Zealotry + Legal Mishaps for CD
First of all, let’s address the core issue of this case — legal incompetence and activist exploitation. The first thing I want to write about involves the behaviour of Counsel for CD, Corey Linde. The Decision of the LSBC finds him guilty of professional misconduct as follows:
you breached the terms of one or more of the orders made by the Honourable Mr. Justice Bowden on February 27, 2019 (the “Publication Ban”) and by the Honourable Madam Justice Marzari on April 15, 2019 (the “Anonymization Order” and the “Protection Order”)
you breached the terms of the order made by the Honourable Madam Justice Marzari on April 15, 2019 (the “Protection Order”)
you provided information about a person’s gender identity, physical and mental health, and mental health status or treatments, to an American media outlet during a recorded interview, when you knew or ought to have known that one or more of the terms of CD’s Release Order of April 30, 2021 prohibited CD, either directly or indirectly through a third party, from transmitting such information
The LSBC Panel dismissed Justice Tammen’s claims of the aggravating factor that CD targeted American media outlets for the purpose of speaking about the case, stating that Linde did not breach his obligation not to violate a publication ban by failing to secure a guarantee that the interviewer would honour the publication ban, and being clear to state the Panel did not condone Linde’s sloppy ethical behaviour.
The Appeals Court of the BC Supreme Court made a decision in the case against CD on Wednesday August 9, 2023. Contrary to what the right-wing media will tell you, the decision has nothing to do with parental rights, with family decision-making regarding consenting to puberty blockers + cross hormones, or with the current convention in public schools to engage in gender psychotherapy and transition children without parental agreement or knowledge. The decision has to do with CD having received poor legal advice, possibly because anti-trans activists preyed upon and exploited CD at a vulnerable personal time and influenced him to make less than wise choices about his response to his child’s situation. You can read for yourself the Summary from the decision below.
C.D. pleaded guilty to criminal contempt and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, 18 months’ probation and ordered to make a donation of $30,000 to a charity. Prior to the sentencing hearing, the Crown had offered to support a joint submission in favour of a sentence of 45 days’ imprisonment if C.D. agreed to plead guilty. Counsel for C.D., Mr. Linde, did not accept that offer, apparently hoping to obtain a conditional discharge and to avoid C.D.’s having a “criminal record”. Crown counsel advised Mr. Linde that a conviction of criminal contempt would not leave C.D. with a criminal record. During the sentencing hearing, the summary trial judge had given strong hints to the effect that in his view, a 45‑day period of imprisonment would be “woefully inadequate”.
At the hearing, Mr. Linde sought a conditional discharge, but withdrew that suggestion shortly thereafter. Crown counsel sought a sentence of 45 days’ imprisonment but made it clear there was no joint submission. Sentencing judge imposed the sentence described above. On appeal, C.D. argued that Mr. Linde had provided ineffective assistance of counsel and that ‘but for’ counsel’s refusing the Crown’s offer of a ‘plea deal’, C.D. would have been freed at the end of the hearing, without a record, having served almost 45 days in custody. “Fresh” evidence proferred by C.D. was unclear as to whether Mr. Linde had even discussed the Crown’s offer with his client.
Held: Appeal allowed. 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. SCC in R. v. Anthony‑Cook had imposed a very high threshold on sentencing courts for rejecting joint submissions. In this case, CA found that although the sentence of six months may well have been a fit one (in the absence of a joint submission), the failure of Mr. Linde to accept the Crown’s offer constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Finding that the high threshold described in Anthony‑Cook had not been met — i.e., that a 45‑day sentence would not have led reasonable members of the public to conclude that the criminal justice system had broken down — CA sentenced C.D. to “time served”, or effectively 45 days’ imprisonment, which would have led to his immediate release. In the absence of evidence concerning C.D.’s rights in respect of “crowdfunding” of $30,000 raised for C.D., and in the absence of evidence as to his ability to pay that amount, CA also deleted the requirement that C.D. make a donation of $30,000 to a charity. — Madam Justice Newbury
Gender Critical Activists or Adult Versions of Angelica Pickles?
I remember when Justice Tammen issued the arrest warrant for CD, I won’t link to that document because it has his name on it. I remember existing at the edge of the rage-farming vortex swirling around CD at that time. I remember wanting to like Chris Elston aka Billboard Chris and wanting to give him a fair chance to see what he could do because frankly Canada and the battle against gender self-ID had nothing to lose at that point. I did that, in defiance of their royal feminist majesties Meghan Murphy et al, even. This made me unpopular with the feminists, who only care about women whom they can control, who will obey their feminist fatwas.
