Father arrested and jailed for calling his biologically female daughter "she": this week in the strange death of Canada

[Angry Floof]

contempt of court.

End of story. Doubt I need to read the rest of the thread since this full stop appears a couple of lines into the opening post.

You'd be very very wrong.

What's going on here is a 14y/o making a huge life decision over the objections of a parent. The child isn't legally able to buy a six pack, sign a credit card contract, get married, get a tattoo, or bang the neighbor dude. Because 14y/o aren't competent adults. This is especially true when a parent gets involved and pointedly refuses permission.

I realize the thorny problem of underage trans people. But that judge is wa-a-a-y out of line. "Removed from the bench" out of line. Jailing a parent for doing what's right, in the parent's own opinion, for his own child is over the line.

Sorry, this is politically correct ideology out of control.
Tom

1. The parent was jailed for contempt of court, not for "doing what's right in the parent's own opinion."

2. Children of any age are human beings and their feelings should be respected, and it hurts no one to "play along," even if you think the 14 year old is wrong in their own interpretations of their own experiences. It's not a matter of making the kind of adult decisions you for some reason think are equivalent. They are not, not even remotely.

3. It literally costs nothing to say him and he instead of her and she because you love your child. The parent in this case continued saying she and her even when his own child told him it hurt for him to continue to do so, to the point where a court judge told him to stop doing it.

 

[TomC]

You DO have that right.

Nobody's getting arrested for calling the plaintiff 'she'; They are getting arrested for ignoring a court order to respect the plaintiff's request to stop doing so, on a regular basis, despite an increasingly desperate series of such requests, ultimately leading to court.

Ongoing refusal to respect a person's wishes when they have made it completely clear that your actions are insulting and hurtful to them is harassment, and is and should be illegal. People do not have the right to harass others.

No matter how right they are, or feel themselves to be, harassment of this kind is the behaviour of arseholes, and society need not tolerate that shit.

That somebody finds a particular action or utterance 'insulting' or 'hurtful' is irrelevant.

No it is not. This is a parent who is being deliberately abusive to a child and who has been asked to stop.

As people keep pointing out, that's not true.

He got arrested and jailed for using words the judge didn't like.

He got arrested and jailed for contempt of court. Nothing to do with his child. It's all about the judge.

Or did you miss those posts?
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

3. It literally costs nothing to say him and he instead of her and she

To say it 'costs nothing' is to put zero value on his freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Hell, it also weights at zero the cognitive effort to use pronouns in defiance of your instinct.

 

[Angry Floof]

But he kept it up because his right wing moronic bigoted views are more important than his child's well being.

He "kept it up" because calling his female child 'she' is not insulting or offensive, and the State has no right to dictate pronoun usage.

He kept it up to bully his child and force him to change his mind about his own experiences. He's a bad parent, so bad that a court had to tell him how to be just an ordinary level of respectful to his child, whether that child was wrong about something or not.

When I was four, I changed my own name to Sunshine. My mother played along. She didn't try to force a four year old to adhere to the fact. She didn't say, "tHaT's nOt yEr nAmE, gOdDaMmiT. sToP sAyIng tHaT," while waving my birth certificate at me as proof that she was right and I was wrong.

Not that this particular 14 year old's request for different pronouns was in any way as inconsequential and silly as a four year old changing her name and then forgetting about it a day later, but the parent's treatment of that child would be the same as my other acting in such anger and bullying over something that cost her nothing to respect at my request.

The State, as it turns out in this case, does have the right to dictate that parents not bully and emotionally abuse their children. The headline is written to appeal to the prejudices of bigots who love being outraged at people doing things they are not used to seeing, and to help them write the story in their heads accordingly and stick to that no matter what. Because ordinary human empathy plays no part in their thinking.

 

[Angry Floof]

3. It literally costs nothing to say him and he instead of her and she

To say it 'costs nothing' is to put zero value on his freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Hell, it also weights at zero the cognitive effort to use pronouns in defiance of your instinct.

It's easy enough to practice saying it for the love of your child. A good faith effort also makes it easy for the child to forgive mistakes, understanding that cognitive patterns don't undo themselves in ten seconds. That father continued to use female pronouns purposely to assert his own views over the feelings of his own child, not because he was trying to use the pronouns requested and the cognitive effort was just too great.

I take it you don't have children. If you do, I would ask just how much effort would you be arsed to put into showing them you love them.

 

[Toni]

Which organs, through? The brain? The genitals? The skeletal system? Any of the other slightly differentiated organs?

Presumably, there is every possibility owing to the messy nature of biology that there may be some discordance between the differentiations that happened.

When our twins were born three months premature, they went straight to the NICU. 2lbs 4oz and 2lbs 7oz. It was acouple days before wife and i could visit them.

