Immolation of Parental Rights: How a BC Father’s Arrest Showed the Extremes of Trans Ideology

Written By Jenn Smith, Posted on April 8, 2021

Immolating Parental Rights and Overruling Truth: How the Jailing of a BC Father Shows the Extremes of Transgender Ideology and the Failure of the Media

Abstract: There are important parallels between the 1963 case of the self-immolation of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức and the recent case in British Columbia (2021) of a father who was forced against his will by the court and the state to facilitate the pharmaceutical “sex reassignment” of his teenage daughter. Both cases speak to the desperation of people whose rights were trampled by an invasive all-powerful state and who were ignored by an indifferent and corrupt establishment beholden media.

A Strange and Distant Memory.

“[Civil Disobedience] seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

The story of Thích Quảng Đức and the now infamous photograph taken by Malcom Browne of his shocking act of self-immolation during the Vietnam War has fascinated me from the first moment I saw it. The photo (see below) shows Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk, who lit himself on fire as part of a planned political protest at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963. It was truly one of the most visually and emotionally stunning media events of the 20th century. Then-President John F. Kennedy, who would only live another five months himself, said of the photo, “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world.” Unfortunately, the Vietnam War would produce many other startling photographs before it was over.

(Photo taken by Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne, on June 11, 1963, Saigon, South Vietnam.)

(Photo taken by Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne, on June 11, 1963, Saigon, South Vietnam.)

While many disturbing images came out of the Vietnam War, there was something unique and disturbingly surreal about the Quảng Đức image and what it represented. Unlike few other images in human history, the image of Quảng Đức sitting calmly in the middle of an inferno of his own creation caused much of the world to stop and look. Other now famous images from that era, almost without exception, portrayed things being done to somebody, in this case it was somebody doing something terrible to himself. The impact of this photo globally was overwhelming. For a moment people all around the world simultaneously put their hands on their mouths and went silent. What brings a man to do something so horrific to himself and yet with such apparent calm lucidity?

One of the few reporters that bothered to attend the event, David Halberstam of the New York Times, wrote “I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think … As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.”

Why would somebody light themselves on fire for a political cause? What could possibly justify such an extreme act of self-destruction? Who was this person and what motivated him?

In order to understand the case of Thich Quảng Đức and how it relates to the case I am involved with today in British Columbia, you must understand the political landscape upon which it transpired. Quảng Đức and his fellow monks had been trying desperately for some time to get a corrupt and seemingly indifferent global media to focus on the religious oppression of Buddhists in Vietnam by the Catholic-dominated Diem government. A ban on the flying of religious flags led to a large protest by Buddhists in the city of Huế on May 8, 1963. Some nine thousand people attended the protest which was eventually rocked by an explosion of uncertain origin followed by police and military opening fire on the crowd, killing 9 and wounding many others, including two children who were crushed underneath the wheels of government armored personnel carriers.

(Buddhist protestors in South Vietnam in 1963 during the so-called “Buddhist Crisis” that led to the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức.)

(Buddhist protestors in South Vietnam in 1963 during the so-called “Buddhist Crisis” that led to the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức.)

The government blamed the Huế massacre on the Vietcong and the global media either ignored or failed to give the event the attention it deserved. The US ambassador to South Vietnam sided with the Diem government and called government explanations “objective, accurate, and fair,” which was repeated by much of the global media.

The dishonesty and/indifference of the media and government became a very pressing and frustrating problem for the Buddhists of Vietnam. The government was now openly slaughtering Buddhist protestors and the media was either ignoring or spinning it in favor of the government. Indeed, the aforementioned David Halberstam of the New York Times, who would be one of the few journalists to attend the press gathering in Saigon on June 11, had himself subtly implied that the Hue protest might be linked to Communists and that the casualties were caused by an agent provocateur in the crowd rather than government forces.

How could Buddhists get a largely indifferent media to give their situation the attention it deserved? The problem, of course, was solved quite dramatically, but it was not a spontaneous event and only a handful of international reporters were in attendance that day.

The self-immolation of Quảng Đức was part of a strategic plan to force the international media to pay attention. If you look at the photo closely you will see other monks with cameras walking around. This event was carefully staged. The plan did work, the world media did pay attention because it was hard to ignore something so dramatic as a man lighting himself on fire in order to protest injustice. Several copycats immolated themselves later that year as well but did not get the same level of attention and in fact, led to one official in Vietnam saying that she would “clap [my] hands at seeing another monk barbecue show.” The flippant attitude was not shared by the rest of the world, and Quảng Đức’s sacrifice ultimately set off a chain of events that led to the end of the Diem government, but one must understand the key to this event was that it forced the global media to pay attention, and that was what caused a shift in public opinion and ultimately helped bring about change.

The story of Thích Quảng Đức returns to me again today because, ironically, a case I have been a part of in British Columbia (BC), Canada, shares some of the same basic features — although not as extreme or visually startling in its outcome as the case of Quảng Đức, the case of a father that has become known by the pseudonym of “Clark Kent” and referred to in court documents under the anonymized initials of “CD”, and who was forced to facilitate the pharmaceutical “sex reassignment” of his daughter against his will and his reaction to that, raises many of the same questions and points to some of the very same motivations and answers.

The Rise of Transgender Ideology and It’s Resistance.

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest – forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”
– Hannah Arendt

On March 20, 2021, my phone rang and I was immediately greeted by a recorded message from a British Columbia (BC) remand correctional facility, essentially a jail that holds prisoners until they can face trial. A disclaimer was read to me that the call would be recorded and subject to review. I had to agree to the terms before the call would be connected. I did so and the voice of a man I had first met in December of 2018 said, “hello, Jenn?”

It was a surreal experience for me because I knew the man well and I knew he was no threat to anybody, and yet here he was calling me from inside a jail. While it had happened sooner than expected, I was in fact not entirely surprised that this tragic situation had finally come to pass, as I had seen it coming for some time. But to understand the travesty and tragedy that has occurred in British Columbia today — which should echo through the corridors of every legislature and courtroom in the world — I will need to take the reader back to the start for a brief summary of how the now-infamous case of AB v CD came to pass and my direct involvement in it.

A Brief Backgrounder.

First, for readers that may not be familiar with this case or who I am. I should begin by providing some brief background information, not only on this case but on myself as well and the cause I have been fighting for, as I have been directly involved in this story since before it was in front of any judge, and I indeed wrote the very first story on this case in December of 2018. While I do not want to get too deep into all the complicated details, I believe this to be one of the most important legal and political causes in the world today and as such, it deserves some due space and attention.

The case of AB v CD points not only to the most concerning elements of modern transgender ideology and politics but to the complete failure of both the fourth and fifth estates (the media) in alerting the public to injustice and defending the truth. The act of desperation that ultimately transpired in the case of AB v CD can be shown to have been fueled by the same basic frustrations and forces that drove Thích Quảng Đức to his act of desperation almost six decades ago, but that will be illustrated in due time.