Bad Hijabi will not obey any feminist fatwa.
Like him or not, Elston raised awareness. When Elston and the rest of the Gender Critical and Anti-Trans activists started publicly declaring support for Max Bernier, I decided I had reached the point of departure. I could not support anyone promoting Bernier as their leader of choice. As a someone old enough to remember why the man who calls himself Mad Max got expelled from cabinet, and as a Muslim and the daughter of a South Asian immigrant — I cannot sellout on mySelf for a silly tribe of rage farmers. In fact, Bernier has blocked me on Twitter, as has Chris Elston, (whose first sandwich boards I designed by the way), as has Meghan Murphy who decided early on no man is allowed to fight Gender Self ID unless she approves. I remember reading Jenn Smith’s Facebook posts about this ongoing court battle, and I remember reading Jessy Renney’s thoughtful post. Jenn Smith injected some sense into my head with his stern words regarding undermining the court’s publication ban and with his cynicism about Elston. To a degree I think that resentment hinges on some kind of perceived territorial claim and I don’t disagree with Jenn on much of his analysis regarding Elston and the zealotry of Gender Critical Christians. As far as I’m aware, Jenn was in the foster care system and did get transitioned through that system, I think that’s as good a claim to this work as anyone could have. Elston is an opportunist with a Trumpian fan-base.
I remember seeing the unhinged anti-trans activists latch onto CD in predacious fashion, so excited to have a new weapon in the fight to save kids from the Trans Boogeyman that they thought nothing of egregiously socially violating a child by splashing the deeply private details of that child’s personal and medical life across the pages of right wing American tabloids, where Canadian courts have no jurisdiction. You do not care about any child if you support this violation of privacy which some call free speech, you are a predator who should be prevented from having any contact with minors—straight up if, you support the right wing decision to violate the publication ban which protects AB.
CD and his team trusted the same people who championed Roy Cohn’s acolyte as POTUS. Dude, are you okay? I read the exposés about AB. It shocked me that adults would behave so irresponsibly about a child’s privacy. Do you think social rape helped this child’s state of mind and emotion? Yes, you are socially raping1 a child when you publish private details like I read. I will not repeat them and I will not tell you where I read that stuff. I began to rethink the people I believed I liked and knew. Smart people said nothing about anything even when they knew it was wrong, they kept their lips zipped, watching all manner of zealots descend on this family. Before that, watching Queen Meghan behave like she owned the Gender Critical movement, despite having no skin in the parenting game and hence, no clue either. GenderWang does not belong to feminists, it belongs to everyone because it is a dehumanising movement and all hands are needed on deck, not just the ones Meghan and her podcast sorority decide to allow.
Stupid things happen because smart people decide to stay quiet. Stupid things happened because egocentric people needed to control things + people. Smart things do not happen because the stupid sucks all the oxygen from the atmosphere. That lesson has become loud and clear and now exists as a perpetual 140 decibel screaming thought inside my brain.
Thus began my distancing from the poisonous core of this debate — at some point if you are still rational and self respecting you see Woke + Anti-Woke, Gender + Anti-Gender, Trans + Anti-Trans all as mirror-images of one another — the same behaviour on both sides, neither being a solution. And then you see the silent cowards watching all this lay out as useless biological waste. You may recall my recent articles about the equivalence of social pain and physical pain, that the human brain feels the pain of social wounds the way it feels the pain of physical wounds. The child in question was violated by a group of adults, you know, in a gang-style violation. As long as private information remains available online, that violation of that child is ongoing, making this a wide open in perpetuity violation of a child by a group of wilfully violating adults.
You can read the 2020 appeal decision containing case background information below.
Social pain = physical pain. Wrap your head around that. Ripping a child’s life wide open and telling all the private secret stuff for sport, well that’s like reaching inside that kid’s pants and taking what you want from them. A child was exploited. Period. The end does not justify the means. You do not care about child safeguarding when you violate a child’s privacy like was done in this case.
I will delete comments to this post that violate the child’s identity. Please respect boundaries even when they seem politically inconvenient for you. Freedom means responsibility. You are not safeguarding any child by violating their privacy. This case is NOT about you or your politics or your kid. Publishing confidential documents and information about a child is not going to help you get you gender critical slam dunk. Due Process exists. Use it.
Legal Timeline :: C.D. in BC Court
December 2018. CD filed an application to stop AB’s gender transition treatment.
January 2019. Hearing commenced without notice to AB, treatment ordered stopped until CD filed with Supreme Court.
