BC Father Fights Court Order That Keeps His Identity Hidden From Child’s Gender Transition Case

The Law Courts building, home to the B.C. Supreme Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal, is seen in Vancouver on Nov. 23, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

A father in British Columbia who mounted a court battle to prevent his child from transitioning genders is now fighting to lift a restriction that prevents him from publicly using his name.

The court put the restriction in place to protect the identity of the child, who is now over the age of 18.

His attorney, James Kitchen, calls the case “pretty bizarre.”

“Normally people don’t have their names anonymized against their will,” he told The Epoch Times in a phone interview. “But what happened here is the lawyers for his child wanted his name to be secret as well because, of course, the theory is that people will be able to figure out who [the child] is.”

“What that means is that he can’t disclose his own name. He lost his own identity.”

Mr. Kitchen said the father, who has been referred to as C.D., wants an opportunity to share his story.

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“You should be able as a person to tell your story with your own name and identity and face being shown. You want to talk about basic human rights, that’s about as basic as it gets.”

He said he will be filing the action in the court in February and believes the case has a good chance of winning.

“I’m very confident but I wouldn’t say slam dunk. I don’t underestimate the inability of Canadian courts to follow the law in politically controversial cases that involve individual rights and freedoms of people who are dissidents and contrarians.”

Court Battle Over Child’s Transition

C.D.’s court journey started in 2018 when his child was 14. He wanted an injunction to prevent the child from receiving scheduled testosterone treatments to become a male. The action did not succeed.

In 2019, court orders prevented C.D. from calling his child a girl, or using the child’s birth name. It also prohibited him from expressing his disapproval of medical transitioning.

Justice Bowdon, in his 2020 decision, said those actions would be considered “family violence.” However, the restrictions were overturned by an appeals court in 2020.

Another court order issued in 2019 forbade C.D. from sharing his story with media if it could directly or indirectly lead to the child being identified. The names of doctors involved in the transition were also banned from publication.

C.D. made online postings identifying himself, his child, and one of the doctors, which the crown said violated the court order, and he was charged with criminal contempt in 2020.

He considered pleading guilty because the Crown offered to support a 45-day prison sentence if he did. C.D.’s lawyer at the time did not accept the offer and tried to get a conditional discharge to avoid a criminal record for him.

However, on April 16, 2021, C.D. was given a six-month jail sentence, 18 months probation, and ordered to pay $30,000 to charity.

C.D. was released on bail after 69 days in prison and appealed the court decision. His new lawyer argued that due to poor legal representation, the father should not go back to jail or pay the fine.

On Aug. 9, 2023 the appeals court agreed.

“A reasonably competent lawyer would have known, or found out, that the Crown’s offer was exceptionally good for C.D. and that it would have been extremely difficult for the sentencing judge to reject a joint submission,” the court decision said.

The jail time was reduced to “time served” and the court dismissed the fine.

“This is a pretty big win, I got everything I wanted … after so many losses on so many fronts, in so many different things,” C.D. told The Epoch Times after the decision was released.

Issac Teo and Lee Harding contributed to this report.