I am a 56-year-old transgender-identified activist. I am male. I present to the world in sometimes androgynous and sometimes feminine ways, but I have never claimed my presentation does or could ever change my sex. While it may be true that at one point I wanted to be a female, I was never able to get to the level of physical reality denial that is necessary to reject one’s biological sex, so I settled for playing the gender role without denying reality or insisting others do so. I am okay with just being male and being transgender, with “transgender” simply referring to a pattern of behavior. I believe this is the only healthy way to express transgender identity, not only for oneself, but for society as well, and the following story will illustrate for you the dangers of doing otherwise. We can play any part we want in this world but for the sake of everybody (including ourselves), we must always remain tethered to truth, particularly when it comes to law and the education of our youth.

I became involved in the political debate regarding transgender issues almost four years ago when I began using my academic background to research and write articles critical of what I call “the transgender agenda,” namely, this shift we have seen in society towards claiming males can be females (and visa versa), and the concerning indoctrination and confusion of our children in that process, not to mention the disturbing totalitarian undertones that seem to be driving it and which I discussed in my widely read essay Synanon, the Brainwashing “Game,” and Modern Transgender Activism.

(Photo from CTV News)

(Photo from CTV News)

Being transgender myself, I of course have never opposed the right for adults to dress or express as they like in the world, but I believe there are too many pressures and confusions associated with this behavior for minors to fully process and understand, as such I have always maintained that changing gender is something best reserved for adults. I further believe that particularly the medical or pharmaceutical transitioning (“sex reassignment”) of minors should be illegal because it has permanent life-altering consequences. I regard the mass chemical sterilization of our youth via the use of “gender-affirming” drugs as a kind of medical crime, particularly when you understand the demographics of the youths identifying as transgender.

There has been a massive increase in the number of minors identifying as transgender over the last five or six years. This fact on its own is cause for serious concern, but it becomes even more alarming when you begin analyzing just what children are identifying as transgender. According to one study, 52% of “gender dysphoric” youths (minors identifying as the opposite sex) had one or more DSM-listed psychiatric conditions in addition to gender dysphoria. Numerous other studies have made the same basic findings, in other words, these are psychologically troubled youths.

Studies will vary, but researchers testing gender dysphoric youths have reported autism spectrum disorder prevalence at rates ranging from 8% at the low end to a staggering 54.2% at the high end. These numbers however do not become alarming until you realize that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in the general population is estimated by the CDC to be 1.7%. For autism rates in transgender youths to average around 30% or even 8% should be shocking to all thinking adults. No serious person would suggest gender dysphoria causes autism, and the only reasonable answer is that these are psychologically vulnerable children that are falling victim to what is essentially a predatory ideology that turns them into lifelong pharmaceutical customers. But it gets even worse than this.

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I was a foster child in the province of British Columbia (BC) during the 1970s and went through multiple different homes, and I was thus horrified to learn that BC’s leading gender specialist suggested that half of his 1000 minor patients came from the BC Ministry of Child and Family Development, in other words foster children and youths otherwise in the care of the Ministry. While we will not know how those numbers break down with certainty until we can get the subpoenaing power of a National Inquiry which I have been pushing for now for two years, I found this information highly alarming and it has made this subject extraordinarily personal for me.

The Province of British Columbia had around 6500 youths in its care at the time that this information was released, this therefore suggests that as much as 7.7% of all youths in government care in BC are being treated as “gender dysphoric” (transgender) and under the care of just one doctor. There are many doctors that deal with such youths thus it is reasonable to assume that as many as 1 in 10 youths in government care may be identifying as transgender, compared to just over 1 in 200 in the general population. This is a startling number. Once again it appears as if a highly traumatized and vulnerable population of youths are falling victim to the predatory dragon of transgender ideology. But it gets even worse when you realize 52% of youths in government care are indigenous, which summons memories of Canada’s dark history of deliberately sterilizing aboriginal youths.

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As an activist I have been trying desperately for four years to raise awareness in Canada to these alarming facts and to the role our schools have been playing in terms of confusing the gender identity of children (via programs such as SOGI 123 and other similar programs around the world) and putting many of them on a path towards becoming lifelong pharmaceutical customers, which can result in permanent damage to their bodies (including sterilization). I have given countless public talks now explaining how our most vulnerable children are being led astray by junk, conflict of interest-riddled big pharma-funded science, and driven by aggressive LGBT activists who have portrayed my efforts to protect children as somehow indicative of “bigotry” or even (ridiculously) “transphobia,” while they in the same breath portray the chemical sterilization of children as a good thing.

By late 2018 I had been trying to raise awareness to all this for almost two years and had published widely on the subject, and in the spring and summer of 2018 I had been specifically warning residents of British Columbia that the BC Infant’s Act and guidelines from local health authorities now allowed for the trampling of parental rights and the transitioning of children against a parent’s wishes. I will not rehash all of the details of this now as I have written about it previously, but my opponents at that time called me a “fear monger” and that the government would never trample parental rights in order to medically transition a minor. I was unaware at that time that a case in 2016 had already made reference to the Infant’s Act, but that fact was not reported in the media and was unknown to the general public until I acquired and published court documents from the case. But as of late 2018 there was still no publicly documented use of the Infant’s Act overruling parental rights in order to medically transition a child. That was about to change.

AB v CD and all its peculiarities from day one.

In early December of 2018 I was contacted by then Conservative Party of Canada candidate nominee Angelina Ireland. Ireland had read my recent article in the Post-Millennial entitled The Pied Pipers of Gender Ideology in which I went over some of the more startling aspects of modern transgender ideology and how it targets and effects children and adolescents.  That op-ed was written in response to Tanya Granic Allen’s struggles trying to keep gender ideology out of Ontario schools. Knowing my activism in this regard and the fact I was a writer, Angelina told me about a father she knew that was resisting his daughter’s pharmaceutical “sex reassignment” to a “boy” and had apparently been told by the BC Children’s Hospital that he, as a parent, had no say in whether or not his child could begin testosterone therapy, a procedure that would totally alter her appearance and life. When I learned of his case I acted immediately as I knew this was almost certainly proof of what I had been warning people about.

Angelina and I went to the man’s place in Delta BC where I was greeted at the door by his large Irish Setter, a friendly dog but apparently oblivious to the fact that in jumping up on me and dragging his claws across my chest he was in danger of stripping from my neck the large number of chains I was wearing and hence turning me into an instant Irish Setter hater (despite my Irish ancestry). Fortunately the calamity was avoided, my chains survived, and love and peace between myself and the dog was preserved.