February 2019. Proceedings commenced for AB and CD. AB declares under the Family Law Act the right to make own decisions regarding health care treatment under S. 17 of the Infant’s Act. AB requested short notice and a publication ban. CD filed a response to AB’s application and also filed a petition with the Supreme Court against AB and nine other parties. CD brought an application that asked the nine parties named be restrained from providing any advice or counsel in relation to the treatment, that they pass on any information they have about AB to CD, and that an interlocutory injunction be granted barring treatment until extensive evidence was heard on the merits of the treatment recommended for AB. CD requested his application be heard on short notice, with ABs. Justice Bowden granted ABs application and dismissed CD’s application. Bowden took the history of suicide attempt and the claim that transitioning relieves suicidal ideation as fact, since the defense made no reasonable legal attempt to dispute this at present in BC medically established fact.
I believe the anti-trans ideologues who descended on this case like vultures possibly tainted the opportunity that existed for a detailed evidentiary investigation into Gender Affirming Care — the stalling tactics and poor faith behaviour and the ongoing contempt of court r/t privacy breaches did not move the judge to see the motive as genuine parental skepticism. According to Bowden, mature minor jurisprudence has a well established foundation and need not be challenged. Mature minors do not require parental consent to transition and change vital statistics documentation, according to the BC Supreme Court. The publication ban did not include the doctor’s name.
April 2019. AB filed an application for a protection order under s. 138 of the Family Law Act. Justice Marzari determined AB to be an at risk family member and issued a protection order. Multiple breaches of the publication ban existed, with online cites Culture Guard and The Federalist. The Federalist published a copy of a medical document of ABs, unredacted for anonymity. AB requested that CD stop giving public statements, interviews, and comments about AB’s medical information. CD stated he felt is part of his parental right to violate AB’s privacy in order to make AB’s case publicly known as he had done in talking to media. Below is an excerpt from paragraph 35 of Justice Marzari’s Decision:
AB also says that over the course of the weekend, CD was unable to call AB by his chosen name or gender, and the visit ended prematurely and badly. The following Monday, CD wrote AB an email stating his love for AB but also blaming AB for CD’s inability to speak with AB or spend time with AB. For example, the email says “I am so sorry you have put me in this position,” and says that CD had to cancel planned summer vacation time with AB because CD is unable to comply with “your court ordered demands.” — Justice Marzari Decision
As of the writing of this piece a particular right wing american rag continues to assert that it’s right to free expression takes precedence over the right of a Canadian child to privacy regarding personal + medical + counselling information. As of the writing of this piece, a particular right wing american rag continues to assert that parental rights include the right of a parent to violate their mature minor child, to disregard their communicated wishes regarding disclosure of information.
July 2019. CD refiled his action as per Marzari’s ruling that he conform to Family Law standards and file it as a family law action. CD filed an application seeking production of "all medical, counselling or other health related files, records and documents regarding A.B.'s gender dysphoria.” The court dismissed his application as vexatious, and repetitive, merely repeating the same relief for an injunction against AB's treatment.
January 2020. CD files an Appeal. Several intervenors apply to intervene in the appeals of both Bowden and Marzari Orders. Protection Order changed to Conduct Order, on the ground that it polarises child and father unnecessarily to consider the father’s disagreement with his child’s transition family or parental violence. Terms of the publication ban remain unchanged, CD must still use the child’s preferred gender and pronouns and he can state his opinion about his disagreement without violating his child’s privacy.
Intervenors in this case.
Attorney General intervened on behalf of the Family Law Act
PHSA intervened on behalf of the Infant’s Act
Four parties intervene solely in relation to the Charter issues raised in this appeal:
Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF)
Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA)
(Egale)
West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund (West Coast LEAF)
The Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) intervenes on questions of informed consent in relation to transgender youth, as well as freedom of expression and the protection order.
March 2020. Justice Tammen refers the conduct of CD to BC Prosecution Services.
March 2021. Justice Tammen issues arrest warrant for CD.
April 2021. Justice Tammen charges CD with Contempt of Court, sentences CD to serve 6 months’ jail time and pay $30K to charity. Justice Willcock releases CD on bail pending the appeal of his Sentencing Decision.
August 2023. Justice Newbury issues her decision on the appeal of the April 16th, 2021 Sentencing Decision, C.D. pleads guilty to contempt and the sentence is time served, the fine of $30K has been removed because no accounting exists as to the existence of the crowdfunded money and C.D.s ability to pay the fine.
