguments did little to reassure. She argued that transgender children and their families were “best placed to know what is in their interests” and controversially compared the Cass Review’s findings — which questioned the scientific basis of puberty blockers — to Nazism. Judge Strum dismissed such hyperbole and reaffirmed the need for caution. “At this stage in the child’s life, all options should be left open, without any acceptable risk of harm to the child,” he said.

 

He also questioned how the RCH’s guidelines had come to be regarded as “best practice” without any formal approval from state or federal authorities. “It did not have the approval… of the commonwealth or any state or territory government,” he wrote, noting that Dr Telfer’s conclusions seemed “tantamount to her agreeing with herself.”

 

The implications could be significant. RCH has seen a dramatic increase in patients presenting with gender dysphoria — from 100 in 2014 to over 1,000 by 2022 — and has prescribed puberty blockers to many of them. Judge Strum noted that “no alternative treatment options” were provided, a practice that is now coming under scrutiny as global medical consensus shifts away from aggressive early intervention.

 

Australia, long a laggard in this debate, is catching up. In January, the federal Labor government announced an inquiry into the treatment of transgender children, particularly focusing on the use of puberty blockers. This followed Queensland’s decision to pause their use entirely — the first Australian jurisdiction to do so.

 

Just nine months ago, it seemed unthinkable that Australia would question trans medical orthodoxy. Back then, a judge ruled in favour of a trans-identifying man in Tickle vs Giggle, finding that excluding him from a women-only app amounted to discrimination. The idea that “sex is changeable and not necessarily binary” seemed to prevail. But Judge Strum has steered the conversation in a radically different direction.

 

Every serious investigation of puberty blockers and hormone treatments has revealed more questions than answers — and more harm than benefit. Those who championed these interventions now face a reckoning. For the first time, Australia appears ready to ask the hard questions and push back against an ideology that has gone unchallenged for too long.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Australian  2025-06-11

 

 

[mikeymike100]

"At the centre of the case is a 12-year-old boy whose mother supported his desire to be administered puberty blockers so he could begin a transition to live as a girl."

 

Mother should be locked up?

[Cat Boy]

Puberty blockers are reversible when discontinued. 

 

I question the authenticity of the assertion that the hospital had treated a 3 year old with gender affirming care. 

 

Nearly 1 in 50 live births (that's 2%, which represents approximately 7 million people in the US and over 550k in Aus) exhibit phenotypic or biological inter-gender characteristics where the external genitalia of the baby are not sufficiently developed to determine one gender over another, do not match DNA (ie genetically XX yet born with male genitalia) , or vis versa, or display partial development of both genders (at birth). 

 

In such cases doctors and hospitals make a determination, not always in consultation with the parents) as to one gender and proceed with surgically modification to support their determination. 

 

Suicide rates among those with gender dysphoria are astronomical, while gender affirming care is only prescribed with extensive and protracted consultation with parents, doctors, psychologist and the child, not as it is sometimes depicted as some willy-nilly caprice of childhood. 

 

Where such care is not transitory and reversible, as with puberty blockers, even further screening is required and mandatory by law, by which point the then child has attained majority as an adult and legally capable of electing surgery, albeit with further consultation and professional screening. 

 

Where a 16 year old would receive a surgical intervention it would be HIGHLY unusual, would be approved my medical and mental health professionals among others and would in all likelihood be the result of a botched earlier gender determination and/or multiple surgeries post-birth where the gender was in fact indeterminate for the above reasons. 

 

Gender determination is not always as simple minded as penis = male, vagina = female, and to dummy this sometimes complex determination and issues down to knee-jerk political talking point is not only asinine it's abusive and interferes with the doctor-patient-parent relationship through intrusive, policized government intervention 

[WDSmart]

I'm okay with this as long as whatever is used to determine the gender of the newborn is not just a glance down at the genitals. It should also include testing chromosomes and hormones, the latter of which don't really come into complete play until puberty. 

[AgMech Cowboy]

2 hours ago, Cat Boy said:

Puberty blockers are reversible when discontinued.

I'm not going to go looking for the articles and evidence to claim that this statement is false, but it is absolutely false.  You need to do more research before making such a claim.

[mikeymike100]

14 hours ago, AgMech Cowboy said:

I'm not going to go looking for the articles and evidence to claim that this statement is false, but it is absolutely false.  You need to do more research before making such a claim.

You are correct, if taken long term....Some sources, like the Cass Review, argue that long-term effects (e.g., on fertility or bone health) may not be fully reversible in all cases, particularly with prolonged use.

[Yagoda]

18 hours ago, Cat Boy said:

Puberty blockers are reversible when discontinued. 

 

I question the authenticity of the assertion that the hospital had treated a 3 year old with gender affirming care. 

 

Nearly 1 in 50 live births (that's 2%, which represents approximately 7 million people in the US and over 550k in Aus) exhibit phenotypic or biological inter-gender characteristics where the external genitalia of the baby are not sufficiently developed to determine one gender over another, do not match DNA (ie genetically XX yet born with male genitalia) , or vis versa, or display partial development of both genders (at birth). 

 

In such cases doctors and hospitals make a determination, not always in consultation with the parents) as to one gender and proceed with surgically modification to support their determination. 

 

Suicide rates among those with gender dysphoria are astronomical, while gender affirming care is only prescribed with extensive and protracted consultation with parents, doctors, psychologist and the child, not as it is sometimes depicted as some willy-nilly caprice of childhood. 

 

Where such care is not transitory and reversible, as with puberty blockers, even further screening is required and mandatory by law, by which point the then child has attained majority as an adult and legally capable of electing surgery, albeit with further consultation and professional screening. 

 

Where a 16 year old would receive a surgical intervention it would be HIGHLY unusual, would be approved my medical and mental health professionals among others and would in all likelihood be the result of a botched earlier gender determination and/or multiple surgeries post-birth where the gender was in fact indeterminate for the above reasons. 

 

Gender determination is not always as simple minded as penis = male, vagina = female, and to dummy this sometimes complex determination and issues down to knee-jerk political talking point is not only asinine it's abusive and interferes with the doctor-patient-parent relationship through intrusive, policized government intervention 

You dont live in reality

[Yagoda]

Transgenderism is a mental illness and should be treated as such, especially in children who are susceptible to the grooming efforts of the LGBTQRDFTERW +- movement.

[James105]

18 hours ago, Cat Boy said:

Suicide rates among those with gender dysphoria are astronomical,

 

Thats because gender dysphoria is a mental illness.   You might as well say the suicide rates amongst people with mental illness is astronomical.   You don't treat people with depression by affirming their depression and giving them drugs to ensure they are depressed.