A Swiss couple is embroiled in a legal battle after having been separated from their daughter for over a year as a result of their refusal to consent to controversial ‘gender transition’ measures, which they claim doctors have been trying to administer to her without their permission.
The parents are appealing a court order issued earlier this year that requires them to hand over documents that would allow their daughter to apply for a change of “legal sex” in the civil register.
The demand for the documentation came following the parents’ failed appeal to recover legal authority over the appointment of their daughter’s medical professionals, which had been granted to the Swiss child welfare agency by the court.
Supported by the Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), lead lawyer on the case Dr Felix Boellmann said that these parents, who are remaining anonymous for safety reasons and to protect their child, “are living every parent’s worst nightmare. Their child has been taken away from them simply for trying to protect her from harm”.
In 2021, after experiencing other mental health issues, the-then 13-year-old told her parents that she believed her “gender identity” was male, an idea her parents understand she came to during the Covid Pandemic, when she had spent a significant amount of time alone in her room on the internet.
The parents took their daughter to a hospital for help, and after a brief consultation with doctors, during which she was shown the ‘gender unicorn’ diagram, the doctors said that their daughter may be experiencing “gender dysphoria”. As a result, the parents were advised that their daughter should take puberty blockers, a recommendation they rejected, seeking private mental health care instead. During this time, the school began to ‘socially transition’ – accommodate a new name and pronouns in accordance with the teenager’s wishes – their daughter, a process her parents explicitly rejected.
The Cass review found that social transitioning frequently opens the door for irreversible physical interventions, such as the recommended puberty blockers and surgical procedures.
After the couple’s objection to the school’s accommodation of their daughter’s ‘transition’, the school alerted the state child welfare agency, Service de Protection des Mineurs (SPMI). It also liaised with trans activism organisation, Le Refuge.
After a meeting between the parents and SPMI, in which the parents were accused of abuse for not going along with the authorities’ suggestions, the daughter was removed from her parents in April 2023 following a court order placing her in a government-funded youth shelter.
The family, in a statement, blamed an “alliance between the school, the Swiss Child Protection Agency, and the Swiss hospital in Geneva” for influencing their daughter against their wishes. They also said Le Refuge pushed for the teen’s gender transition.
“We were very clear with the school that we did not believe it was up to the school to socially transition our daughter. We learned that the school psychologist was getting in and was feeding my daughter with materials, putting her in contact with Le Refuge,” the parents said.
Dr Boellmann said of the situation that the “Swiss authorities are in clear violation of international and national law in separating this girl from her parents”.
“Not only have these parents committed no wrong, they absolutely must have their child returned home and are under no obligation to consent to the authority’s demands to allow dangerous medical interventions.
“Further, they have the right and the duty to protect their daughter from the harms of this ideology,” he said.
The teen’s case has attracted international attention as part of a wider campaign to affirm parental rights regarding gender transitions, with prominent parental rights campaigner ‘Billboard Chris’ saying that this “chilling case exposes the troubling grip of Western authorities: trampling over the health and wellbeing of a child for the sake of an ideology, and remaining severely out of touch with the leading science – including the evidence brought forward by the recent Cass Report about the harmful impact of puberty blockers on young females”.
Statistics from the Swiss health service show that dozens of children have undergone sex-change surgeries since 2018, the number of such operations multiplying by 1,100% over the past seven years.