{"id":39298,"date":"2020-12-01T11:09:26","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T15:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=39298"},"modified":"2020-12-01T11:09:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T15:09:26","slug":"now-the-uk-high-court-rules-minors-must-understand-gender-transition-before-being-transgendered-by-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=39298","title":{"rendered":"Now the UK High Court Rules Minors Must Understand Gender Transition Before Being Transgendered by Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>UK High Court says minors must \u2018understand\u2019 treatment before starting gender transition, in \u2018devastating blow\u2019 to trans activists<\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_39299\" style=\"width: 778px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39299\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/5fc63058203027775f445657.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39299\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/5fc63058203027775f445657.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/5fc63058203027775f445657-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-39299\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u00a9 Reuters \/ Brendan McDermid<\/p><\/div>\n<p>RT.com<\/p>\n<p>The UK\u2019s High Court has ruled that minors can only consent to gender reassignment if they understand the treatment, after a \u2018detransitioning\u2019 woman filed suit against the NHS for enabling \u2018irreversible\u2019 biological changes.<\/p>\n<p>In a landmark ruling, the court said that children under 16 who want to undergo gender-changing procedures can only be given puberty blockers if they\u00a0<em>\u201cunderstand the nature of the treatment.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The panel of judges ruled that\u00a0<em>\u201clong-term consequences,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0taken together with the\u00a0<em>\u201cexperimental\u201d<\/em>\u00a0aspects of the treatment, should require court authorisation before children can proceed with gender reassignment.<\/p>\n<p>Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who began transitioning when she was 16 before reversing the procedure, had urged the court to make it unlawful for children to be prescribed hormone blockers without a court order stating that such treatment is in their\u00a0<em>\u201cbest interests.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0The legal action was brought against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the UK\u2019s only gender reassignment service for children.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs A, the mother of a 16-year-old autistic girl who is currently on the waiting list for treatment, was also a plaintiff in the case.<\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\">\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1333728193795289090&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fuk%2F508328-children-transition-court-ruling-bell%2F&amp;siteScreenName=RT_com&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1333728193795289090\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The court noted that it was\u00a0<em>\u201chighly unlikely\u201d<\/em>\u00a0that a child aged 13 or under would be able to give informed consent to begin taking puberty blockers, and expressed similar doubt that 14- or 15-year-olds could weigh up the long-term consequences of such a decision.<\/p>\n<p>The legal team representing Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust had argued the use of hormone blockers is\u00a0<em>\u201ca safe and reversible treatment with a well-established history.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust said it was\u00a0<em>\u201cdisappointed\u201d<\/em>\u00a0by the outcome of the case and would appeal the ruling. Mermaid, a UK charity that supports transgender children, described the judges\u2019 decision as a\u00a0<em>\u201cpotentially devastating blow to trans under 16s seeking access to life-saving puberty blockers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\">\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-1\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-1&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1333731705279172610&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fuk%2F508328-children-transition-court-ruling-bell%2F&amp;siteScreenName=RT_com&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1333731705279172610\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The ruling, which could have far-reaching ramifications for the heated debate over trans-identifying children, came as\u00a0<em>\u201c#istandwithkeirabell\u201d<\/em>\u00a0trended on Twitter in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/508328-children-transition-court-ruling-bell\/\">https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/508328-children-transition-court-ruling-bell\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UK High Court says minors must \u2018understand\u2019 treatment before starting gender transition, in \u2018devastating blow\u2019 to trans activists RT.com The UK\u2019s High Court has ruled that minors can only consent to gender reassignment if they understand the treatment, after a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=39298\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}