“A Certain Madness Amok”

 https://www.city-journal.org/canadian-father-jailed-for-speaking-out-about-trans-identifying-child

 

Soon after Bowden’s ruling, A.B. began gender-transition treatment, but Hoogland persevered with his legal fight. In violation of Bowden’s order, he also spoke in public and gave interviews about the case. In April 2019, in response to an application by A.B., Judge Francesca Marzari tried to quell these public appearances. Noting that there had been “substantial online commentary [i.e., reader comments on articles about the case] analogizing A.B.’s medical treatment to child abuse, perversion and even pedophilia,” and that A.B.’s doctors had allegedly received threatening emails, Marzari ordered Hoogland to stop trying to talk A.B. out of receiving treatment for gender dysphoria and to stop communicating with others—including media outlets, and A.B. herself, but excluding his lawyers, the court, doctors, and other authorized persons—about A.B.’s decision to receive hormone therapy.

Instead of recognizing that Hoogland was acting out of concern for his child, Marzari painted him as a selfish bigot. His conduct, she wrote, was causing A.B. “a significant risk of harm.” He was “publicly rejecting his [A.B.’s] identity, perpetuating stories that reject his identity, and exposing him to degrading and violent commentary in social media.” Marzari adduced no evidence to support any of these assertions. That said, Hoogland, added Marzari, “has been irresponsible in the manner of expressing his disagreement [with A.B.’s decision] and the degree of publicity which he has fostered with respect to this disagreement with his child.” Marzari also seconded Bowden’s description of Hoogland’s “rejection of A.B.’s gender identity” as “family violence.”