Transgender Activist and writer Jenn Smith, bottom right sitting on a chair, posing with the members of UBC Students for Freedom of Expression, and sporting one of his now-famous collections of neck ornaments that CD’s dog nearly violently removed. …

Transgender Activist and writer Jenn Smith, bottom right sitting on a chair, posing with the members of UBC Students for Freedom of Expression, and sporting one of his now-famous collections of neck ornaments that CD’s dog nearly violently removed. The UBCSFE hosted Smith’s appearance on campus after UBC administration tried to set up guidelines to prevent persons such as Jenn from speaking on campus.

Once inside I met the man, who has come to be known in BC as “Clark” or more commonly as “CD” (an anonymized set of initials assigned to him by the court in order to hide the identity of the family), although that moniker would not be assigned to him until a few months later when the court placed publication bans on the case to protect the identity and private health info of the girl and the doctors. For the purposes of this article, I shall refer to him as CD, partially because I am still under court orders not to identify any of the parties involved, and with the exception of the doctors I do not contest those orders.

CD, a strapping middle-aged man, and former Grand Rapids university hockey player, told me that when he tried to intervene in his daughter’s decision to begin cross-sex hormones, he had been informed by the BC Children’s Hospital (BCCH) that he had no say in whether or not his daughter, whom the court has anonymized as “AB,” would be allowed to get the body and life-altering testosterone injections in order to make her look and sound more like a boy. Such changes would be irreversible and CD thus thought she should wait until she was an adult to make such a monumental decision.

I will not revisit all of the details of the exchanges between medical professionals and CD here as I discussed them at length in an article I wrote later that month for The Post-Millennial, and readers can review that story themselves for all of the minutiae. It was the first published story on the case anywhere and set off a chain reaction that would turn this story into a topic of discussion around the world (unfortunately mainly outside of Canada), but a brief summary is probably in order.

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AB’s story was one I have heard many times. She is just one of countless thousands of young girls over the last several years that has felt uncomfortable with the changes taking place in her body and the psychological pressures associated with not feeling like she fits in with her peers. After years of troubles with peers and romantic rejections, she began engaging in self harm, cutting, and consuming small amounts of poison, which led to her being taken to the hospital by her parents.

AB was a student at a school in Delta, British Columbia, that was surreptitiously hosting a pilot project for an educational resource/program now known as SOGI 123 (sexual orientation and gender identity), ostensibly billed as an anti-bullying program but which is designed as an all-pervasive (Kindergarten through Grade 12) curriculum saturating program that includes teaching children that “sex reassignment” and gender change is normal and should be celebrated. I have been a long time and vocal opponent of SOGI 123 and other such programs around the world arguing that materials presented in the program are deliberately confusing, particularly to our most vulnerable youths, and could result in schools essentially manufacturing transgender children and teens. AB’s case offers evidence to support my claim (as do other recent high profile cases in BC).

Herthel, Jessica,, Jazz Jennings, and Shelagh McNicholas. I Am Jazz! New York, New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2014. Screenshot from a recommended resource for SOGI 123 and other similar school programs globally, which is being read to kinde…

Herthel, Jessica,, Jazz Jennings, and Shelagh McNicholas. I Am Jazz! New York, New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2014. Screenshot from a recommended resource for SOGI 123 and other similar school programs globally, which is being read to kindergarten students before they reach what is known in cognitive psychological circles as Kohlberg’s “sex constancy”(later strangely renamed “gender constancy”), essentially the fact that children under the age of seven do not typically have the ability to understand that just because you dress like the opposite sex does not mean you become the opposite sex. To present children with such ideas before they have the capacity to understand you cannot just change clothes and change sex is professional negligence.

AB watched two films in class that were recommended as part of SOGI 123, one a documentary from Sweden and another entitled Handsome & Majestic which was filmed in BC, both slickly produced using emotional themes and music, and both featuring young girls suddenly identifying as boys, cutting off their hair to look like boys, and changing their names. After watching one of the films in class AB went home and cut off her long hair and began suggesting that she felt like a boy.

Contrary to popular opinion in local LGBT activist circles, CD was not an intolerant bigot. When he first learned of his daughter’s desire to transition he tried to understand and work with her as much as possible. He did not like the fact that the Delta School District had been working behind his back essentially brainwashing his daughter, nurturing and facilitating her new gender identity, and gave her a new male name, all without ever consulting him. But he did not openly oppose her social transition. In fact, he bought her a transgender flag, allowed her to use her new male name and dress like a boy, he did not even complain when she wanted to use one of the most controversial devices associated with feminine to masculine transition (which shall remain private, but it is important to mention as it indicates a strong level of tolerance by CD).

Unfortunately, AB had been referred to a Dr. I.J. (so anonymized by court order), BC’s leading child gender psychologist, who refers more minors to BCCH for cross-sex hormone therapy than any other psychologist in BC (although it should be noted he does not prescribe or give such treatments himself, he just performs the psychological evaluations and determines whether the patient is ready for the next step). The BC Children’s hospital knows this doctor well and thus regarded his recommendations as good as gold, they thus put her on fast track to receive testosterone injections. This is where CD drew the line, because he knew this procedure could sterilize his daughter for life and would permanently alter her body and voice (again, for a full description of negotiations between doctors etc, see my previous article).

An example of the dramatic and permanent changes testosterone can make for young women; the teen girl in this photo also had a double mastectomy to remove her breasts, something increasingly common, and you can see the scars from the procedure. CD w…

An example of the dramatic and permanent changes testosterone can make for young women; the teen girl in this photo also had a double mastectomy to remove her breasts, something increasingly common, and you can see the scars from the procedure. CD was also told, quite falsely, that his daughter would develop something akin to male genitals, but this is utter nonsense. Testosterone therapy can only affect secondary characteristics, it cannot change genitals or chromosomes. If you are born female you will always be female, hormone therapy and surgery can only make you look more masculine.

CD felt his daughter was going through a phase related to recent romantic rejections by young male teachers, and he felt he knew her far better than any psychologist or judge or doctor could, so he simply said, “no, for the medical and pharmaceutical stuff, you should wait until you are an adult.” He did not want to let emotional teenaged angst decisions lead her into doing something she might later seriously regret and not be able to come back from. And that is where his battle with Leviathan began.

CD’s battles with the establishment began in the form of a letter sent to him by the BC Children’s Hospital telling him that neither he nor his ex-wife had any say in his daughter’s decision to begin testosterone injections. The doctors and staff informed him that according to section.17 of the BC Infant’s Act they had deemed that his then 13 year old daughter was a “mature minor” “capable” of making the decision, and that the “right to consent to treatment belongs to the child alone… [and] the parent cannot veto that decision.”

Photos (redacted) taken by Angelina Ireland the day of our visit to CD’s home of the letter CD received from BCCH.

Photos (redacted) taken by Angelina Ireland the day of our visit to CD’s home of the letter CD received from BCCH.