We walked in, scrubbed up, and split. K1 was in Bay 2. I walked in, the nurse said, "Oh! I can finish the form!"...and marked the baby as white.
In Bay 4, nurse saw Mrs. &co. Said the same thing. Form then said the baby was black.

Maybe we shouldn't expect that even professionals always jump to the most obvious conclusions accurately.

So you are suggesting that subjective skin classification of mixed-race babies at birth casts doubt on the binary nature of sex?

Subjective classification, especially at birth, can later prove to have been inaccurate.

 

[Toni]

No it is not. This is a parent who is being deliberately abusive to a child and who has been asked to stop.

As people keep pointing out, that's not true.

He got arrested and jailed for using words the judge didn't like.

He got arrested and jailed for contempt of court. Nothing to do with his child. It's all about the judge.

Or did you miss those posts?
Tom

The judge ordered the man to stop using language that the child found abusive and harmful.

 

[TomC]

He kept it up to bully his child and force him to change his mind about his own experiences.

How do people get so confident of their own mind reading abilities?

Looks like ideological b.s. to me. From Trump supporters explaining why Democrats do things to feminists explaining why men do things, it's nearly impossible to carry on a conversation with ideological extremists.

They already know why people who disagree with them are so evil. There's no more discussion necessary.
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

He kept it up to bully his child

You have no basis to claim that.

When I was four, I changed my own name to Sunshine. My mother played along. She didn't try to force a four year old to adhere to the fact. She didn't say, "tHaT's nOt yEr nAmE, gOdDaMmiT. sToP sAyIng tHaT," while waving my birth certificate at me as proof that she was right and I was wrong.

If your mother had refused to call you Sunshine and had kept using the name given to you at birth, no sane person would say your mother was abusing you.

Not that this particular 14 year old's request for different pronouns was in any way as inconsequential and silly as a four year old changing her name and then forgetting about it a day later, but the parent's treatment of that child would be the same as my other acting in such anger and bullying over something that cost her nothing to respect at my request.

You think it costs nothing because you have valued at zero freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and cognitive effort.

 

[ronburgundy]

He was arrested b/c he violated a court order to stop deliberately and constantly causing his child severe psychological distress via abusive harassment. It's no different than had he constantly called his child "a stupid maggot who should never have been born". That statement is not objectively false (or true), but it's accuracy is irrelevant. To say that repeatedly to a child shows deliberate intent to cause psychological abuse of a minor. The fact that the words are neither false, in themselves illegal threats, and would be protected as "free speech" if said once to a random stranger is all irrelevant to the fact that repeated harass a child with such words is criminally abusive.

Likewise, it is irrelevant whether "she" is accurate or what one's notion "she" is, which is inherently subjective b/c all language meaning is). It is irrelvant that the words are not false, illegal in themselves, and would be protected speech when said in most situations. Once the child told the father (repeatedly) that they did not want be called a "she" and that it hurt them emotionally, then deliberately and needlessly doing it became nothing but an act with the intent to cause psychological harm, and thus abuse. Some abuse is so universal b/c of universal shared views that when done, the court wouldn't even bother to give a warning and the child would not be required to express objection before it became abusive. But other times the emotional harm is dependent upon subjective experience, so only after it is made clear to the person that emotional harm is being done does the continuation of the action become deliberate abuse. This abusive asshole knows his child is emotionally distressed, and by his own claims is suicidal, was told by the court to stop causing her needless emotional harm, and deliberately continued to do it anyway, knowing he was causing harm.

Note that this is independent of whether the child should be getting testosterone at age 14. One can question whether that is appropriate in this case (or even ever appropriate at that age unless a definitive biological abnormality or basis for the dysphoria is established), and yet what this father is doing is still hateful deliberately harmful abuse.

 

[Metaphor]

So you are suggesting that subjective skin classification of mixed-race babies at birth casts doubt on the binary nature of sex?

Subjective classification, especially at birth, can later prove to have been inaccurate.

The classification of sex at birth is not subjective. The correct sex of nearly all babies can be trivially discovered by a cursory glance at the baby's external genitalia, by a doctor, a nurse, a complete stranger, or even myself as a four year old.

Disorders of sexual development, and the much, much rarer cases of intersex, do not change this reality.

Nor does someone's gender identity, developed years after their birth and consisting of a thought pattern in their head, conflicting with their sex have anything whatsoever to do with an incorrect classification of somebody's sex at birth. Trans-identified people do not have an 'incorrect' sex classification. They have a gender identity that conflicts with their correctly classified sex.

 

[Angry Floof]

You have no basis to claim that.

Well, the court did.

If your mother had refused to call you Sunshine and had kept using the name given to you at birth, no sane person would say your mother was abusing you.

Yes, that would be unreasonable for a grown up human to bully a four year old over something like that. Again, just a bad parent, and if they insisted on keeping it up just to prove themselves right over a toddler, then they are not only a shitty human being, but quite possibly abusive. In that case it would take another adult to step in for the child as a toddler doesn't have the same level of voice or autonomy as a teenager.