The Legal Issues
Shahdin Farsai, in her critique of the 2020 BCCA 11 Decision, wrote the following:
We spend days hearing experts in personal injury cases on whether one sustained a whiplash accompanied by pages of judicial ink. I cannot conceive of a more appropriate case than the one in the Decision worthy of a comprehensive hearing (better than a two day summary trial) and thorough judicial investigation.
The Court of Appeal could have interfered with Bowden J.´s discretionary order and found an error of principle such that he did not give weight to all relevant considerations: Island Savings Credit Union v. Brunner, 2016 BCCA 308, para. 10.
It’s stunning when you see it happen before your eyes, isn’t it? And yet it really should not surprise us that we spend more judicial time and ink on that personal injury claim than on whether or not a child with a significant trauma history that includes parental marriage breakdown can consent to pubertal suppression and cross sex hormones. In particular a female child faces a great deal of risk in the case of extremely high doses of androgen steroid for a lifetime, testosterone is a poison to the female reproductive track, not to mention that it is a teratogen. How is it that Bowden did not consider more carefully the matter at hand? How is it that the appellate judges did not? Don’t judges have a wide breadth of knowledge and research staff to keep them abreast of issues? How can a Justice exercise the parens patriae responsibility without knowing what risk he has served upon this child for life? Who is telling parents and the court that Lupron is a suicide prophylaxis? This is a lie.
Europe has conducted extensive systematic review of pediatric gender affirming care, which is a fancy euphemism for sex change of children who exhibit behaviour that veers from the expected norm, such as gay and autistic kids. Keira Bell launched a challenge in the UK, which failed, however clinicians blew the whistle, and ultimately the combined pressure of both triggered a review of GIDS and closure Tavistock. The Dutch clinicians who created the protocol everyone cites as evidence have come out in criticism of the way activist doctors have misused their research to promote the monstrosity that exists in the Gender Clinic industry. Finland and Sweden have stopped pediatric sex changes. The Americans have finally begun to do a systematic review. WPATH has no scientific foundation and it has no binding authority — why is Canada following these guidelines?
High doses of testosterone increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, liver failure and stroke and heart disease. Testosterone activates the HPA axis, young women in distress initially feel this as a mood elevator, akin to a stimulant drug. High testosterone levels create aggression and suppress expression of emotion such as tears and sadness. What does this toxic suppression do to the female physiology over the long term? Shadhin writes, Pursuant to the Decision, a court without any contrary medical evidence to that of the minor is then left with no other option than to give approval in all cases. In this scenario, the legislation is rendered meaningless and the health care professional can rest easy with (some) insurance against a future legal action in negligence.
This raises a valid point. Does this proceeding prevent AB from ever seeking legal action for negligence in the future? Does it make the Justice culpable for consenting to what any reasonable professional ought to know is harmful? CD did petition the court with evidence and concerns to shed light on the issue of gender affirming care. Bowden mentions this in paragraph 39 of his Decision. Yet, in all the time that has lapsed since this Decision, no one in the public eye has thoughtfully asked because the ideologues have decided to sensationalise discourse instead of solve the dilemma before us. The cult parental rights has injected more social toxin into the mix. CD believed parental rights entitled him to spread private information about his kid to the world. CD has parental rights in relation to his co-parent, not to the state and not so that he can violate his kid’s privacy.
“this case required far more time to do justice, and the court was empowered to correct this”
Whilst I understand parents’ dilemma, I object to the framing of parental rights because it centres adults and not the child. You can still make a strong case for child-parent attachment and for prioritising attachment orientation over peer orientation without making it about parents’ rights over children as their chattel. Parental rights sounds like kids are chattel—it sounds repugnant and sh1tty and egocentric. You compromise a child’s safety, you do not increase it, by violating that child’s personal and medical privacy. If you as an adult cannot grasp that important point then you cannot be involved in their lives. This is not about parents and what they want. It is about the child’s safety.
The bottom line in all of this is that Joel Bakan and Gordon Neufeld warned parents nearly a decade ago about childhood under siege and holding on to our kids We are living what they warned us about! Kids turn to whomever they deem safest, parents are mad and hurt that kids do not turn to them about their perceived gender confusion. That is the wound parents feel now — the detachment of their children which has happened over a long period of time slowly, culturally. Three month ago I wrote about this phenomenon in my Substack where I write and think about parenting stuff.
Back to Shahdin’s critique of the Bowden Decision to let AB’s treatment consent stand. I agree with her in her analysis of the purpose of parens patriae.
