Judge backs parents who allowed boy, 4, to live as girl

Council withdraws move to put child in care after experts’ glowing reports of couple’s parenting skills

THE parents of a four year-old-boy who were accused of “actively encouraging” him to live as a girl have won a High Court battle after a judge stopped social workers removing the child into care.

Social service bosses had argued the couple had been too quick to recognise the child as transgender and let “him” transition after sending the youngster to school in a girl’s uniform.

The council, which cannot be named, had initially said the child should be taken into care because the couple “acted in a precipitate manner in relation to perceived gender dysphoria”, a condition where someone identifies as being the opposite sex to the one they were biologically born with.

However, the authority withdrew the care proceedings in the face of glowing reports from experts about the couple’s parenting skills. The mother and father demanded a public judgment be delivered so there was no “cloud of suspicion hanging over them”.

Mr Justice Williams, sitting in the High Court, praised the couple as “attuned and careful” parents who were dedicated to the welfare of their children. It is thought to be the first time a judge has sanctioned gender transitioning at such a young age.

Gender specialists told the judge the child, named only as “H” and whose parents also cannot be identified, exhibited behaviour “consistent with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria”.

She “clearly identified herself as a girl” and “appeared to be a content, alert and socially engaged little girl”, the specialists said.

Rejecting the council’s initial application, the judge said H had suffered no harm as a result of her “complete transition into a female occurring at a very young age”.

The judge said: “The evidence does not support the contention that it was actively encouraged rather than appropriately supported.” The judge added that the child and other children in the couple’s care were “prospering” and it was “overwhelmingly obvious” that they were good parents.

His ruling will come as a blow to the council which had sought the “immediate removal” of H and their other children. The couple were birth parents to some of the children and foster parents to others in their care.

The couple had been accused of “failing to prioritise” H’s needs and jeopardising her emotional, physical and sexual development, but Mr Justice Williams said expert evidence “provided clinical justification” for the couple’s approach to H’s gender identity.

“It is self-evident that it is not in the children’s welfare interests for these proceedings to continue any further,” he said.

“The lives of this family should now proceed on the basis that those concerns were comprehensively dispelled.”