Mother Loses Fight Over Daughter’s Gender Treatment

An ugly side of the breakdown of adult relationships, where children are involved, has always been the way the parents then start squabbling over ‘what’s best’ for their offspring. In these unpleasant scenarios, the contest often involves one parent taking the child’s side with adolescent demands in an effort to paint themselves as the better parent. It seems that whether children should be allowed ‘gender changing’ medication has provided another opportunity for conflict and the stick with which one parent can beat the other. The Mail has the story:

A mother has lost a High Court battle with her ex-husband over whether their daughter should be allowed to receive medication from private clinics to change gender under the age of 18.

The woman disagreed with her former partner that their 16 year-old, who identifies as male, should be allowed to be prescribed cross-sex hormones by private doctors.

She rejected the idea that 16 year-olds had the mental capacity to decide to take hormones that could leave them infertile.

But this week, after a two-year legal fight, Mrs. Justice Judd ruled she could not “override” the 16 year-old’s consent to be given gender treatment by regulated doctors in the U.K.

But the judge did ensure that the girl’s father promised the court he will not “fund or facilitate” treatment at a controversial offshore gender service known as Gender GP while the girl is still a minor. …

The mother said she regretted the judge had “not gone further” in safeguarding under-18s when accessing cross-sex hormones through private providers.

She said: “My daughter hates me. But as awful as it is to lose a child, it is more important to me that my beautiful, clever child is safe. If I hadn’t gone to court she’d potentially have received hormones from Gender GP two years ago.”

One has to wonder what the girl involved will think of her parents twenty years down the line and whether she’ll be taking one of them to court herself.

Worth reading in full.