CD was outraged by this and frankly had a hard time believing the hospital or the state had the power to override parental rights in this way. He immediately filed documents in court to stop the procedures, and agreed to a meeting with Angelina (who was a friend of his girlfriend) and myself as I was the leading opponent of child medical transitioning in Canada (please see my video call for government inquiries). At that time he was confident he would be able to overturn the decision in court, I laughed nervously and said I was not quite so confident. This led to over two years of court battles and a series of extreme and bizarre restrictions, that would eventually see me in the defendant’s chair as well.

Suffice it to say the court ruled that, consistent with the provisions of the BC Infant’s Act, the girl and the doctors had adequately shown that she had a right to begin the treatments without parental consent. Two years in court including appeals in BC’s highest court failed to change anything and resulted in publication bans being instituted to protect the identity of his daughter and her private health information, and, controversially, the identity of the doctors involved. In the latter case, the doctors had received death threats and cited a case in the US where an angry evangelical man murdered an abortion doctor. The court found their concerns to have merit and placed a publication ban on their names as well.

From Vietnam 1963 to the Transgender Debate in the New Millennium: Censorship, Disinformation, and Media Obfuscation.

During the Vietnam war, Thích Quảng Đức and his fellow Buddhist monks had basically the same problem that I had during my activism and which CD would encounter as well, at least in terms of the mainstream media in Canada. Despite massive efforts and countless attempts to draw media attention, the monks could not get corrupt intelligence-saturated media to pay attention to their plight. They had an important message about a real injustice, but the media would not cover it. Efforts to raise awareness to the mass sterilization of vulnerable children in Canada via the transgender agenda encountered similar indifference, hostility, and dishonesty from the media.

During my activism in Canada, which involved countless interactions and presentations to School Boards, battles with political leaders, public talks all over the province (some greeted by large demonstrations against me), time in Supreme Court and the Human Rights Tribunal, rallies staged on the steps of the legislature, and a push to get a national inquiry, I in that process dealt extensively with members of every kind of media: left establishment media, right establishment media, and alternative media left and right (including Christian media). I found almost all of these media sources to be either indifferent or outright hostile to covering the subject.

The largest right-leaning media newspaper chain in Canada, Postmedia, actually refused to publish ads for one of my talk tours as did the largest left-leaning media outlet in Canada, Black Press. Over and over again I and the people I was working with were either completely ignored by the media or totally misrepresented. Outright lies and fabrications were told about me and I was almost never interviewed myself, only my opponents were interviewed and whatever they said about me was treated as truth. As a bisexual transgender, I was called an anti-LGBT transphobic bigot for suggesting we should not be facilitating the sterilization of young people. Reporters over and over again failed to mention that I am transgender as if that detail made no difference when calling me a “transphobe,” and simply pretended I was some bigoted “cis” woman.

Five colleges and universities, including my alma mater Simon Fraser University, either cancelled or refused to host my talks. Two cities refused to rent facilities to me. After a small press event in Victoria where I called on the government to launch an inquiry into child “sex reassignment”, I was harassed afterward and chased down the street by what essentially constituted a kind of LGBT pitchfork mob, who ran at me and screamed for me to get out of town. It was just another of many bizarre episodes in which I, a transgender person, was demonized and run out of town by people promoting love and inclusion of transgender people. None of this was covered by any of the major media, right or left. I cannot possibly recount all of my battles with the media and this is not the place to do that now, but it is important to note that CD whom I remained in close contact with watched much of this from the sidelines as he fought for attention himself.

(ABOVE) Video footage from the chaos outside the capital city of BC by protestors that invaded Jenn Smith’s talk and got the event shut down. Media coverage afterward failed to mention Jenn is transgender and repeated accusations that Jenn promoted hatred, despite the fact that lawyers for the city desperately looking to cancel the talk had already determined there was nothing hateful in the presentations. The media did not report that nor any of the substance of the highly contentious talks.

Probably the best illustration of the frustration opponents of the transitioning of children have faced in Canada can be seen in my talk that happened at the University of British Columbia which CD watched with great interest as my talk included a large section on his case illustrating the assault on parental rights. Whereas five other universities and colleges had cancelled my talks, UBC had a very strong free speech policy and could not justify preventing my presentation on campus. As British Columbia’s leading university and probably the leading university in Canada in terms of promoting LGBT inclusive education and policies, various LGBT activist groups became highly agitated that I was speaking in what was essentially the intellectual center of SOGI 123 and LGBT education in Canada. Enormous pressure was brought to bear to try to cancel the event. The media was flooded with claims I was promoting hatred, completely absent of any evidence supporting the claims and ignoring contrary reports by legal experts. I was simply declared a bigot and not given a chance to respond.

UBC did make a last-minute attempt to thwart the talk, and that came in the form of two days prior to the event suddenly announcing they were tripling my security fee. They demanded $1250 for security within 24 hours or they would cancel the talk, this was on top of the already expensive rental costs for an event that had only a nominal $5 entrance fee in order to encourage attendance. Fortunately together with supporters and my co-sponsor Chris McCay we were able to get that money together and the talk went ahead. The night of the talk a large crowd of protestors and Antifa members once again swarmed the event, obstructed the entrance, and scared attendees away. The high-priced security actually let Antifa members into the talk who then of course proceeded to cause disruptions and pulled the fire alarm and emptied the building (you can see footage of the chaos at UBC in my Six Months of Madness documentary here). Shortly after my talk, the Vancouver Pride Society announced that they were ejecting the University of British Columbia from the 2019 Pride Parade for hosting my talk. The premier educational defender of LGBT rights and education in Canada was thus summarily ejected from the world-famous Vancouver Pride Parade all because they allowed a transgender speaker to talk on campus about the dangers of child medical transitioning.

The ejection of UBC from the Pride parade cause a firestorm of publicity all across Canada. What had happened? Why was UBC being treated this way? The Executive Director of the Pride Society outright lied and libeled me saying, “Jenn Smith is known to deliver hate speech and discriminatory talks,” and once again she failed to mention I am transgender myself. They said that because UBC had allowed an “anti-transgender” hate speaker on campus they had no choice but to eject UBC as an official participant in the parade.

Hundreds of media outlets all across Canada in print, radio, television, and streaming media addressed the story, and even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to be briefed on what had happened as a result of my talk so he could deal with media during his trip to BC. You would think of the hundreds of journalists across Canada that reported on UBC being ejected from the Pride Parade that at least some of them would have been interested in talking to the bisexual transgender speaker that caused this amazing event, but of all those hundreds of stories not one, not a single reporter or journalist, ever contacted me for an interview. Not one. It was all my opponents talking about me, and nobody talking to me, and more importantly nobody discussed the content of my talk. CD watched all this with dismay and could only shake his head because at that time he was just beginning his efforts to get media attention himself and was encountering similar resistance in Canada.

