‘Gender ideology – the radical Leftist doctrine that claims girls can be boys and boys can be girls, and that such an impossible transition can be made with the use of irreversible drugs and surgery – is one of the greatest and most incomprehensible evils ever inflicted on children, in the whole history of the human race’ – Matt Walsh, political commentator and filmmaker
STATE interference in the daily lives of families has clearly gone too far, and it’s high time parents were once again allowed to bring up their own children. Take the appalling events which have overtaken one Swiss family.
Switzerland has long enjoyed a reputation for valuing family life, but state intervention has turned their life into a nightmare. ‘Swiss authorities have taken our child, our daughter, who’s 16 years old,’ says her father.
The case has become a cause célèbre world-wide, and is currently making its painful and expensive way through the Swiss courts. Knowing that their daughter had problems with ‘gender confusion’, the parents sought mental health care, but became aware of pressures to agree to potentially irreversible decisions, such as starting puberty blockers. They explicitly rejected this, as well as the school’s efforts to ‘socially transition’ her. The school and the state child welfare agency Service de Protection des Mineurs (SPMI) then brought a case against them in court, and the child was removed to a government shelter.
The details are specific to Swiss Federal law. In November 2023 the parents were asked to hand over their daughter’s identity documents so that a change of gender and first name could be made at the civil registry office, since in Switzerland, minors are allowed to change their name and registered sex at the age of 16. The parents appealed against the initial judgment, but the Supreme Court rejected this on the basis of federal legislation. Critically, this meant the girl could seek access to puberty blockers and hormone treatments without her parents’ consent.
The parents are being represented by ADF International, a conservative legal advocacy group, which is opposed to transgender rights. Dr Felix Böllmann, their Director of European Advocacy, considers the court’s decision an ‘intolerable violation of parental rights . . . without any evidential basis of psychological benefit, but also paving the way for potentially irreversible physical interventions’.
What the case boils down to is a clash between traditional family values and the now embedded transgender ideology prevalent among the more ‘progressive’ administrations of the West. Yet access to transgender healthcare varies tremendously from one country to another, and is further complicated by the discretion afforded to medical practitioners and insurers, who may or may not be willing to treat or fund this condition.
In the UK system, access is decided at national level. There is no specific age of consent for medical gender transition, and the over-16s have access equal to that of adults. For under-16s, the Gillick Competence rule applies, based on the minor showing sufficient understanding of the treatment.
There has been the additional problem of organisations such as Stonewall £1,107,868 in 2022-23, Mermaids £500,000 from the National Lottery 2018. These organisations that medicalised then monetised the healthcare of vulnerable children will not take kindly to having the scope of their activities cut back.
But this is what is now happening, putting Britain in the vanguard of change.
Following strong criticism of Mermaids’ activities, Orlando Fraser KC, chair of the Charity Commission, said there were lessons for other charities, based on the findings of the Cass Report. This review was initiated in 2020 to make recommendations about NHS gender identity services and finally reported in 2024. It recommended a more holistic approach, including screening for conditions such as autism and a mental health assessment. Above all, it recommended extreme caution about any hormone treatments, even from age 16.
(This last is very much at odds with the experience of the Swiss parents, who unsuccessfully claimed that a civil servant is not qualified to assess the capacity of a minor, but should be the responsibility of an experienced psychiatrist specialising in gender issues.)
In March 2024, the NHS stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people, saying there is ‘not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty-suppressing hormones’, and a temporary ban was issued in May. Finally on December 11 Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced that the banning of puberty blockers to under-18s would be made indefinite.
At last, the rapid expansion of what has been euphemistically termed ‘gender-affirming care’ is being challenged in Europe, and is starting in the US. This is expected to gather momentum once the Trump administration takes over. The President-elect has promised a number of trans policies from Day One, including a new federal definition of sex as binary and assigned at birth. Access to funding will be hugely affected if Trump succeeds in cutting Medicaid funding to hospitals providing transition-related care to minors.
The prospects for change in Switzerland appear less promising. For this family, denying their daughter the option of a ‘sex change’ could lead to criminal charges. Change will come only through amendment of federal law, and Switzerland tends to move slowly in this respect. The saving grace could be the system of direct democracy, whereby a people’s initiative might be able to set change in motion.
But all this takes time. The girl in question embarked on her trans journey at only 13, during the hugely damaging covid lockdown. Legal interventions since then have meant that, now 16, she is less than two years away from full legal maturity. By 18, she will attain the right to choose for herself, and tragically, her parents may lose their daughter for ever.
This case should be a warning – especially to national governments – that there is something truly malevolent in allowing, far less encouraging, children to access dangerous and unnecessary drugs, and even mutilating irreversible surgical interventions, to satisfy the extreme ideology of what many now consider to be unscrupulous abusive adults. Surely this should be one instance where ‘parents know best’.
