A 17-year-old transgender person has won a case in Family Court to make his own medical decisions. Photo: Paul Jeffers
A 17-year-old transgender boy has become the first child in Australia to have been given the right to make decisions on special medical procedures without parental consent.
The Family Court found in December that the boy, known as Isaac, was competent and gave him the power to override his parent’s wishes to prevent him from using puberty suppressants, testosterone replacement therapy and undergoing any surgery related to his gender.
The case potentially paves the way for other children seeking treatment without the support of one or both of their parents to ask the courts to declare them competent enough to make the decision themselves.
Isaac – whose real name has been suppressed – was born a girl, but identified as a boy from a young age.
He was born in an Asian country, but sent by his parents to live with relatives in Melbourne when he was 11.
They hoped that it would allow him a better education, but his parents now blame the western education system for Isaac’s gender dysphoria, and refused to allow Isaac to seek hormone treatment.
Victoria Legal Aid family and youth law services director Nicole Rich said Isaac’s case could lead to more children to winning control over their medical treatment in cases where they disagreed with their parents.
Michelle Telfer, paediatrician and director of The Royal Children’s Hospital’s Gender Dysphoria Service, said she received only one referral for hormone treatment when the service was established in 2003. By last year the number of referrals had grown to 100.
“The number of people experiencing gender dysphoria hasn’t increased in terms of prevalence, but with social change and improvements in inclusiveness and acceptance of gender diversity, people are feeling safe to come forward to ask for medical assistance,” she said.
Speaking with Fairfax Media, Isaac said he been subject to “the wrong puberty”. As he grew breasts, he prayed that he would get breast cancer so he could have surgery to “make my chest flat like the boys”.
“I already knew something was wrong with my feelings. I knew I was different from others but I didn’t have a proper word for it,” he said.
Isaac said he was punished at some schools he had attended for wearing boy’s uniform trousers. At one school, Isaac was threatened with legal action by a principal who feared that in letting him wear the boys’ pants, Isaac’s parents would take him out of the school.
Isaac said he felt trapped in a web of restrictive rules, made more painful by their apparent arbitrariness.
“They’re just clothes. I couldn’t understand why people weren’t allowed to choose the piece of uniform they felt comfortable wearing,” he said.
“I am not suffering from gender dysphoria. I am suffering from social stigma, prejudice and discrimination against trans and gender-diverse people.”
Isaac grew depressed and started to self-harm. In 2013, his parents decided they wanted Isaac to come home to undergo “conversion therapy” to convince Isaac he was a girl. Isaac responded by asking Victoria Legal Aid to seek an Airport Watch List Order to keep him in the country.
He said it wasn’t until he found online support forums and met people who had had gender affirmative surgery that he began to understand what he was going through.
By late 2014, Victoria Legal Aid agreed to represent Isaac. Several medical practitioners told the Family Court that Isaac was mature, aware of the side effects of the treatment and ready to make the decision himself.
Isaac ran away from his Melbourne home last year and has been living in a youth refuge. He is now newly enrolled as a male in a public school that allows free dress.
Some of his friends know he is transgender, but most don’t. His principal has told him to ask for help if he is mistreated by students or teachers.
Isaac said he planned to study education at university and wanted to help reform the sex education curriculum at school. He said he resented the sex education he had received, which taught him there was “one type of puberty for girls, and another for boys”.