By 2020, together with Angelina Ireland, CD and I had come up with an idea to create a foundation named the Caenis Foundation to help parents and others deal with the pressures of trying to oppose the medical transitioning of minors (this idea has yet to be fully realized and remains embryonic). In this regard, we also began considering bringing our efforts together to apply pressure on the BC and Canadian governments to launch inquiries into the transitioning of minors, with particular reference to vulnerable minors including foster children. Later in 2020, I ran in the BC election against the BC Minister of Education in Victoria in an effort to challenge him regarding SOGI 123 and raise awareness of what was happening.

CD agreed to help with the election campaign by speaking at a talk I held at the Hilton Hotel in Victoria. But once again the media ignored these efforts. They ignored press releases announcing that the leading opponent of BC’s prized educational curriculum resource SOGI 123 was running against the Minister of Education. When it was announced that the father in the AB v CD case would be speaking in support of my run and telling his story at the luxurious Hilton Hotel, the press totally ignored that too, even though they were sent invitations and there was nothing else interesting going on in the campaign. I was not invited to all-candidate debates and was in fact deliberately excluded, I was listed last in newspapers and sometimes the only one without a photograph. In the initial announcements for candidates running in the election, the largest local newspaper listed me as running in a riding I was not running in and it took a week to get that corrected, meaning almost everybody that chose to use mail-in votes as an option did not even know what riding I was running in. My signs were vandalized and stolen, and Facebook inexplicably for no apparent reason suspended my Facebook account during the last and most important week of the campaign when I was trying to pressure the local candidates to include me in debates. Facebook was also where I did all of my advertising and I could no longer do that. I was the only candidate in the entire BC election that was not permitted to use Facebook during the campaign. Once again CD could only watch all this and shake his head.

Through 2019 and into 2020, while I was battling on the streets and in the proverbial trenches of the transgender culture war, CD was fighting his own battles in court where he was being dragged through a kind of extraordinarily taxing legalistic hell.  He would eventually come to accept the idea that his daughter was now his transgender “son” and that the medical transition was unlikely to be something he could stop, but he still felt an obligation to keep on fighting for his right as a parent to have input in that process. Mercifully he had the pro bono assistance of lawyer Carey Linde to do much of the heavy lifting for him, although their relationship, much like my relationship with CD was at times strained. So he saw himself continuing the fight not just for himself and his daughter but for other parents and other children as well. 

As mentioned earlier the court had implemented publication bans protecting the identities of the key persons involved in the case, not to prevent the media from being able to discuss the case and its details, but to make sure that if it was discussed in public that it was done so in a way that did not identify any of the protected parties, particularly the minor-aged girl, but also CD himself (as they shared a very distinctive last name) and the doctors. I personally never contested the publication bans on the girl’s name or the father’s, and even before the case had gone to court in December of 2018 when I published the first story with the Post Millennial I chose not to identify either the father or the daughter, but I did identify the doctors.  When the court issued publication bans on the doctors, I strongly objected to that, as these doctors were using tax dollars and were also active in shaping public policy around this issue, and as such, I felt they were fair game for full public scrutiny.

The court eventually switched its focus to trying to create peace within the family unit and getting CD to accept his child’s new identity as a “boy.” Justice Mazari, who was hearing the case at that time, was concerned that if CD repeatedly referred to his child using female pronouns and identifiers that this might hurt the child emotionally as she had been diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” ( a condition in which a person experiences emotional distress regarding their gender identity). He thus ordered that Cd should refrain from “addressing AB by his birth name; and [refrain from] referring to AB as a girl or with female pronouns whether to AB directly or to third parties.” CD himself avoided using pronouns with his daughter anyway in order to avoid offending her but at the same time, he wanted to avoid reinforcing what he thought was a kind of delusion or fantasy that she had changed sex. Periodically he would slip up and refer to her using feminine identifiers and this became a bone of contention in court.

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The judge became convinced that CD was deliberately misgendering AB in order to deny her identity and hence cause her emotional stress, therefore the judge suggested that any further behavior in this regard could be regarded as a form of “family violence.” This suggestion, however, was sent to the BC Court of Appeal who decisively struck down the order in April of 2019 and rejected the idea that such speech could be viewed as “family violence” and instead drafted a family “conduct order” which made the same order but within a much more limited family court context.

People need to understand that conduct orders are outside normal legal processes that must adhere to Charter of Rights provisions, much like behavior in private businesses does not allow for complete freedom of speech. If you say certain things at your work that would normally be protected by the Charter of Rights, you can still be fired if it is somehow deemed harmful to the functioning of the business. Family conduct orders are much the same in the sense that a father may, for instance, continually call his child overweight — a statement that might be true and that might in any other context be protected by freedom of expression/speech, but is prohibited within a family context in order to bring peace to the family and avoid harm to a child. Such orders have no force outside a family setting. It was in this context that the Court of Appeal approved a one year conduct order designed to stabilize the family and get CD to accept his child’s new identity and not harm her emotionally. It should be noted here, as there has been a lot of false information spread online, that Canada’s controversial Bill C16 had nothing to do with this ruling and in fact was not cited even once during the two years this case was in court. If ever a case was going to make reference to the controversial Bill C16 this case would have been it, but it was not cited even once.

In my opinion, both the lower court and the Appeals Court erred in ordering the use of pronouns; what they should have done was restrict the use of offensive pronouns (supposing they believed they were harmful). Now it has been maintained that this is indicative of a court that is biased in favor of transgender ideology, but while there may be some truth to this one must also allow for the fact that the courts like everybody else are struggling to deal with what is essentially a new phenomenon. The error made here was when the court decided to force the father to use male pronouns rather than simply forbidding him from using female pronouns, which was what he tried to do anyway.

The conservative media did look at this ever so briefly, but they seemed far more interested in chasing after Jessica Yaniv, a very strange but ultimately powerless transgender person that constituted a kind of traveling slapstick comedy show, attacking reporters with a cane, racing around on his electric scooter, and other absurdities, but having no real important implications for law and society, whereas the AB v CD case had enormous implications and barely got noticed by comparison.

Over-Ruling Truth and the Final failure of the Media.

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.”
– Philip K. Dick

Conduct orders have an automatic expiry after a one-year period. Thus by April of 2020 CD was no longer under conduct orders regarding the use of pronouns. But in early 2020 the fact Canadian mainstream media was ignoring his case convinced CD he needed to do whatever he could to promote the issue in whatever media would listen because aside from some small Canadian right media outlets, it was almost exclusively conservative media outlets in the US such as the Federalist who were covering the story. That needed to change. If we wanted to force change inside Canada, we needed to get Canadian media, ergo the Canadian public, to pay attention.

