Coalition and Labor signal they are open to removing judicial oversight provisions that make Australia the only country in the world to force families to obtain permission before a child can transition

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

One of the biggest barriers to transgender children accessing hormones – the requirement that such treatment be approved by the courts – may soon be cleared, as the Coalition and Labor signal that they will consider removing judicial oversight provisions.

Australia is the only country in the world to force families to obtain permission from the courts before transgender children can fully transition. Judges can deny or delay requests to start stage-two hormone therapy, which administers either testosterone or oestrogen to the patient.



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Victorian transgender teen Georgie Stone told Guardian Australia that having to apply to the courts for approval made her and her family feel powerless.

“There were changes happening to my body that I didn’t want and we had to apply to these people who didn’t even know us to make decisions about my body, which is just wrong. And I think it’s discriminatory and it has to change,” she said.

“I didn’t realise it would be so adversarial,” Georgie’s mother, Rebekah Robertson, said. “The court process is slow but biology is fast, and so often there’s a high degree of tension; the stakes are high for your child.”

Robertson has cautiously welcomed signals from both major parties that change might be afoot, but called on them to expedite the reform process.

“Our families can’t live on hope, we’ve been living on hope for a very, very long time,” she said. “We need action and we need it to be done and then we’ll be able to give a sigh of relief, but hope is not sustaining.”

The Greens and independents Cathy McGowan and Andrew Wilkie support the scrapping of laws that mandate family court approval before cross-sex hormone therapy can proceed.

Robertson and a group of other parents and carers met with federal politicians in Parliament House on Monday, urging them to change the law.

Labor’s spokesman on family law, Graham Perrett, praised the courage of transgender children and their families for demanding changes to the system, saying they “have steel in your spines”.



He also also thanked the attorney general, George Brandis, for his conciliatory approach to the issue. “I do commend him, on the record.”

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said he is sympathetic to the plight of transgender children and their families.

“Labor is aware of this issue and the difficulty these court processes cause transgender children and their parents, and calls on the government to examine the issue,” he said.

Greens senator Janet Rice said changes to the laws could pass both houses quickly if both major parties get on board.

“If this is supported across the parliament, it should be a fairly straight-forward step,” she said.

In 2013, Georgie’s family challenged the law forcing parents to seek court approval for stage-one therapy – which blocks puberty-inducing hormones.

They won the case on the basis that it is not a medical procedure that required intervention of the courts, but families must still seek approval for later stages of hormone therapy.

“We’ve been through the courts three times, and it’s a horrible, horrible process and we need to make sure that this doesn’t happen to any other family,” Georgie said.

Despite having lawyers working for the family on a pro-bono basis, Robertson estimates the three court proceedings cost the family $30,000 in missed income and the cost of medical and court advise.

“Had we been paying for our cases in its entirety it would have gone into the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Robertson said.

“There’s no one that benefits from having the court [system] in place,” paediatrician at the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne, Dr Michelle Telfer, told Guardian Australia. “The courts want this out of the courts. We have the doctors wanting out of the courts. We have the community engaged as a really strong group to want it out of the court.”