Alleviating anxiety and cultivating care: Young trans people in the Family Court of Australia
| Dates: | 21 November 2018 |
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| Times: | 13:30 - 13:30 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | School of Law |
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| Speaker: | Dr Senthorun Raj |
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Dr Senthorun Raj, Keele University
The distress and anxiety faced by young trans(gender) people generates varied social, medical, and legal concerns. In Australia, minors have had to appeal to the welfare jurisdiction of the Family Court of Australia if they wished to undergo medical or surgical changes to their body in order to alleviate ‘gender dysphoria’ and affirm their gender. In approving every application to date and, most recently, dispensing with the requirement to go seek court approval, the Family Court has exhibited care, concern, and compassion when addressing anxieties faced by young trans people and formulating therapeutic determinations to relieve their anxieties.
This paper maps out this affective terrain – the alleviation of anxiety and the cultivation of care – by exploring key appellate Family Court decisions relating to young trans people made between 2003 and 2018. It aims to map, emotionally, precedential jurisprudence to think critically about how the alleviation of anxiety and the cultivation of care are markers of legal progress when it comes to the judicial recognition of trans children in terms of their gender, capacity, and wellbeing. A critical queer engagement with Australian case law enables us to consider the extent to which alleviating anxiety and cultivating care secure the wellbeing of young trans and gender non-conforming people.
Speaker
Dr Senthorun Raj
Organisation: Keele University
Travel and Contact Information
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4.07
Williamson Building
Manchester