CD was allowed to talk about his case but he had to comply with anonymity orders protecting the identity of his daughter and the doctors. He did not do so. In February of 2020 CD worked with the Federalist and they published a major story that included photographs of his daughter and even her name. CD had referred Jeremiah Keenan to me and as such, I was in contact with him, but when I saw they were including the photos and information on the girl I got very upset and asked him to blur or obscure the photos of the girl, but he refused.

The Federalist story was just the first of a series of online interviews that violated the publication bans in one way or another. So many people were doing this that I in fact assumed there was no point trying to hide CD’s name anymore as it was all over the web and social media. I decided that I, as the leading opponent of a child transitioning in Canada and having been the one that broke his story initially, may as well interview him for my Youtube channel and made an announcement to that effect. Well this was a mistake because within 24 hours of making that announcement I received multiple notices from different lawyers informing me I had to appear in court within 48 hours on charges of violating publication bans. Christian TV evangelist turned online political commentator Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson was also brought into court for violating court orders as well as CD himself.

This situation seemed to me a very significant event, therefore we sent out press releases to all major media. This seemed a no-brainer in terms of media interest as we had a father forced to facilitate his daughter’s “sex reassignment” being accused of breaching court orders, a sensational TV Christian evangelist, and probably the leading opponent of transgender ideology in Canada who was himself, transgender, all on trial together in a remarkable case almost unheard of in legal history. At that time none of us had a lawyer, we were all representing ourselves against what seemed like a dozen high-paid lawyers for the girl, the government, and the doctors.

Media, nevertheless, was unresponsive for the most part, even the conservative media, despite a huge buzz on Social Media around the story. I filed an application to have the publication ban on the doctors set aside, and despite the absence of the media, nearly killed myself going virtually sleepless for days putting together a presentation showing connections between people, the enormity of public interest, and the need for people such as myself to be able to name names and connect dots publicly.

As a result of the flurry of interviews done with conservative media and Christian media, the day I did my 90-minute presentation to the court the courtroom was packed to capacity with mainly Christians, in fact, we had to move to a larger courtroom to fit everybody. It was quite a scene seldom seen in court. We were debating the right of a father to refer to a girl as a girl and speak the truth; we were debating the right of the public to know about the doctors involved in the forcible transition of the girl into a boy. In many ways, it was very reminiscent of Clarence Darrow’s so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial” (minus the defense lawyers) complete with a courtroom packed full of mainly Christians. You would think an honest media would be interested in that, but no such luck. What coverage there was, almost all foreign media, none of whom were present in the courtroom. Only one Canadian mainstream reporter from Postmedia showed up with a notepad.

In discussing the violations of the publication bans, the sitting judge, Justice Tammen, indicated that he wanted to talk to CD first. He of course berated him for violating publication bans but also raised the subject that he was apparently “deliberately” misgendering his child again and referring to her using female identifiers. CD explained that it was difficult for him to keep it straight in his head because he had raised her as a girl and knew she was a girl and thus it was automatic to use female identifiers. The judge was somewhat doubtful and suggested he thought maybe he was doing it deliberately to upset her, and he asked him for an assurance that he would not use female identifiers with her anymore but instead would use male pronouns (this was pursuant to the conduct orders which were set to expire a month later). I could see CD pause as the judge asked for his assurance. He seemed very uncomfortable. I could tell he did not want to give the guarantee but at the same time knew the judge had the power to throw the book at him for violations of publication bans, so he reluctantly agreed, but his reticence was palpable.

After CD sat down it was my turn. I was having a hard time processing what I had just seen and heard. I looked back at the large crowd in the court watching, then looked up at the judge and stood. My impression of the judge to that point was that because of my appearance he did not take me seriously. He was unaware of my academic background and public speaking experience. I was about to change his perceptions of me.

“I would like to predicate my statement by attempting to clarify something for the court,” I said, “some people and indeed the court may be confused as to why so many people keep violating the publication bans. The courtroom today has many Christians in it that I know have flagrantly violated the bans themselves. Why would Christians, who have a long history of respecting law and order, be so persistently violating the orders of the court? I know the answer to this question. Now I know your lordship has just taken on this case recently and that you did not make the orders that you are currently enforcing … I understand that. But I just watched the court berating a father for speaking the truth and demanding that he speak lies. George Orwell once said the ultimate act of a totalitarian state is in its ability to force its citizens to speak lies. The problem we are facing now relates to this very fact. The court has in this case untethered itself from truth and is now demanding its citizens to speak lies. This is absolutely unprecedented. When the court untethers itself from truth, it at the same time untethers itself from justice. At the same time it loses the respect of the community, and that is exactly what we have seen in this case.”

In a modern cosmopolitan society featuring incredible diversity of beliefs and opinions, the only way to keep such a society ordered and for our justice system to be fair, is for government and our courts to be secular in nature and tethered to facts and shared truths. The moment our justice system ceases to be grounded on truth, the entire structure of society is at risk of collapsing and chaos ensuing.

I could see that the judge took my comments to heart and now seemed uncomfortable himself, but he said nothing. I would later go on to give an almost 90-minute presentation to the court, but that this remarkable scenario was almost entirely ignored by particularly the Canadian media still amazes me a year later. The irony of a transgender person standing in front of the Supreme Court calling out the court for trampling truth in favor of transgender ideology should not have been lost on anybody. You would think an honest media would find this at least moderately interesting. But only a sole reporter from Postmedia, writing for the Vancouver Province, was in attendance and witnessed the spectacle. After court, he was outside interviewing Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson. He had no interest in interviewing me, so I waited a bit then interjected myself. I gave him a long list of troubling statistics about vulnerable kids including foster children. He stood gape-jawed listening to all this information that I said I could document for him if he was interested. Did he report any of it? Did he report that I, a transgender-identified activist, had stood calling out the court for forcing a father to speak lies? No, not a word.

What happened that day was indicative of the greatest feat of transgender activism in the 21st century. The feat of getting the courts to untether their judgments and orders from the truth must be regarded as one of the most remarkable and disturbing achievements of transgender activists, and history should record it as such. But whereas newspapers etc are said to right the first drafts of history, it was clear this startling chapter was not going to be recorded.

This was the first time I sensed that CD was truly shocked by the lack of local media interest.

Leviathan and The Immolation Solution.

The outcome of this series of court dates in the spring of 2020 was that I was granted a highly unusual limited exception to the publication ban on the doctors, and became the only person in British Columbia that was legally allowed to name the doctors in relation to this case (but only in front of live audiences). We were all warned that serious consequences would result from further breaches of the publication bans. Ominously, a representative from the Attorney General’s office of British Columbia made an appearance and warned the judge that the Attorney General now regarded this as a rule of law issue. The case was thus referred to their office for consideration of possible criminal contempt of court charges against CD.

