John Paul II Institute Associate Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini has criticised the basis of a ruling by Family Court Chief Justice Dian Bryant that a 17 year old girl may have her breasts removed so she can be more like a boy.
The teenager, code named "Alex", was on court ordered hormone medication from the age of 13 to prevent menstruation and breast development. She returned to the court in December 2007 asking for a double mastectomy to make it easier for her to pass as a boy, The Age reports.
Chief Justice Bryant decided it was in the teenager's best interests to have the surgery immediately rather than wait until turning 18, the paper says.
The teenager had been diagnosed with "gender identity dysphoria", a psychological condition in which a person has the normal physical characteristics of one sex but longs to be the opposite sex.
Justice Bryant told The Age: "In the end, it wasn't a particularly difficult issue because the only real issue was, 'Would he (Alex) have it at 17 or once he's 18?' Then, he doesn't need permission.
"So the issue was, 'Was there any likelihood he would change his mind in the meantime, and was it in his best interests to have it at that time?'
"Overwhelmingly, the evidence was that it was in his interests. And I made that order. I wanted to make it quickly so that he could have the operation straightaway."
But ethicist Nick Tonti-Filippini told The Age that mainstream medicine did not recognise hormone treatments and surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria. He said it was a psychiatric disorder qualifying under American guidelines as a psychosis because "it's a belief out of accordance with reality".
"What you are trying to do is make a biological reality correspond to that false belief."
Mr Tonti-Filippini said he was also concerned that in previous Family Court cases involving gender dysphoria, the medical experts had been confined to a small group of Melbourne doctors who work with sex changes.
Mr Tonti-Filippini said a Melbourne man who had had sex change surgery at 22 was now suing his doctors because he regretted the decision and felt they had not explored his doubts at the time.
The Family Court's 2004 ruling allowing Alex to take hormones provoked a debate about when children are old enough to make serious medical decisions.
SOURCE
Court lets girl, 17, remove breasts (The Age)
LINKS
Nicholas Tonti-Filippini (John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family)