Father Arrested For Continuing To Call His Child “She” After Court-Ordered High-Dose Testosterone Treatments [VIDEO]

ER Editor:  We’re doing a twofer: one an RT report, and an opinion piece by law professor Jonathan Turley. We highly recommend viewing the short video below where Vancouver BC father Robert Hoogland, who is very articulate and clear in his position, speaks for himself in defense of his daughter. First, some background.

Hoogland has had a two-year battle to prevent his then 14 year old daughter from undergoing permanent and dangerous biological changes through high-dosage testosterone injections. Last year, these hormone treatments were authorized by the BC Supreme Court in conjunction with BC Children’s Hospital. Effectively, the parents had no say; the mother has gone along with it.

A thorough-going article from Canada’s National Post of two years ago, linked to below, shows that Canadian law tends to favour the adolescent’s decision when it can be shown that the child is sufficiently mature and cognizant of the ramifications of his or her decision:

Last month, however, Clark (ER: father Robert Hoogland, who was given a different name) received a letter from the hospital. It stated that under the B.C. Infants Act, as long as a health care provider is satisfied a child understands the nature, consequences, benefits and risks of the proposed treatment and concludes that the treatment is in the child’s best interests, the right to consent “belongs to the child alone.”

“Max’s (ER: Hoogland’s daughter) healthcare team has concluded that he possesses sufficient maturity and intelligence to be capable of consenting to his own medical care, notwithstanding the fact that he is only 14 years old. Furthermore, the team agrees that the proposed course of treatment is in his best interests.”

Treatment could then be testosterone therapy producing irreversible changes, which Hoogland’s daughter has already undergone, or puberty blockers, whose effects are reversible.

We can utterly sympathize with the father. How on earth can a 14 year old (now 16) understand the consequences of such far-reaching, consequential actions? This could even be difficult for an adult. More importantly, how do parents not have rights to object and take action to protect their child, and then end up in jail for refusing to obey the gender delusion that their child is having? It is acknowledged by healthcare professionals that children and adults who opt for body-altering treatments and surgery have mental health issues. Which further muddies the notion of informed consent.

Hoogland had been required to remain silent about the issue, with the court having effectively put a gag order on him in a February 2021 hearing. He was then arrested on March 16 for refusing to comply, being in contempt of court. A bail application was subsequently denied:

The court found him in contempt of previous orders which sought to restrain his speech with regard to the medical and social gender transition of his child by medical and legal authorities. The father opposes this process on the grounds that it is causing irreversible physical and psychological harm to his child.

This process of seeking to defend his child from iatrogenic medical harm—ordinarily something we would associate with positive parenting—has been characterised as “family violence” and harassment by the court and by the child’s trans rights activist legal advisers. (Source)

As Hoogland notes wryly in the video interview below, he is allowed to DISSENT ONLY IN HIS THOUGHTS.

A trial will follow on April 12 in BC family court (civil law), yet by arresting him, the justice system has chosen to criminalize the man. Law professor Jonathan Turley discusses the ramifications of the case below.

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Father of trans teen to be kept in jail after speaking to press about resisting hormone injections for his child

A Canadian man, involved in a legal battle over his right to object to hormone treatment for his teenage trans child, has reportedly been jailed and denied bail for violating a gag order banning him from discussing the story.

Robert Hoogland was denied bail by the Vancouver Supreme Court on Friday and will remain in the North Fraser remand prison, according to news website the Post Millennial. He was arrested this week for contempt of court, due to his continued violation of an order restricting his speech regarding his transgender child. Hoogland fought a lengthy battle, defending his right to have a say in whether life-changing hormone therapy may be offered to a minor without parental consent.

The signature case in Canada’s British Columbia (BC) started several years ago. At the age of 12, ‘Maxine’ (not the child’s real name), who was assigned female gender at birth, struggled to find her place in life, including her gender identity. Her school counselor suggested she may be transgender, referring her to a doctor and telling the school to treat her like a boy.

By the age of 14 the teen was identifying as a male trapped in a female body and was eager to start hormone therapy. The mother was supportive of the decision, but Hoogland – who was separated from the rest of the family but shared custody over the child – felt things were rushed. He said he would be OK with a transition if his child were older and more prepared to make an informed decision about a life-altering procedure. The consent form he refused to sign said hormones could result in various health complications, including elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, or diabetes, and even infertility.

This happened in 2018 and led to a series of court proceedings to decide whether Maxine could be the ultimate arbiter on the matter. That was the position of the gender clinic at BC Children’s Hospital, based on the Infants Act. The law says a “mature minor” may give consent to receiving healthcare.

In Hoogland’s case, Canadian courts repeatedly sided with the hospital and allowed hormone therapy to proceed. Moreover, the father was significantly restricted in how he could speak about the case. He was ordered to always use Maxine’s chosen name, gender, and pronouns, and was banned from trying to convince his child to stop the therapy. A judge even stated that his interviews with the media, in which Hoogland referred to Maxine as his daughter and said things like “her DNA will not change through all these experiments that they do,” may be considered “family violence.” Critics believe the law allows ideologically driven trans activists to lean on confused children and convince them into making a transition that would not necessarily be beneficial to them, while barring their legal guardians from having a say on the issue.