Even the unprecedented intervention of the Attorney General in a family court case that already was riddled with twists and turns was not enough to move the mainstream media into covering the story. Thus, after a brief hiatus, a frustrated CD once again began giving identifying interviews as he now seemed to feel the issue needed to be pushed to some sort of climax.

Initially, it seemed that the Attorney General and the court were largely or effectively ignoring CD’s new violations, and this went on for almost a year. It seemed to indicate that they did not want to charge him, but he just kept escalating. My personal opinion was that he should try to work with me in the way we did at the Hilton Hotel in Victoria (during my election campaign) in which we tried as best as we could to comply with the spirit of the court orders while still talking to the public and telling his story. Still, despite his best efforts and my best efforts, the largest media outlets in Canada, the CBC, CTV, Global, and others continued to all but ignore the case.

In early 2021 the Attorney General had announced they planned to pursue contempt charges against CD, but did not seek an arrest warrant. CD then placed links to a video that contained identifying information on his daughter on his legal funding page and this apparently was the final straw for the Attorney General who had Vancouver Police start monitoring his public communications and compiling evidence against him. CD had been warned by the court and by the Attorney General multiple times that if he kept on violating court orders he would be charged with criminal contempt of court, a very serious charge, and yet he not only kept on doing it, he escalated at the risk of destroying his own life, losing his job, and getting a criminal record.

In February of 2021, almost one year exactly after I had been in court with him, it was announced that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. Much to my shock, instead of dialing his activities back, CD stepped up the rhetoric yet again by putting out an announcement that “the far left has issued a warrant for my arrest,” which surely he must have known would anger the judge, who was actually the one that issued the warrant. CD then did a series of interviews while waiting for the warrant to be executed in which he once again violated the terms of the publication bans. He even conducted one last court-defying interview right on the steps of the courthouse as he prepared to turn himself in. I was upset by these actions and was angry at some of the media people that were facilitating it, as I felt they were preying upon him for their own benefit. The judge of course was appalled by the audacity of his apparent contempt for the court and he ordered CD placed in custody and held in jail until a trial could start on April 13, 2021.

Stories of the father’s arrest immediately began swirling in the media. Massive attention was given to the father’s arrest in primarily conservative media outlets around the world, including such giants as FOX News and Breitbart. Unfortunately, many of the reports were hyperbolic and in some cases completely dishonest.

A good example of one of the more dishonest reports can be seen by looking at my former publisher, The Post Millennial, with whom I had published the original story on CD’s case, who deliberately misrepresented why CD was arrested in order to push buttons. Instead of writing that he was arrested for contempt of court for violating publication bans, they outright lied and claimed he was arrested for calling his daughter a daughter, which of course was not true. Unfortunately, this lie was repeated widely across countless media outlets along with other misinformation about the case. The mainstream media in Canada, such as the CBC and CTV etc, remained largely absent and indeed are still largely absent, but at least major conservative media outlets everywhere were talking about CD’s arrest.

A tale of three headlines: Above you can see how The Post Millennial deceptively titled their stories in order to give a false impression and trigger their readers. The title of the story was changed by editors multiple times in the first few days i…

A tale of three headlines: Above you can see how The Post Millennial deceptively titled their stories in order to give a false impression and trigger their readers. The title of the story was changed by editors multiple times in the first few days in order to trigger reactions. They began with a benign and fairly accurate title “Prisoner of Conscience,” then changed that to an outright false claim that CD was arrested for calling his female child a daughter. After I called them out for lying repeatedly they changed the title again, but merely changed one word (providing plausible deniability regarding deception) but leaving the false impression in place for most. This kind of deceptive media coverage is not helpful to those of us trying to fight for truth and accuracy, because such distortions always come back to haunt you. They apparently did not care that most people are headline readers and this caused a torrent of outrage based on a false impression.

Thus in March of 2021 CD was taken into custody. He was held without bail because the judge did not want to risk embarrassing the court by releasing him only to have him begin immediately violating court orders again the moment he stepped out the door, as he had done coming into the court.

In the title of this work I chose to reference the word “immolation,” but of course I was thinking of “self-immolation” and the act of deliberately destroying one’s life in order to serve a higher cause, as Thích Quảng Đức once did in the most extreme way imaginable. Thích Quảng Đức and those around him had become so frustrated by the refusal of the media and governing powers to recognize and address their concerns that they decided that an extreme act was necessary to raise awareness. I did not anticipate that CD would reveal so much information about his daughter, nor did I anticipate he would so aggressively violate court orders in the way that he did. And as somebody that has communicated and worked with CD since day one, I must say many of his decisions confused and frustrated me, but he seemed resolved to make people pay attention. CD had worked with me, seen how I had battled in relative ignominy for four years only to be ignored by the media over and over again and then encountered this same indifference himself from Canadian media, to the point that he concluded only an extreme act could force the issue into the public eye. And so I watched in horror as he essentially immersed himself in a kind of legal gasoline and proverbially lit is life on fire. As he was taken into custody and to jail, much like David Halberstam, ”I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered” to know what to do.

As of the writing of this paper CD sits in jail awaiting trial. But he has achieved his goal, because his arrest has turned this into a major story around the world. By aggressively and arguably recklessly staring down Leviathan and immolating himself in legal flames, he has forced the world to pay attention and hence raised critical awareness to the extremes of what is going on. But the question still remains: How did it all come to this? How was it allowed to go this far?

Conclusion.

“We are not only horrified but baffled…nothing since the triumph of the Vandals in Roman North Africa has seemed so sudden, incomprehensible, and difficult to reverse.”
– Pankaj Mishra

The transgender craze of the 2010s came upon the world rapidly. Through most of human existence this whole idea of “changing sex” was almost unheard of outside metaphysical circles and the sexual underground. But in the span of about five years we saw and explosion of minors suddenly identifying as the opposite sex. I won’t break down the causes of this here, suffice it to say the explosion correlates with the appearance of transgender themed shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race (2008) and the transgender reality tv show I Am Jazz (2015) as well as many others. At the same time schools around the globe began incorporating transgender normalizing themes into their educational resources via programs such as SOGI 123, and as already mentioned it has targeted vulnerable children the most. This was all backed by what I have called “junk” big pharma-conflicted transgender “science” and guidelines put out by the Endocrine Society among others, and the pharmaceutical industry has been benefitting massively from the chemical “sex reassignment” of minors, something I have documented extensively in my heavily protested public talks.

Graphs showing just some of the sudden growth of transgender identity across the western world.

Graphs showing just some of the sudden growth of transgender identity across the western world.

Profits for just two transgender-related drugs sold by the pharmaceutical giant Abbvie in 2018. The Vice-President of the Endocrine Society and its official spokesman for its new transgender guidelines, Stephen Rosenthal, has been a paid consultant …

Profits for just two transgender-related drugs sold by the pharmaceutical giant Abbvie in 2018. The Vice-President of the Endocrine Society and its official spokesman for its new transgender guidelines, Stephen Rosenthal, has been a paid consultant for Abbvie.

