Are children capable of making life-changing decisions?

Keira Bell is a name that will be remembered. Like Victoria Gillick before her, she argued in the High Court that minors could not consent to certain medical treatment. But that is where their paths differ. In 1983, Gillick lost when the High Court ruled that girls under 16 could be prescribed birth control without parental consent.

Bell on the other hand had been a patient of the Tavistock and Portman, the NHS trust that operates paediatric gender services in England. She now regrets her transition and says that the clinic should have challenged her more rather than offering her puberty blockers and testosterone. Her legal case against the clinic was a narrow one focussed on consent, essentially: is a child under the age of 16 mentally developed enough to make an informed choice about puberty blockers?

Last year, the High Court determined that they did not have so-called Gillick competency and ruled in Bell’s favour.