Mick Hartley

The case of Canadian nurse Amy Hamm, from Eva Kurilova at Reduxx:

In November of 2020, Hamm had been informed by the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) that she was under investigation for her “off-duty conduct.”

Two members of the public – neither of whom were Hamm’s patients – had complained, essentially, that she was a “transphobe.”

Despite Hamm’s flawless track record and her history working with transgender patients over the course of her decade-long career, the BCCNM took the random complaints seriously. Six months later, Hamm was sent a document over 300-pages in length detailing dubious “evidence” of her transphobia in the form of her published articles and posts on social media.

Hamm is an advocate for women’s single-sex spaces, and has been involved in the Canadian iteration of the debate around gender ideology – the idea that one’s self-declared “gender identity” is more important than their biological sex. BCCNM took the position that Hamm’s personal views made her unfit to be a nurse.

At the disciplinary hearing:

It all kicked off on day one when BCCNM legal counsel Michael Seaborn (who displays he/him pronouns next to his name, like the rest of the BCCNM legal team) declared that insisting there are only two sexes denies the very existence of transgender people.

The BCCNM contends that, as a regulated professional, Hamm is not allowed to make such basic, factually accurate statements.

The next day, the BCCNM called on its first expert witness, Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, who is the Director of the University of British Columbia School of Nursing and a member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which recently decided that a man who castrates himself as part of a sexual fetish is a gender identity.

One of the highlights of Saewyc’s testimony was when she had great trouble (or, at least, pretended to have great trouble) understanding that lesbians are females attracted to other females. In fact, she opined that it might be transphobic for a lesbian to openly state her exclusive interest in other females.

The next witness for the BCCNM was Dr. Greta Bauer, a Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. Bauer is also a member of WPATH.

Bauer continued to present ludicrous ideas about sex and gender identity as if they were universally accepted and unquestioned.

She spoke confidently about toddlers having gender identities and people changing sex over the course of their life. At the same time, she was unable to define terms like “gender,” “sex,” “women,” and “female.” …

Like Saewyc, Bauer did not agree that lesbians are females who are exclusively attracted to other females. She said that lesbians should examine why they are not attracted to men who identify as women and likened sexual orientation to sexual racial preferences.

Bauer also dismissed concerns about the potential harms of placing trans-identified male prisoners, many of them sex offenders, into women’s prisons. She hand-waved away the suggestion that this situation may create an unacceptable level of risk by saying that “cisgender” women assault each other in prison as well.

On the topic of gender-affirming medical procedures for minors, Bauer stated that it would be transphobic to question any of the extreme and experimental interventions that are being performed.

It's hopeless. Oh Canada…

On day 10 of the hearing, Karen Bastow, legal counsel for Hamm, reiterated that what is taking place is not a negligence case but a free speech case. She stressed that Hamm’s speech is protected by her charter right of freedom of expression.

Opposing counsel Findlay made it clear that the BCCNM cares nothing for Hamm’s charter rights by launching into a description of how Canadian institutions have been completely captured by gender identity ideology as if this is a positive and desirable state of affairs.

“A transgender youth in Canada, or an adult for that matter, may discover their identity as transgender and, when they do, they find it in the context of a medical and a legal system and an educational system that recognizes and understands, accepts, and assists with their identity as transgender people. The schools teach it, the doctors practice it, the nurses care with it.”

She concluded, “there is no debate here. Here, the debate is settled.”

Apparently so. Apart from a few brave souls like Amy Hamm.