1. Family court has given a 15-year-old permission to have both breasts removed so the teen can feel more like a boy.
Family Court says yes to mastectomy for 15-year-old.
The Family Court has granted a 15-year-old permission to undergo surgery to have both breasts removed, before the teenager even starts hormone treatment.
The Australian reports that the teen was born female but has dressed as a boy since the age of four.
The 15-year-old has not been taking hormones to suppress puberty, unlike many other children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the court heard and has therefore developed large breasts.
The court heard from a psychologist who said that the breasts need to be removed because once the teenager starts taking testosterone they “will develop a hairy chest and face (to go with) an E-cup”.
“I am highly doubtful [society] would accept an individual with a beard, hairy chest and an E-cup bust” the psychologist said.
Last year senior Family Court judge Steven Strickland, told an international conference on family law that “surgery is not considered in patients less than 18 years of age”.
But the court went against this after hearing the teenager, named Quinn “understands surgery will be painful and that it will have consequences, such as his ability to breastfeed if he could change his mind in the future”.
In other cases children diagnosed with gender dysphoria start hormonal treatment to suppress puberty from age 14, then their parents seek the court’s permission for stage two treatment, where a child is given hormones of the opposite gender, from about the age of 16 reports The Australian.
The process is to allow a child to live as their preferred gender for a period of time, in case they want to change their mind before they go a step further and have surgery.
2. Fears tonight’s Census will overload the Internet.
There are concerns that as more than 15 million people flood the Census site tonight to complete their forms the Internet may not be able to cope.
In 2012 an online sale “Click Frenzy” saw servers go into meltdown as they were overloaded.
But Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Census boss Chris Libreri told News Limited they are confident the system will withstand tonight.
“We have load tested it at 150 per cent of the number of people we think are going to be on it on Tuesday for eight hours straight and it didn’t look like flinching,” he said.
“We wouldn’t do it unless we were able to safely do it, we have evolved it and we are confident.”
People have until September 23 to complete their forms online or in paper form, before fines are issued.
