A four-year-old child is receiving special help from education authorities in Australia to undergo transition for a change in sex, Standard UK has said.
New South Wales Department of Education has rolled out a support package for the toddler, who is not due to start kindergarten until next year.
However, the situation has drawn criticism from psychologists who say four is too young to start gender transition.
They argue that four years was too young an age for a child to handle such a major decision.
Transgender advocate, Catherine McGregor, “I would have thought four is pretty young for any official policy support.
“In my experience, kids with strong cross-gender identification tend to get it right.
“However, I can understand there would be caution on the part of the department and medical practitioners on making any irreversible decisions at that stage.”
Rose Cantali, a clinical psychologist, agrees with McGregor. She also thinks that four years old was ‘absolutely too early’ for a child to change gender.
She said, “I would be very hesitant and other psychologists would say the same. Everything is developmental at that age.”
Gregory Prior, the New South Wales Education Department deputy secretary of school operations, said that it was part of the Safe Schools initiative to help transgender children.
He said that there were a handful of children transitioning, and that the youngest was four.
