Yeah, I don't have a puntastic title for this one

So, a 12 year old female-assigned Australian child got a court order to allow him to have male documents (birth certificate, Medicare card etc), and to take hormone blockers that prevent a female puberty. This is good news, and hopefully it'll make it easier for other young trans (proto-trans?) kids too. Not having to go through the wrong puberty, that's really good, because transition is as much as about removing the effects of that as it is giving you the right one. And changing documents is such a legal nightmare for trans people, this is no inconsiderable thing.

As it stands right now in Australia, generally, you need to have had genital surgery to change your legal sex, which is just ludicrous, leaving people who've been on hormones in a precarious state where their documents don't match their gender presentation--unlike in the UK, which has had the Gender Recognition Act for a couple years. So, if I'm putting on my optimistic hat for a second, I wonder if this might be the start of a sea-change towards recognising gender in Australia in ways other than genitality.

Of course, the coverage of this case has been about what you'd expect, though. From the Sunday Telegraph - "Girl, 12, cleared for sex change"

Medical ethicist Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said the decision was astounding.
"I fail to see how it can be in the interests of a young girl to undergo treatment that will change her for the rest of her life,'' he said.
"Twelve is a time of great uncertainty.''

translation:

"O hai, I'm a medical ethicist. I don't know shit about trans people."

Your theories, they're rubbish. I fail to see how it can be in the interests of a gender variant child to be forced into having a puberty they don't want to have. Adolescence for gender variant children is just bloody horrible. The rates of suicide, attempted suicide, self-harm etc are just astronomical. You have no idea what it feels like to have to go through that, as well as the added pressure from family, friends and the rest of the world to conform, none. Realistically, it might be hard for him socially, because kids are especially awful about difference. But all trans adolescences are hard, and avoiding puberty induced gender dysphoria, that's pretty amazing and just about the best thing for his piece of mind.

And actually, he's actually not taking testosterone yet, you might notice. So all this does is suspend the onset of puberty, if he changes his mind then duh he can stop taking the hormone blockers and go through a female puberty later. But changing him for the rest of his life, by making him grow breasts, have a period and other potentially highly distressing things for a trans man, hey that's ok.

Also, while I'm on the subject, dear "the world": stop using the phrase "sex change." It's sensationalist and inaccurate and reduces the process of gender transition to one surgery you have years after you've started hormones (and generally stopped being perceived as being the wrong gender). If you even have it all--not all trans people want or can afford genital surgery. In this case, is his change legal status really what they mean by sex change? Is it bollocks. And fuck you, Sunday Telegraph, for the use of the phrase "taxpayer funded sex change"--because being able to get a $30 prescription on Medicare, that's really breaking the State's bank.