RIS ID
98931
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Abstract
Gender dysphoria is described as ‘[m]ental distress caused by unhappiness with one’s own sex and the desire to be identified as the opposite sex’. Gender dysphoria is distinguished from being intersex, the subject of a recent Australian Senate Committee report, which is referable to physical characteristics. It is also distinguished from gender non-conformism, gender diversity or transsexualism as, in addition to identifying and living as one’s non-natal gender, it involves ‘clinically significant distress’. Unfortunately, children with gender dysphoria (and indeed many gender diverse young people) are almost by definition at a high risk of depression and anxiety, as well as social isolation, self-harm and suicide. This is unsurprisingly often connected to the discrimination and abuse suffered by these groups.
Publication Details
F. Bell, 'Children with gender dysphoria and the jurisdiction of the Family Court' (2015) 38 (2) University of New South Wales Law Journal 426-454.