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"Children are unable to give valid consent to transidentity treatments"

2020-12-05T21:17:05.053Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - The High Court in London ruled on December 1 that a 14-year-old child could not have informed consent to request a sex change with irreversible medical consequences, explains lawyer Olivia Sarton.


Olivia Sarton is a lawyer, member of “Jurists for Children”.

She published

PMA, which you are not told

at Tequi editions.

Keira Bell is a 23-year-old British woman.

His testimony was undoubtedly decisive in the judgment rendered on December 1 by the High Court of London in a lawsuit involving the London clinic “

Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust

” specializing in the gender transition of minors.

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Keira Bell, who described herself as a tomboy as a child, turned to the Tavistock Clinic when she was 14.

The clinic very quickly prescribed puberty blockers.

Then Keira was given testosterone at 17, and she finally had her breasts removed at 20.

Some time later, bitterly regretting the course taken and now assuming her female gender, Keira took legal action against the clinic.

She chastised him for not questioning his wish to become a boy as she was just emerging from childhood and for prescribing puberty blockers for her at 14 after just three dates. one o'clock.

The High Court in London has ruled ... that it is highly unlikely that a child 13 years of age or younger would be able to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers

Proving him right, the High Court of London held, in a widely commented judgment across the Channel, that it was very unlikely that a child of 13 years or less would be able to give his consent to the administration of blockers of puberty and that it was also doubtful whether a 14 or 15 year old could understand and measure the long-term risks and consequences of taking puberty-blocking drugs.

Sasha

In the aftermath of this very important decision of the High Court of London, the Arte channel scheduled the broadcast of a “

documentary film

” entitled “

Little girl

” depicting the decision taken by a mother to accompany her young child. towards a sex change procedure.

The story as it is told in the "

documentary film

" is as follows: Sasha was born in 2011, 4th child of a sibling of 5. The eldest is a girl, the other four children are boys.

Before waiting for Sasha, her mother had several miscarriages of baby girls.

She tells of her great disappointment to learn on the ultrasound that she was expecting a boy and she decides to give this child a mixed first name.

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Ellen Page reveals to be transgender and now called Elliot Page

She says that around the age of 5-6 years, the little boy would have manifested his desire to be later like her, a woman.

And she decides that the child's words express a reality: Sasha is, according to her, "

a little girl stuck in a boy's body

".

From this day, Sasha sees herself designated as a girl in her family: hair left long, clothing in a bikini dress or swimsuit, barbies and other doll figurines in her room ...

A few months later, when the child was only 8 years old, a process of support towards a gender transition was started at the Robert Debré hospital in Paris.

The film ends with the mother's words explaining that the fight to change the sex of her child will be the fight of her life ...

In less than 10 years, in Great Britain, the number of (...) girls referred to the medical profession for a gender reassignment has risen from around 40 per year to nearly 2,000

The media treatment around the case of Sasha is ideologically very committed: "

the upsetting struggle of Sasha, a transgender girl, and her family

";

"

Sasha, she is a heroine of today

" etc.

Yet in view of the experience of our English neighbors, such a media frenzy as well as the medical care of Sasha as reported raises great questions.

Vulnerable children embarked too quickly on transition paths with no possible return

Keira Bell disputed the fact that the Tavistock Clinic prescribed puberty blockers for her at 14, after just three one-hour appointments.

She said she shouldn't have been put on treatment so quickly.

On several occasions she has argued that in the face of the deep discomfort of a teenage girl like her, it is the responsibility of institutions like the Tavistock Clinic to step in and make children reconsider what they say.

Today Keira's life is very complex.

She is constantly taken for a man and no longer finds her place in the world because she is - she says - stuck between the two sexes.

She fears that she will never be able to have children.

Read also:

"Affirming the difference between the sexes is not transphobic"

Its history is unfortunately not unique.

In less than 10 years, in Great Britain, the number of little girls and young girls referred to the medical profession for a sex change has risen from around forty per year to nearly 2,000. The number of young boys has increased from 'fifty to over seven hundred.

But hundreds of these young people oriented in sex change courses bitterly regret it, saying that the treatment put in place has not solved any of their problems.

The painful experience of these young British people is far from going unnoticed.

Yet one can wonder if it is taken into account in the care of Sasha as it is described to us in the documentary film.

Still, at the end of this first consultation, the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is made definitively.

On the grounds that it would be impossible to obtain a consultation appointment within a reasonable timeframe with a pediatric psychiatrist in the environment of the family's home, the mother in fact chose to take her child directly for consultation with by Dr Anne Bargiacchi, psychiatrist attached to the Robert Debré hospital in Paris and specialist in gender dysphoria.

This first consultation is supposed to have been filmed live as part of the documentary.

We can hope that this is only a staging and that the documentary does not reflect reality as the consultation is brief and the examination of the 8-year-old child is almost non-existent.

Still, at the end of this first consultation, the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is made definitively, the mother obtained a medical certificate asking the teaching staff to welcome Sasha as a little girl, and the the question of hormonal treatments and taking a puberty blocker was discussed.

During the next appointment, the medical course is specified: an appointment must be made with an endocrinologist to - we explain to the child - avoid seeing signs of puberty appear and discuss how to preserve fertility: removal of immature testes in order to mature them in vitro or temporary cessation of puberty blockers while they recover functional spermatozoa.

How can we say that a child is aware of the consequences of the treatments undertaken?

In numerous interviews, Keira Bell has insisted on the fact that children are unable to give valid consent to these treatments, the consequences of which they cannot consider, such as infertility and loss of sexual functions.

And before the High Court, his lawyer recalled that children or young people without relevant life experience, did not have the capacity to make an informed decision, for example on the loss of sexual function.

In Sasha's case, the themes of puberty blockers, fertility preservation etc.

are discussed with the mother who makes the decisions.

All this in the presence of Sasha of course, but the child is only 8 years old.

And when, a few shots later, we see Sasha on the morning of her return to school in CE2 nursing a bottle for breakfast in front of a princess cartoon, it is impossible to think that the child has the maturity to be aware the consequences of decisions taken on its behalf by adults.

Are we not in the pitfall denounced by Keira Bell's lawyer, “

a culture of unreality (…) leading to children receiving experimental treatment without their duly informed consent?

"

The best interests of the child once again sidelined in favor of scientific and financial interests?

According to several British media outlets, “

the Bell case, which was heard by the High Court in London, will have global implications for Europe's burgeoning healthcare industry, whose profits depend on the attraction of growing numbers. children in the system

”.

This conclusion raises questions.

In the case of Sasha in prime time on Arte, what are the hidden interests?

How not to be surprised by the brevity of the care process leading to the delivery of the child to an endocrinologist for a transition course, when for much less important decisions concerning the life of any child, such as for example a class leap, parents and workers are much more careful?

To read also:

Child "transgender" on the set of Quotidien: the decryption of a child psychiatrist

How also not to be surprised by the definitive nature of the diagnosis made by two adults, the mother and the psychiatrist of the Robert Debré hospital, the latter calling for sanctioning the slightest doubt posed on his diagnosis, doubt immediately accused of transphobia?

When Keira Bell says that it is the responsibility of institutions like the Tavistock Clinic to intervene and make children reconsider what they say, she speaks from her painful experience the enlightening remarks made by the child psychiatrist Christian Flavigny in the fall of 2020: "

respecting the word of the child is not taking his words literally, it is not treating him like a little adult who would master data that remains enigmatic to him, in particular on gender identity

”.

It is to be hoped that the experience of Keira Bell will be able to shed light on Sasha's path ...

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-12-05

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