The BFD | Canadian Case Highlights the Danger to NZ Parents

Eddie Clark of Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington claims that the Ardern government’s Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill will not land parents in jail if they object to their children “transitioning” their gender or advise them against dangerous medical treatments like puberty blockers.

Put simply, this is arrant nonsense. Even Clark admits “the bill covers parents who do take an active course of action to suppress or change their child’s identity”. (This begs the question, by the way: does that apply to parents who put their children on puberty blockers, which is, after all, a course of action to change their identity?)

But a shocking case in Canada shows that Clark’s key argument – that merely talking about a child’s “transition” could not land a parent in jail – is completely false.

At this moment, a Vancouver postman named Rob Hoogland is sitting in a jail cell in British Columbia. He will be there until at least April 12, when he’s scheduled for a court date. At that time, he may be ordered to remain behind bars for a period yet to be determined.

Has Hoogland killed or robbed somebody? Is he an arsonist? A rapist? No. What did he do, then? Short answer: he tried to save his emotionally unstable daughter from self-destruction.

Hoogland’s story is an increasingly, shockingly familiar one.

Following the end of Hoogland’s marriage, his daughter began getting into trouble at school. Not exactly unusual, one might think: a pre-teen acting up when her parents divorce.

Enter the gender whisperers. At the urging of school counsellors, Hoogland’s daughter “transitioned” to male. Soon, trans-activist counsellors were urging her to take dangerous puberty blockers.

The creepiness of the trans-activists is illustrated by an incident where Hoogland’s daughter allegedly threatened suicide.

According to Hoogland, A.B. told him at one point: “If you don’t let me take testosterone I’m going to kill myself.” When he replied, “No, you know you’re not,” she said, “I know, but they told me to say that.” Indeed, it’s well known that if you claim to be suicidal, it can help get your treatments approved and get you to the front of the surgical queue.

Things escalated from there. Eventually, a judge ruled that Hoogland:

was forbidden to try to persuade A.B. to stop treatment. He was forbidden to address her by her birth name. He was forbidden, in any conversation with anyone, to refer to her as a girl or to use female pronouns to describe her. If he were to do any of these things, ordered Bowden, it would be “considered to be family violence”—yes, violence—under the Family Law Act.

Hoogland was also ordered to stop talking publicly about his daughter’s case. A judge ruled that his rejection of his daughter’s “gender identity” was “family violence”.

And then, on March 19 of this year, British Columbia supreme court justice Michael Tammen ordered Hoogland—who had never before been in trouble with the law—to be sent to prison.

City Journal

Why? For speaking publicly about his case and by publicly calling his daughter his “daughter”, and “she” and “her”.

And that’s where Eddie Clark’s argument that New Zealand’s “conversion therapy” bill will not criminalise parents falls apart.

Clark argues that “to count as a conversion practice there must be a practice. This word by itself strongly suggests a course of conduct or action is required.” His implication is that words do not count as “a course of conduct or action”.

The persecution of Rob Hoogland brutally exposes the lie of that argument. Simply failing to address his daughter as “he” or “him” has been ruled as “violence”, and landed Hoogland in jail.

Clark also argues that “a passive failure to do something (such as not seeking affirming health care for a trans child) would not be caught by the law” and “It is difficult to see how merely advising their child against a particular healthcare option could be seen as suppressing their gender identity or expression”.

Yet that is exactly what has happened to Rob Hoogland.

And, should the “conversion practices” bill become law, it will absolutely happen to any New Zealand parent who refuses to buckle to transgender ideology and assent to the mental and medical abuse of their children by activists and the state.