Sydney,
Australia — QUEENSLAND has been told to review
its laws covering sex change identity in a controversial
Family Court decision to allow a 13-year-old girl to
become a boy <http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/family_ct/2004/297.html>.
Family Court Chief
Justice Alistair Nicholson criticised state laws which
made surgery a prerequisite for birth certificates to be
changed.
"A requirement of surgery
is not only generally inconsistent with human rights; it
is a form of indirect discrimination," Justice Nicholson
said in his judgment in the case of "Alex" on
Tuesday.
Queensland
Attorney-General Rod Welford said he had no plans to
change legislation, but would look into the issue after
viewing the judge's comments.
Justice Nicholson found
that 13-year-old Alex, who had virtually been raised as a
boy and wanted to be a boy, should be allowed to take
drugs to change her gender.
Alex will take estrogen
and progestogen until 16 and then testosterone, which
will have irreversible effects. She cannot have surgery
until her 18th birthday.
Australian and New
Zealand College of Psychiatrists <http://www.ranzcp.org/>
spokeswoman Louise Newman applauded the landmark court
ruling as "sensible and conservative".
She said it was important
because it acknowledged the severity of Alex's condition
and allowed the appropriate treatment.
Ray Campbell, a Catholic
spokesman on bioethical issues, said the condition should
be treated with psychotherapy and not such drastic
measures as surgery because it was a "stage a large
percentage pass through".
But transsexual Gina
Mather said it was vital such radical decisions were made
when a crisis of gender identity arose in younger
teenagers.
"Thirteen is an age when
they do know, they do not necessarily identify as gay or
lesbian but they know something's wrong," she
said.
Alan
Finch, who had a
sex change from male to female then back again after
realising he'd made a mistake, attacked the court's
decision.
"She is going to have a
full beard and a hairy chest," Mr Finch said. "If she
changes her mind, how is she going to get rid of
that?"
Bioethicist Nick
Tonti-Filippini condemned the court move as endorsing an
experimental treatment of a psychiatric
problem.
In his decision, Justice
Nicholson said that as a child, Alex had worn nappies to
school because she refused to use the girls' toilets or
line up with them at school assemblies. As the only girl
on the male cricket team, she believed she was a boy and
wore male clothes and hairstyles.
"Anatomically,
and in the eyes of the law, she is a 13-year-old girl
diagnosed as having gender identity dysphoria a
purely psychiatric issue," Justice Nicholson said.
"(But) the evidence speaks with one voice as to the
distress that Alex is genuinely suffering in a body
which feels alien to 'him' and disgusts 'him',
particularly due to menstruation."
The court was told that
two former school principals and two psychiatrists, who
had assessed Alex, support the proposal.