In obiter, Huddart J. explained that neither the common law nor the statute can interfere with the parens patriae jurisdiction of the court, which may override the minor´s treatment decision by the court acting under its parens patriae jurisdiction (p. 146). Her position was affirmed in Van Mol (Guardian ad Litem of) v. Ashmore (1999), 1999 BCCA 6 (CanLII), 168 D.L.R. (4th) 637 and in B. (S.J.) v. British Columbia (Director of Child, Family and Community Service), 2005 BCSC 573. I am unable to find binding authority in BC that clearly states where a mature minor provides “informed consent” to treatment, the Court´s parens patriae jurisdiction is promptly ousted.
I suggest that even if there was informed consent in the Decision (which I argue was not), the court has to take a real hard look at whether s. 17(3)(b) is made out, despite a clinician’s conclusion that it is. The court must ask “is this treatment in the child’s best interests on the whole of the evidence?” In other words, “what would the court do in the circumstances a wise parent acting for the true interests of the child would or ought to do?”[i] If the court does not have the whole of the evidence, it is empowered to seek it.
I didn’t spend a great deal of time in paediatrics beyond my clinical nursing rotation, however I do recall observing a fundamental underlying tension between medicals and parents. It defines paediatric care and it also cultivates the terrain and atmosphere for the care provision. I see the current dilemma surrounding paediatric gender medicine as an extension of this existential tension between professionals and parents. Did Justice Bowden act in the best interest of AB? What did constitute the Court’s duty to AB? Was it simply to grant the child her whim for gender affirming care? Was it to fulfill section 17 of the Infants Act? You can see below the criteria that must be met to consent to medical treatment in a parens patriae capacity. Did Bowden satisfy the criteria beyond a reasonable doubt that the treatment is in AB’s best interest? Surely a Justice who barely knows the child and who considers only the expert advisers with known authoritarian and anti-parent biases does NOT know better than a concerned dad, even if that dad behaves in a reckless and misguided manner?
To continue with Shahdin’s critique.
In sum, the court should have heard from medical experts saying that the treatment is and is not in the minor’s best interests. Given the recent and sharp rise in gender dysphoria, there is no expert clinical consensus regarding the treatment of prepubescent children who meet the diagnostic criteria and the long term effects of the treatments.[v] So if the court is faced with vastly divergent medical opinion, they could find s. 17(3) has not been met because a minor cannot be reasonably informed. Or if we attain better clinical consensus, the court can feel confident that treatment can be safely pursued.
I note that a lot of the medical literature consistently reports that approximately 85% of gender dysphoria cases resolve without medical intervention as the minor moves through puberty into adulthood.
Now let’s look at the support for Bowden’s Decision. Pat Shannon, writing for the AB Bar Association, notes that the Honourable Mr. Justice Bowden found that A.B.’s father was being “somewhat disingenuous” … suspected that the father’s true motive was not to obtain a more fulsome hearing, but rather to prevent his son from transitioning now or in the future. What’s interesting is that we have people who claim to be educated and intelligent letting an emotionally disturbed child with a dissociated disorder make profound life-altering and irresponsible health care choices. What’s interesting is we have people who think parent safeguarding and skepticism equals hatred and abuse. I want to remember this case in the future, to remind Bowden and the rest of the mindless muppets that they literally lost their minds to a cult of eugenics.
Trans Rights BC gives a dumbed down account of the AB case for its audience. Basically this movement is an anti-parent movement of peer orientation that seeks to undermine natural lines of attachment at every turn and hence weaken vulnerable children by detaching them from the brains and parental attachments. Remember that Gender Affirming Care is a euphemism for chemically lobotomising the hypothalamus and pituitary. Jadine Lannon writes for the BC Bar Association about the AB case being a victory against transphobia, because, again, the trans lobby is fundamentally misanthropic and harbours particular contempt for parents and will do anything to thwart any parent attempt to guard their child from a life of unnecessary medical dependence related to iatrogenic harm caused by Mengelian clinicians and their eugenic cheerleaders. Egale intervened and the Factum is a compilation of horsesh1t about parental abuse not being free speech. Because that’s what Egale saw, the pronouns and the identity, not the parents being told their child does exist anymore and they need to just accept that and move on without questioning or reacting. Remember that parents of kids who decide to undergo sex change have effectively lost their child, it is not hateful to acknowledge the profound loss that transition culture causes families.
