B.C.’S top court to hear father’s case

VANCOUVER — A family dispute involving a 14-year-old transgender boy who sought testosterone treatment over the objections of his father has now morphed into a complex and emotionally charged legal battle in B.C.’S top court, with potentially far-reaching implications for child autonomy, parental responsibility and freedom of expression.

In written arguments filed with the B.C. Court of Appeal, the father and his supporters take the position that a lower court delivered a “rush to judgment” in siding with his child, who as a minor is incapable of appreciating the potential consequences of a “still experimental treatment.” Further, they argue that previous court orders compelling the father to refer to his child using only male pronouns amount to “totalitarian interference.”

“The state cannot compel parents to forget their daughters and remember sons in their stead,” said a filing by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a conservative advocacy organization with intervener status in the case.

But the child, his mother and their supporters state in court filings that the father, together with anti-trans activists, have recklessly used him as an unwilling poster child in a campaign to promote “conservative gender ideology” and that the father has shown nothing but “disdain for judicial process” by repeatedly referring to him as female.

They argue that while the father may want to frame the case as a clash of rights, the focus needs to remain on what’s best for his child — and that B.C. law is settled regarding young people’s authority to decide on their own medical treatments.

“The law is clear that for the purposes of assessing informed consent ... a youth seeking gender affirming health care is to be treated — and must be treated — in the same way as any other youth seeking any other medical treatment,” states a filing from the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health, which also has intervener status.

It is now up to the B.C. appeal court to untangle these arguments, with hearings scheduled for next week. A publication ban prevents the media from identifying both family members and the health professionals who assessed the child.

The dispute started last year when the child, who has identified as male since age 11, was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and referred by a psychologist to the gender clinic at B.C. Children’s Hospital. The clinic concluded it was in the child’s best interests to proceed with hormone therapy to transition from a female body to a male one. The child and his mother signed a consent form that outlined the risks, including that testosterone treatment in young adolescents is still fairly new and “long-term effects are not fully known.”

The father went to court to try to block the treatment from proceeding, but in February B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden ruled that the child was “exclusively entitled” to consent to treatment under the B.C. Infants Act and that there should be no further delay, citing a previous suicide attempt.