A private school and public hospital joined forces with the state child welfare agency to “transition” a teenage girl in Geneva, Switzerland against the advice of mental health professionals and the expressed will of her parents. 

Just before turning 14, the daughter told her parents that her “gender identity” was male. This came after previous mental health concerns to which her parents were responding with care and professional support. 

During the Covid pandemic, their daughter had spent a significant amount of time in her room and online. Coming out of the pandemic, the school and its personnel heavily promoted a concept of “diversity”, including transgender ideology, and, in particular, established contact with a trans-gender lobby group.  

At all times, the parents expressed openness to understanding how she felt and sought medical advice. 

Unscientific Gender Unicorn diagram

They were referred by their pediatrician to a special unit at the Geneva public hospital – HUG Sante Jeune. At the hospital, doctors met with their daughter for thirty minutes, showed her a so-called “gender unicorn” diagram, and informed the parents that their daughter may be experiencing “gender dysphoria.” The “gender unicorn” is a controversial diagram based on the false premise that a person’s gender can change and that their gender is based on their feelings and will rather than biological reality. After a series of meetings over a four-month period, during which the parents followed the medical team’s advice, they were told that the next step was for their daughter to take puberty blockers. 

According to the parents, the “treatment” at HUG Sante Jeune failed to meaningfully explore their daughter’s background and mental health. As the parents had informed themselves about the dangers of the “gender identity” movement, in particular its prevalence among and impact on adolescent girls, they decided not to consent to their daughter taking puberty blockers. Instead, they elected to identify a mental health professional in the private medical system for their daughter. 

Parents: Psychological support instead of puberty blockers

During this period, their daughter’s school “socially transitioned” her. The school did so fully aware of the parents’ explicit lack of consent. The parents had shared with the school peer-reviewed medical and scientific literature raising serious concerns about “social transition,” as well as revised government policies from the increasing number of European countries moving away from the “gender affirmative” model. 

The school psychologist liaised over a period of several months with the state child welfare authority, Service de Protection des Mineurs (SPMI), concerning what they alleged was the parent’s lack of support. The SPMI then summoned the parents to a meeting.

At this meeting, the parents were accused of abusive treatment of their daughter. They also were instructed to accept that their daughter was their son. 

Parents sued for not consenting to “transition”

In February 2023, the SPMI brought a case against the parents to the TPAE (Tribunal de protection de l’adulte et de l’enfant), the Swiss court responsible for issues concerning minors at the canton level. The case was based on the parents’ non-consent to their daughter’s “transition.” 

Among other demands, the SPMI asked the court to vacate the parents’ legal authority because they were not providing “adequate” medical care, meaning “gender affirmative” treatment, for their daughter. This is despite the fact that their daughter met weekly with a mental health professional, paid for by the parents.  

Just after SPMI submitted its case to the TPAE, the school psychologist called the SPMI and expressed concern that the girl may be having “suicidal ideation.” However, in her weekly meetings with her therapist, she never evinced such ideation. She also had been assessed as low risk for suicide. Nevertheless, without consulting the parents, the SPMI picked the girl up from the school and took her to the Geneva public hospital’s (HUG) emergency room. When the parents arrived at the emergency room, SPMI staff told the parents to “just accept that you have a son.” 

Court places the girl in a government shelter

The HUG’s psychiatrists concluded, after a week of caring for the girl, that she was fine to go home with her parents. However, in the meantime, the SPMI and their daughter’s court-appointed representative intervened with the TPAE, which issued a provisional decision to place their daughter in a government funded youth shelter and grant legal authority over the appointment of her medical professionals to the SPMI. 

The parents had their daughter assessed by a child psychiatrist, who diagnosed that she was suffering from a psychopathology, which required urgent and continuous therapy. The parents were committed to her continued mental health care; however, at this time their daughter was taken to live at the youth shelter. 

Since April 2023, she has been living at the shelter with no end date. The parents have expressed that they have seen the mental and physical health of their daughter deteriorate rapidly at the shelter, where their access to her has been regulated by the state. 

Daughter allowed to end psychological treatment 

The daughter was allowed to end her treatment with a private therapist despite her parent’s objections. This was on the basis that she had been convinced that her therapist was a “transphobe.” SPMI arranged for her treatment to shift to the public hospital (HUG). 

In June 2023, the TPAE issued a decision that endorsed its provisional decision. The parents appealed and won a stay on the TPAE’s grant of legal authority over the girl’s medical treatment to the state. 

Between August and September, the TPAE consulted the HUG, but failed to reach out to the mental health professionals that the parents had hired to treat their daughter. 

Ongoing legal battle: puberty blockers, surgery, and hormonal intervention

On appeal, the stay on the TPAE’s decision to grant medical authority over the daughter to the state was withdrawn. The judge issued a letter encouraging the SPMI to reinitiate the daughter’s “treatment” at HUG Sante Jeune, despite the fact that in March and April 2023 the parents had sought a new psychiatrist who recommended that their daughter continue mental health treatment. 

The parents have objected to the fact that the only “treatment” seemingly acceptable to the court is so-called “gender affirmation,” consisting of puberty blockers, “sex reassignment” surgeries, and hormonal interventions, which risk rendering their daughter infertile among other grave health effects, without treating her actual mental health. 

On February 28, 2024, the court held that the parents must hand over legal documents to allow their daughter to legally change her sex. Against this, the parents appealed. At first the appeal had no suspensive effect, however, at the end of April the court restored the suspension as it handles the appeal. 

On 25 July 2024, the parents lost their appeal on the question of whether they should be forced to hand over the documentation for their daughter’s legal “sex change,” and now must do so under threat of criminal charges.