Torkin Manes, LLP writing for the National Post and Lexocology, concludes that, the message is clear: when a child is able to form and give their consent to treatment, their decision must be respected, even if that decision is at odds with a parent’s beliefs and wishes. Ok, that’s lovely Torkin, did you bother to acquaint yourself with the particular issues at hand in this particular health care decision? Torkin, can you tell me why you think taking a Hazardous Drug that lobotomises the hypothalamus and the pituitary and blocks neuronal growth and pruning will help AB? Can you tell me why you think an experimental treatment regimen that has many known associated harms and that has no proven efficacy for ABs medical issue is the right choice for AB? Can you tell me why you think activist medical professionals should be able to use the Court to force eugenic treatment of emotionally distressed children? Do you honestly think a sex change is the best treatment option for a child with this psychological and family attachment profile? Why do you think that, Torkin?
Why does the trans lobby believe it knows better than John Geuriguian, MD, an FDA investigator and professor of pharmacy? Dr. Geuriguian strongly advised in his 2008 expert report that Lupron should be removed from the market because the harm outweighs the benefit. Why do activist lawyers think they know better than Miriam Grossman, a veteran MD? The anti-natalists have really been triggered by parents rising up to safeguard their kids.
Morgane Oger believes that the Bowden Decision met the criteria set out in section 17 of the Infants Act. Clearly wrong, you can refer to my discussion of Shahdin’s expert legal critique above. Shahdin is the expert, being a Magna Cum Laude graduate of law school, so I will go with her thorough analysis. But okay Morgane had an opinion about transitioning someone else’s kid because of course lived experienced is the only expertise that matters. *Rolls eyes*
West Coast LEAF intervened in the case. Also apparently anti-parent, this organisation supports the Court’s essentially rubber stamping of activist health care professionals with a known anti-parent and pro-eugenic bias. Foolishly, West Coast LEAF claims that, the court consenting in its parens patriae capacity and against a parent’s will to experimental treatment for which no evidence of efficacy exists, promotes A.B.’s rights to self-determination, autonomy, and equality. Can anyone from West Coast LEAF explain how lobotomising the hypothalamus promotes an emotionally distubed child’s self-determination, autonomy and equality? How can you have autonomy when adults have damaged your brain by consenting to harmful experimental medical treatment on your behalf because they hated your parents? How can you have equality when the system you are being raised in hates your parents and wants you to be detached from them?
That is the question no one wants to ask and I just asked it.
I have demonstrated elsewhere that social pain is equivalent to physical pain in its distressing nature and perceived harm, from a brain perspective. Violating an adolescent socially therefore, creates a painful violation that is felt as a violation privacy the same as a physical violation creates pain. I see this as a social gang rape of this child, whose painfully private details got published by zealots.
RS: "I did that, in defiance of their royal feminist majesties Meghan Murphy et al, even."
👍🙂 She has her good points, and she even recently conceded that maybe, just maybe, feminism has contributed substantially to the whole transgender clusterfuck. But still seems rather "dogmatic" on various aspects of the issue -- and no few others.
RS: "... at some point if you are still rational and self respecting you see Woke + Anti-Woke, Gender + Anti-Gender, Trans + Anti-Trans all as mirror-images of one another — the same behaviour on both sides, neither being a solution ..."
Amen to that; pots and kettles; a pox on both their houses:
George: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11670-the-creatures-outside-looked-from-pig-to-man-and-from
More or less in any case.
"When elephants fight it's the grass that suffers." Particularly when a varying number of premises on both sides are rather less than water-tight. Little better than "conventional wisdom" and articles of faith.
But quite a thorough analysis of the case, at least on something less than the full reading that it deserves.
Though, en passant, I think you need to at least put "sex change" in quotes since nothing of the sort is taking place. Unless you subscribe the Kindergarten Cop definitions (KC): boys have penises and girls have vaginas. "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄
Though Christopher Rufo does likewise, but he rather clearly thinks that the KC definitions are, in fact, what the great unwashed -- at least among his Republican base -- think is the case:
https://substack.com/profile/21792752-steersman/note/c-16193243
Wonder how he will deal with the definitions endorsed by the State of Oklahoma:
KJRH: "For example, the Order defines 'female' as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova. 'Male' is defined as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female."
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/gov-stitt-signs-womens-bill-of-rights-through-executive-order
Still not the standard biological definitions endorsed by reputable journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries -- little better than folk-biology in fact. But arguably, something of a step in the right direction. Given those (less than perfect) definitions, I rather doubt Christopher, or his fellow travelers, would be capable of arguing, or would be so clueless to as to argue, that such "sex change operations" have actually replaced one type of reproductive system with the other one.