Not that this particular 14 year old's request for different pronouns was in any way as inconsequential and silly as a four year old changing her name and then forgetting about it a day later, but the parent's treatment of that child would be the same as my other acting in such anger and bullying over something that cost her nothing to respect at my request.

You think it costs nothing because you have valued at zero freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and cognitive effort.

I value at zero the insistence of grown ass adults to bully children to the point where a fucking court has to tell them to stop, and all over a simple request of a teenager expressing his own experience and request simple words that reflect that.

 

[Metaphor]

Once the child told the father (repeatedly) that they did not want be called a "she" and that it hurt them emotionally, then deliberately and needlessly doing it became nothing but an act with the intent to cause psychological harm, and thus abuse.

You have no basis for making that claim.

 

[Metaphor]

Well, the court did.

The court had the power to punish the father. The court had no basis (if it did do this) for claiming the father intended his speech to be abusive.

Yes, that would be unreasonable for a grown up human to bully a four year old over something like that.

A parent not calling a four year old a name the four year old made up for themselves that day is not bullying.

Again, just a bad parent, and if they insisted on keeping it up just to prove themselves right over a toddler, then they are not only a shitty human being, but quite possibly abusive. In that case it would take another adult to step in for the child as a toddler doesn't have the same level of voice or autonomy as a teenager.

I hated my name as a child. It is Slavic and, to most people, unpronounceable, and I was greatly teased by the Anglo kids for it. But my parents had every right to call me my name and it would not be bullying for them to refuse to call me another.

and all over a simple request of a teenager expressing his own experience and request simple words that reflect that.

You value at zero freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and cognitive effort.

 

[TomC]

Well, the court did.

You know where the word "lynch" came from?

It's the name of a judge who reliably ruled against due process, and in favor of mob justice.

Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

3. It literally costs nothing to say him and he instead of her and she

To say it 'costs nothing' is to put zero value on his freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Hell, it also weights at zero the cognitive effort to use pronouns in defiance of your instinct.

It's easy enough to practice saying it for the love of your child. A good faith effort also makes it easy for the child to forgive mistakes, understanding that cognitive patterns don't undo themselves in ten seconds. That father continued to use female pronouns purposely to assert his own views over the feelings of his own child, not because he was trying to use the pronouns requested and the cognitive effort was just too great.

I take it you don't have children. If you do, I would ask just how much effort would you be arsed to put into showing them you love them.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons I'm very glad that Metaphor is gay. It makes it unlikely we will ever have to worry about Metaphor polluting the minds of youth with such garbage. Though there's got to be some mad wicked cognitive dissonance going to both have struggled under a society that proclaims some core element of yourself illegitimate and made-up, and then turn around and do exactly that to someone else on the basis of MUH BINARY, which is just definitional the same way "healthy sexuality" was defined as being straight, historically.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You misspelled "Arsehole arrested and jailed for contempt of court after continuing to insult child in defiance of a court order to desist".

This. This isn't a mistake, this is a deliberate insult.

 

[laughing dog]

No it is not. This is a parent who is being deliberately abusive to a child and who has been asked to stop.

That he is being 'deliberately abusive' is your contention.

It is based on the evidence. He has been told it is insulting and he continues.

I disagree on both the characterisation of it as 'deliberate' and the characterisation of it as 'abuse'.

Are you claiming this father is randomly choosing to insulting? And persistent and deliberate insults is being verbally abusive. Your disagreement reveals more about your values than anything else.

I also disagree that the State has the right to punish you for speech.

Too bad for you, that is not reflected in reality.

 

[laughing dog]

No it is not. This is a parent who is being deliberately abusive to a child and who has been asked to stop.

As people keep pointing out, that's not true.

It is true they pointed that out. But they are wrong.

He got arrested and jailed for using words the judge didn't like.
He got arrested and jailed for contempt of court. Nothing to do with his child. It's all about the judge.

Since the court order is about talking to the child, your claim is idiotic.

Or did you miss those posts?

No, those posts missed their tether to reality and reason.

 

[Jarhyn]

It is based on the evidence. He has been told it is insulting and he continues.

I disagree on both the characterisation of it as 'deliberate' and the characterisation of it as 'abuse'.

Are you claiming this father is randomly choosing to insulting? And persistent and deliberate insults is being verbally abusive. Your disagreement reveals more about your values than anything else.

I also disagree that the State has the right to punish you for speech.

Too bad for you, that is not reflected in reality.

I wonder how long it would take Metaphor to hit the Report button if I started in on calling him by female pronouns. As it is, I've already gotten him to throw a goodly number of highly enjoyable tantrums just from the posts where I use gender-neutral pronouns (they/them). Maybe we should all start doing that? Or maybe not. After all, I don't want to get another warning over that. It's sure tempting though.

Also, Hi, Rhea...