The mother of a transgender child who successfully sued to overturn Queensland’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for children with gender dysphoria says she is “not backing away from the fight” after the government reinstated the ban hours after her supreme court victory.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is considering launching another lawsuit to overturn the health minister’s decision on Tuesday evening to issue a new order preventing patients under 18 and not already on a treatment plan from accessing the drugs in the public system.
“The fight continues and I’ll do everything I can to see it overturned, including through the courts if my legal team says that’s possible,” the mother said.
“I’m appalled by [the health minister’s] decision to issue that ministerial directive.”
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The health minister, Tim Nicholls, intervened hours after supreme court judge Peter Callaghan overturned the state’s ban on new patients at the state’s public hospitals from receiving puberty blockers or transgender hormone therapy.
On Tuesday evening, Nicholls reimposed the ban by using extraordinary powers granted to him in a section of the Hospital and Health Boards Act. The act requires his decision to be in the public interest and required a statement of compatibility with human rights.
The mother said she believed Nicholls’ new order was made in bad faith, based on the speed of the decision and “proved to me that it’s a political decision”.
“I don’t believe that it’s about the best interests of my child and I’m going to continue my fight against the government,” she said.
“I don’t think Tim Nicholls should make decisions about my child’s medical care. Politicians should not make decisions about medical care. I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself.”
The LGTQI legal service, which represented the mother in her challenge, is considering a second lawsuit, it said.
The service’s president, Ren Shike, said they “will continue to explore all legal options to support trans and gender-diverse young people to access the life-affirming healthcare they need”.
Shike said the supreme court decision was “a significant win for the rule of law” despite the new directive.
“It demonstrated that the government cannot make decisions about healthcare without due process,” she said.
Queensland is the only state to ban gender-affirming care for children.
The supreme court overturned the order on the basis of a lack of consultation, as required under Queensland law.
Guardian Australia exclusively revealed that the 28 January order by the Department of Health’s director general, David Rosengren, was undertaken after less than half-an-hour’s consultation via Microsoft Teams, at the same time as the minister announced the decision to the media.
Nicholls on Wednesday cited claims about the sexual health service in Cairns to justify the ban and said it would remain in place until the government’s independent review of stage 1 and stage 2 hormone therapies in Queensland’s public paediatric gender services had been completed.
“As I announced in January, the government was concerned to ensure that there was a proper evidence base, until such time as there was a established evidence base for it … the government was of the view that it was in the public interest … that we put a pause in place,” Nicholls said.
The premier, David Crisafulli, conceded on Wednesday that transgender children would be “deeply saddened” by the decision.
“We took a decision not because of any political reasons, but because of medical reasons … you couldn’t, in good faith, allow what was occurring to continue to occur,” he said.
The January ban affected about 491 children who were on the waiting list at the Queensland Children’s Gender Service. The nearly 600 children already on a treatment plan were able to continue to access the treatments.
At the time, the federal sex discrimination commissioner, Anna Cody, said the ban “has the potential to harm the physical and mental wellbeing of children” awaiting care.
The president of the Australian Medical Association Queensland, Dr Nick Yim, said on Tuesday that the ban had caused “distress and harms to this already-vulnerable patient cohort, their families and treating clinicians”.
“Treatment decisions must always be made by clinicians based on science, not ideological, political or other clinically irrelevant beliefs,” he said.