During the course of his travails, because of his secret identity, CD gained the nickname of “Clark Kent” which eventually became “Superman” and a bit of a running gag with CD and his followers. But I know CD, he is not a superman, he is not a perfect man, he is just a man — in some ways, he symbolizes every man, perhaps even a kind of Nietzsche-like “eternal man” or the “eternal father” who now finds himself facing Leviathan, a strange, enormous, and unreasoning monster that has taken his daughter from him. This is not a Superman vs Lex Luther story, it is not even a David vs Goliath story, this is the story of AB v CD, and it is in almost every way a tragedy. A tragedy for parental rights, a tragedy for a child who has been affirmed in her rejection of her own biological sex and body, and a tragedy for those that value truth in education and secular government.

CD has been told by transgender activists that he should not think that he has lost a daughter in this process, but that he has instead gained a son. But of course, that is not true. Because no matter how you look at this he has lost the daughter that he once had, that he had helped raise and nurture from infancy until she was a teenager, but who has now –like the mythical Caenis — been magically transformed into a “boy.” That does not mean that he does not love his new transgender child anyway, but he has lost the little girl he had become emotionally attached to. And everything that he does in the wake of that loss must be understood within a framework similar to that of a grieving parent that has lost a child. Whether you agree with his methods or not, the grief and courage of this father must be respected and appreciated, and if he has done things in violation of the law in an attempt to save his child and by extension other children, know that he will be forgiven, if not by you, then perhaps by a Higher Power.

In his attempts to save his daughter, CD was disempowered by the state, admonished and tormented by the courts, ignored by the media, and he ran out of patience and decided to make himself a sacrifice to raise awareness to the cause that we had both been fighting for. Today he sits in a BC correctional facility awaiting trial for multiple charges of contempt of court, which carries with it a maximum jail sentence of up to five years. He is being branded by some as a criminal for reacting to an insane situation with what appeared to be insane actions, but as Philip K. Dick once wrote, “sometimes insanity is a logical reaction to the world around you.” Whether it is actually insanity or lucidity only CD can say, but in either case he made a personal sacrifice in order to sound an alarm to the world about the dangerous extremes to which transgender ideology has now pushed our society.

Thirty years ago a scenario such as CD has gone through would have been unthinkable outside the pages of a strange Franz Kafka-styled science fiction novel. His daughter was taken from him by stealth and is now slowly transitioning into a masculine form, while he himself has been effectively emasculated by the state and subjected to a bizarre trial by a largely unsympathetic court. It is a surreal situation. Every time he looks at his new transgender “son” he is confronted by ghostly images of a daughter that he once had.

An identity obscured now almost ghostly photo of CD with his daughter, who today has the appearance of a boy.

An identity obscured now almost ghostly photo of CD with his daughter, who today has the appearance of a boy.

I know CD well, he is a good man, and despite how it seems he is a law-abiding man with no interest in undermining the rule of law. I talked to him before he was arrested about the concept of civil disobedience and the idea that true civil disobedience came with a price that had to be paid willingly. In his book The Virtue of Non-Violence: from Gautama to Gandhi, Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho, wrote that one of the most important principles of civil disobedience is that “you [must] maintain respect for the rule of law even while disobeying the specific law that you perceive as unjust…Non-violent activists do not seek to undermine the rule of law, but only the repeal of unjust laws,” and in that process they must be willing to pay the price. This fundamental principle was understood by Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote, “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” For King and others like him, the knowledge and willingness to accept the penalty for breaking the law and not undermining the rule of law itself was an essential part of the process. CD has proven he is willing to pay that price, and I can only hope the price is not too high.

When asked about his motivations for standing against the state CD said, “my concern was that my daughter was making a terrible mistake and that one day she would regret it and might ask why I did not do anything to stop it; well I want to be able to say to her that I did everything that I possibly could until there was nothing more that I could do, and when there was nothing more I could do for you I continued on because I did not want this happening to other children, to other parents, and to other families.”

CD has done what he wanted to do. He has sounded an alarm to the world. Parents everywhere owe him a debt of gratitude as do all those who value the primacy of truth and secular government. Legislative bodies everywhere and every court in the world that is dealing with the transgender issue, which has appeared suddenly on the human landscape, needs to stop for a moment and look at this case — just like the world stopped and looked at Thích Quảng Đức in 1963, and contemplate the very serious and tragic implications of what has happened.
_________

Please support the father by going to his funding page, he has suffered enormous loss of wages and court costs, not to mention the legal hell he has been dragged through, and all of this on top of what has been done to his daughter.

Addendum: As a transgender person myself I just want to make it clear for people that neither I nor CD believe that transgender adults should be treated with any but respect and allowed to live and express as they like (within the confines of truth and respect for others), but we need to understand that parental rights must be respected as parents are the best and natural guardians of their children and that children are not mature enough or wise enough to be able to make these kinds of life-altering decisions, and thus should be discouraged or prohibited from using medications and surgery that can permanently and irreversibly change their bodies and lives. CD has done his job to alert the world. It is now the job of myself and others to push the government to launch inquiries to make sure our most vulnerable children are not being preyed upon by a rapacious and greedy pharmaceutical complex.

Jenn Smith

3 responses to “Immolation of Parental Rights: How a BC Father’s Arrest Showed the Extremes of Trans Ideology”

  1. Dhani says:

    I am a gender critical feminist. I wish I could hug you right now. I hope you have found peace and happiness in how you present yourself. And for staying “tethered to reality.”Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  2. Bev says:

    Jenn, Wow, what an incredible article! Such a great overview of almost everything that’s happening! Truthful reporting and journalism , as I was at some of these venues! You’re an excellent writer! I see a book in the future! Thanks for the work you’ve done and are doing! It all matters and your tireless strength to go on in the face of such adversity and standing for and with Rob(CD) makes me want to weep. You’re work will be rewarded! Love and gratitude, Bev

  3. Graeme Thompson says:

    A long article and well worth the read. Children’s lives are being destroyed.

    Intriguing that in your perception, Justice Tammen didn’t take you seriously (until you spoke), but he orders CD to take seriously that his daughter is a ‘he’.

    And in relation to that, I’ve got the Bowden Judgement, I’ve got the Marzari judgement (you referred to her as ‘he’) but I haven’t got the Tammen judgement that revoked the order that CD calling his daughter a daughter is "family violence".

    My understanding is that while it would no longer be a criminal offence for him to do so, he was still compelled to do so, which is one of his violations?

    If I’ve got that right, how was it the Post-Millenial "outright lied" for saying he’d been arrested for calling his daughter a daughter?

    I’d be grateful if you could provide a link to Tammen’s Judgement if you have it to hand.

    Thank so much for all that you have done. God bless you and God bless CD.