An Australian family court has issued an order to approve a sex change procedure for a 10-year-old boy.

The court was told that the boy, known only as Jamie, had been dressed as a girl for the past two years, had been allowed to use the girls’ toilet at school and was “presenting as a very attractive young girl with long, blonde hair.”

Pro family groups have expressed dismay at the decision.

A medical expert said when he first saw Jamie in February 2009, the boy “looked convincingly female in every way,” except his genitals.

Jamie’s parents and doctors said they feared that early onset of puberty could lead to self-harm or suicide and supported an urgent application for the child to receive a sex change.

Justice Linda Dessau agreed to immediately approve the procedure when the court was told the 10-year-old was experiencing accelerated puberty and had already reached the development of a 14-year-old boy.

“The rapid onset of her male puberty has demanded some urgent decisions,” the judge said in her decision published April 15.

Justice Dessau also ordered that the court reconvene to examine Jamie’s “feminisation” when he is 16, before “stage-two” estrogen therapy begins.

Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace says he is “aghast” at Justice Dessau’s decision to order sex change therapy for Jamie, who would become the youngest Australian child ever to be subjected to the procedure, reports the Australian.

One leading U.S. psychiatrist who conducted an in-depth investigation into the results of sex-change therapy has concluded that the psychiatric community was cooperating with mental illness by diagnosing transsexualism as a legitimate physical condition.

“We psychiatrists… would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia,” Dr. Paul McHugh, University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in 2004.

“I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex-reassignment,” wrote Dr. McHugh, in an article titled Surgical Sex. “The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes. Their parents usually lived with guilt over their decisions — second-guessing themselves and somewhat ashamed of the fabrication, both surgical and social, they had imposed on their sons.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, the National Research Ethics Service (NRES) has approved the use of puberty blocking drugs to be administered to children as young as 12 who are thought to have “Gender Identity Disorder,” (GID).

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London wants to offer the drugs to children to delay the onset of puberty on the theory that this will allow the child time to come to a “decision” regarding his “gender”.

The director of the Tavistock and Portman mental health clinic, Dr. Polly Carmichael, told media, “This delay gives us a window to explore together that they are definitely making the right decision. But as professionals we need to be looking at the long term and making sure this treatment is safe.”

A research project funded by the National Health Service proposes to give the drugs to a dozen children and teenagers, a project jointly run by the Tavistock and Portman clinic and University College London Hospital.

GID is a diagnosis present in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition. The American Psychiatric Association says that GID is present if there is “long-standing and strong identification with another gender,” “long-standing disquiet about the sex assigned or a sense of incongruity in the gender-assigned role of that sex.”

Frequently the “treatment” recommended for the diagnosed individual is “gender reassignment therapy” or a “sex-change” that can include hormone therapy and/or surgery. Puberty-blocking drugs retard the growth and development of sexual characteristics and, proponents say, decrease the need for surgery should the child ultimately decide for a change.

Until this month’s decision by the NRES, UK physicians were legally prevented from administering the drugs to anyone under 16.