BC Father Who Opposes Child’s Gender Transition Therapy Arrested for Violating Court Orders

A B.C. man is arrested and held in custody for bail hearing for breaching a gag order in relation to the case of his child undergoing gender transition. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

A B.C. father who opposes his teenage child transitioning from female to male without his consent, was arrested this week for repeatedly speaking publicly about aspects of the case.

A warrant was issued for the father’s arrest in early March after he allegedly violated court orders that restricted him from disclosing his own name as well as those of his child, his wife, the medical professionals who are involved in the gender transition, and his views of the case publicly.

According to supplemental disclosure obtained by The Epoch Times, the father had allegedly started a fundraising campaign at the GoGetFunding website in his real name. As late as March 2, the page allegedly included embedded videos and articles that disclosed his child’s name and that of one of the doctors involved in the child’s transition, contrary to court orders.

On March 16, the father was charged with criminal contempt of court orders and held in custody until a bail hearing on Friday. Should he be found guilty, he could spend the next five years in jail.

Jay Cameron, litigation director at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, who represented the JCCF as an intervener in the father’s case in September 2019, said parental rights are increasingly under attack in Canada.

“We have ongoing grave concerns about the state’s imposition of ideology and gender orthodoxy in this case and others like it to override parental rights and freedom of expression, and concerned and dissenting medical opinions,” Cameron told True North.

“Anytime the state attempts to become the enforcer of ideology or dogma it asserts infallibility and overturns the marketplace of ideas and the constitutional rights of Canadians. That is not the proper role of the state. Oppression is always sure to follow.”

The case goes back to December 2018 when the father sought a court injunction to stop the teen, who was then 13, from scheduled testosterone treatments for gender transition without his consent.

After that bid failed in February 2019, the father granted an interview to The Federalist, despite conduct orders not to talk to anyone. The father is slated to appear in court for those breaches from April 12 to 16.

The B.C. Court of Appeal subsequently ruled that the father’s disagreement with his child’s transition and his communications with the media to tell his story did not amount to “family violence.” But the judges said the father must identify his child as a male and use the name the child has chosen.

However, the court said the father is not restricted from expressing “his opinion in his private communications with family, close friends and close advisors, provided none of these individuals is part of or connected with the media or any public forum.” He must also seek assurance from those whom he shares the information with that they do not share it with others.

According to a recent poll conducted by Nanos for JCCF, 41 percent of Canadians say it should be legal for a parent to discourage a child from exploring gender possibilities and be comfortable with his or her birth gender.

A full 50 percent of respondents agree that there should be “strict requirements” for health-care professionals to evaluate whether it’s in the best interest for a young person to irreversibly change their body if it doesn’t match their gender identity.

And 48 percent of Canadians agree that counselling services with a “wait and see” approach should be available to minors who may be thinking about changing their bodies through the use of drug treatments such as puberty blockers or opposite-sex hormones.

The government’s Bill C-6 seeks to ban “conversion therapy” by making it a criminal offence to offer “treatment or services designed to change an individual’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to reduce non-heterosexual sexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”

With reporting by Lee Harding.