A 2020 review of the conflict at the BC Court of Appeal opined against such framing, acknowledging there was no evidence that Hoogland (who is called ‘CD’ in court papers and ‘Clark’ in some earlier media reports) was intentionally abusive, and saying the conflict was about “a complex family relationship stemming from a profound disagreement about important issues of parental roles and medical treatment.” His plea to block the transition, however, was rejected.

The denial of bail puts Hoogland between a rock and a hard place. One of the things he was reportedly admonished for by the judge was failing to take down a crowdfunding page, on which he explains his situation – in apparent breach of the gag order – and asks for donations to cover legal fees. He had been instructed to comply by April 12, when proceedings on his contempt of court case are scheduled to begin, but says he cannot do it from jail.The April 2019 gag order, which barred Hoogland from sharing information about Maxine’s “sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental or physical health, medical status or therapies” with the general public, also remained in place. The dad, who believes his family’s story should be properly discussed, disobeyed, and in early March an arrest warrant was issued against him at the request of the BC Attorney General. He surrendered to the authorities on March 16.

Source

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Father Arrested After Continuing To Call His Child “She” After Court-Ordered Gender Transition Treatments

JONATHAN TURLEY

There is an extraordinary case out of British Columbia where a father, referenced as CD (ER: Robert Hoogland), was arrested after he continued to refer to his biological 14-year-old daughter (known as AB) as “she” and his “daughter” after he transitioned to a male gender.  The Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada ordered that the child receive testosterone injections without obtaining parental consent. CD opposed the transition as the parent but he was overruled after physicians at BC Children’s Hospital who decided the girl should receive testosterone injections. The father continued to defy gag orders, including a bar on his trying to persuade with his own child to wait before making such a change.

We have previously discussed how such pronoun disputes (called ‘misgendering’) lead to criminal investigation in other countries like Great Britain.

The Canadian courts withheld the father’s name but he has since gone public in interview and has a GoFundMe site under his real name.

Previously, in a 2019 decision, Justice Gregory Bowden rejected the parent’s view as largely immaterial:

In view of the established law regarding the right of a mature minor to consent to medical treatment and the assessments of a number of physicians that A.B. has capacity to consent as well as the evidence of his health care providers that the proposed treatment is in A.B.’s best interests, there is no serious question to be tried.

At the second stage of the RJR test, the inquiry is whether the litigant who seeks the interlocutory injunction would, unless the injunction is granted, suffer irreparable harm. A.B.’s father has not demonstrated that a refusal to grant the injunction would adversely affect or irreparably harm him.

After that decision, there was a gag order put into place that barred the father from even trying to convince his son to change his mind:

“[1] AB, a 14 year old transgender boy, applies for a protection order to restrain his father, CD, from publishing, speaking or giving interviews about this case or about AB’s personal and medical information.

“a) CD shall be restrained from: i. attempting to persuade AB to abandon treatment for gender dysphoria; ii. addressing AB by his birth name; and iii. referring to AB as a girl or with female pronouns whether to AB directly or to third parties;

“b) CD shall not directly, or indirectly through an agent or third party, publish or share information or documentation relating to AB’s sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental or physical health, medical status or therapies.”

The evening of the Bowden’s decision, CD spoke to the Federalist and said “because she is a girl. Her DNA will not change through all these experiments that they do.” He added:

“I had a perfectly healthy child a year ago, and that perfectly healthy child has been altered and destroyed for absolutely no good reason. She can never go back to being a girl in the healthy body that she should have had. She’s going to forever have a lower voice. She’ll forever have to shave because of facial hair. She won’t be able to have children… Sometimes I just want to scream so that other parents and people will… jump in, understand what’s going on. There’s a child—and not only mine, but in my case, my child out there having her life ruined.

That led to a conviction of the father for “family violence” in April 2019. Furthermore, Judge Francesca Marzari even issued an order authorizing Clark’s arrest “without warrant” by any police officer who might catch him referring to his daughter “as a girl or with female pronouns.”

Later YouTube interviews with the father were removed.  In addressing one of those interviews, Justice Michael Tammen of the British Columbia Supreme Court even ordered that Laura-Lynn Thompson pull her interview and, when she did not, he sent police to her house.

The decisions reject any substantive weight given parental rights. I have long opposed an absolutist position against parental rights in areas like abortion with minors. The use of criminal penalties against this father only magnify those concerns.

I personally disagree with the father in the use of the pronoun if his son has made this choice. I would yield to the child’s preference on how the child is referenced (as opposed to decisions on medical treatments or procedures for young children).

However, the question is whether the state should play such a coercive and intrusive role in a family.  Ordering a parent not to speak to his child about the issue or arresting him for referring to the child’s biological gender raises very serious parental and free speech rights in my view. I realize that many experts believe that opposing such gender transition is abusive and harmful. I do not discount that view. However, that is a position best left to persuasive rather than coercive means. We can debate this question and many can oppose the use of such pronouns as abusive.

Yet, arresting a parent for continuing to oppose such a transition or referring to the wrong pronoun is chilling. There is an utter disregard of the countervailing interests and rights of parents in these decisions.

Source

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