Canadian Court Strips Father of Rights, Allowing Teen to Transition Against His Wishes – Daily Signal

A 14-year-old girl inCanada will continue with hormone replacement therapy to become a male againsther fathers wishes, a court in Canada has ruled.

A three-judge panel of theBritish Columbia Court of Appeals, the provinces highest court, upheld a lowerCanadian courts decision to allow the child, who has identified as male sinceage 11, to continue the treatments. The mother supports the hormone therapy.

The child, who lives in Vancouver, already has begun hormone treatments and desperately wanted to continue them, The Guardian reports.

Eighteen attorneysincluding representatives of public health officials, the local school board, the teenager, her mother, and her fatherparticipated in the three-day hearing, which has spurred a debate over parental rights, consent, and freedom.

The teenager apparently attempted suicide, met withmedical professionals, and then pursued hormone therapy to transition fromfemale to male. Though her mother supported this, her father has said the lowercourt rushed to judgment and was forced to hire attorneys to attempt to haltthe process.

I will be stranded between looking and sounding feminine and looking and sounding masculine. I would feel like a freak, the teenager wrote in an affidavit that was read in court. The girl began taking hormones in March and reported she feels amazing and no longer has suicidal thoughts.

The lower courts ruling is based on the Infants Act, a provision in Canada that gives minors the ability to consent to medical procedures. It says: Children may consent to a medical treatment on their own as long as the health care provider is sure that the treatment is in the childs best interest, and that the child understands the details of the treatment, including risks and benefits.

Though the child has only begun hormone treatments, she has already changed her name and birth certificate to reflect that she now identifies as male.

The question is not over custody, but whether the fathersright to approve this decision override those of a child who cant legallydrive.

The fathers rights have not fared well. In addition tostripping him of his right to have a say in his childs medical treatments, thelower court ordered the father to use the childs chosen pronouns, which arenow male. This means that if the father uses his childs birth name, orreferred to his child as a girlher biological sex at birthit would be labeledfamily violence under the provinces Family Law Act.

The court also gagged the father from speaking about the case to the media. To add insult to injury, the panel of judges will release written judgments on the case soon and they will address the question over whether or not the fathers misgendering of his child amounts to abusive behavior.

The Infants Law aside, the case still stands as a grievousinstance of government interference for personal liberty and parental rightsand a dangerous one at that since its debatable whether hormone therapy is even appropriate medical treatment.

Its a case about freedom of speech and the freedom to parent, Carey Linde, the fathers lawyer, told The Guardian. Its about the right of a parent to participate in the discussion on that issue.

The father and his legal team have cast the case in terms of personal liberties, arguing in court filings the courts order that he use his childs chosen identity amounts to totalitarian interference.

In his filings, the father indicated that he was notnecessarily opposed to his childs transition from female to male but arguesthat too little is known about the effects of hormone treatment for thedecision to be made by a minor. This seems appropriately cautious, reasonable,and even caring.

That the state should support this childs decision to move ahead with experimental treatment and deny her fathers simple requests for further information and a measured approach shows just how authoritarian things have become north of the border. It is not a good trend.

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Canadian Court Strips Father of Rights, Allowing Teen to Transition Against His Wishes - Daily Signal