Child J was prescribed a potentially fatal dose of testosterone
Tom Swarbrick said:
“this child was prescribed a potentially fatal dose of testosterone.”
The phrase "potentially fatal dose" is alarming and specific. A listener will assume this is a finding from the court judgment and will take it as proof that the organisation was reckless with a vulnerable child's safety.
The phrase 'potentially fatal dose' describes almost any medication prescribed above a certain threshold: paracetamol, iron tablets, even water. What matters clinically is whether the dose fell within the therapeutic range for the person's age, weight, and stage of development, and whether that judgment was made carefully and reviewed over time. A legal characterisation of a dose as 'potentially fatal' is not the same as a finding that it was reckless or outside normal clinical practice, and the two are very different things. Testosterone is prescribed to adolescents every day within established guidelines, including for conditions entirely unrelated to gender, and presenting a contested legal phrase as a plain statement of medical danger leaves every young person whose family is weighing up gender-affirming care believing that the treatment itself is the threat, when the actual risk being ignored is what happens to a young person denied care that works.
What I said at the time:
“If this is the case that you're talking about in the times, I am not and can't talk about that today. But from a point of medical point of view, you would prescribe testosterone to a child if they had a diagnosis of gender incongruence.”
Trans adolescents and their families who are told that gender-affirming hormone prescriptions are inherently dangerous, and clinicians who provide them lawfully and carefully.