The latest: a family physician who declined to administer a single injection of a puberty-blocking drug to a 14-year-old transgender-identifying patient was found guilty of discrimination and ordered to pay $20,000 for “compensation for injury to … dignity, feelings and self-respect,” plus $8,100 for the cost of the claimant’s “expert report” and — most outrageously — was instructed to “cease the contraventions and refrain from committing the same or similar contraventions.”
asserted
who → decline → contraventions
Note that I do not include the physician’s name, as he wished to protect his professional reputation with a publication ban on his identity.
asserted
he → note → identity
The BCHRT refused to do this.
asserted
BCHRT → refuse → this
At the request of the claimant’s mother, the physician referred the claimant, who’s referred to in the ruling as “Child Q,” to the Gender Clinic at B.C. Children’s Hospital in 2020, where Lupron, an injection used to suppress puberty, was prescribed.
asserted
Lupron → refer → puberty
The teen did not wish to self-administer the drug and instead preferred that a physician do it.
asserted
physician → wish → it
Administrative staff at the doctor’s office booked an appointment for one of the injections without the physician’s knowledge.
asserted
staff → book → knowledge
When he realized what the appointment was for, he declined to administer the drug.
asserted
he → realize → drug
The doctor “was learning for the first time that the purpose of Child Q’s appointment was to receive a Lupron injection.
asserted
purpose → learn → injection
He understood — wrongly — that this was part of a process for ‘gender reassignment therapy.’
asserted
this → understand → therapy
He says that he had never had any experience with that branch of medicine.
asserted
he → say → medicine
He testified that, because of his religion, he finds it ‘conflicting and difficult’ to be involved in any part of ‘gender reassignment,’ ” reads the ruling.
asserted
ruling → testify → reassignment
In other words, the adjudicator claimed that puberty blockers don’t count as “gender-assignment therapy.”
asserted
blockers → claim → therapy
The physician testified that the patient’s mother “stormed out of the room” before he could offer any alternative.
uncertain
he → testify → alternative
The child received the injection at a walk-in clinic later that day.
asserted
child → receive → clinic
The family subsequently filed complaints with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. (CPSBC) and the BCHRT.
asserted
family → file → B.C.
In 2023, the CPSBC reprimanded the physician for “refusing to provide care related to gender transition to a patient on the basis of conscientious objection, without offering assistance to this patient in order that they could receive this care from another provider.”
uncertain
they → reprimand → provider
The claimant was seeking $50,000 for the professed purpose of “making discrimination against transgender children in health care expensive.”
asserted
discrimination → seek → care
The claimant also wanted the BCHRT decision to be “prominently” posted, in perpetuity, anywhere the physician works.
asserted
physician → want → perpetuity
Surprisingly, Devyn Cousineau, who wrote the decision, agreed with the impugned physician that this “would serve no purpose other than to punish him.”
asserted
this → write → him
(Apparently publishing his name, fining him and demanding that he provide “gender-affirming care” in the future, under legal threat, was punishment enough.)
asserted
he → publish → threat
The claimant’s lawyer was non-binary-identifying trans activist Adrienne Smith, who also chaired the federal NDP convention last spring.
asserted
who → identify → convention
Videos of Smith explaining the NDP’s equity card system, which allowed for delegates to jockey for speaking priority based on gender identity, skin colour or disability status, was criticized and mocked worldwide.
asserted
delegates → explain → identity
Cousineau, meanwhile, is the same tribunal member who oversaw Canada’s infamous testicle-waxing discrimination cases.
asserted
who → oversee → cases
At the time, Cousineau notoriously wrote in a procedural ruling that transwomen receiving testicle waxing can constitute “critical gender-affirming care.”
asserted
transwomen → write → care
In this latest ruling, Cousineau rejected the physician’s defence that administering puberty blockers was a violation of his religious beliefs or outside of his expertise or scope of practice.
asserted
administering → reject → practice
She also refused to admit the physician’s expert witness, Prof. Gary Goldsand, who specializes in medical ethics and intended to speak to the concept of conscientious objection in medicine.
asserted
who → refuse → medicine
Cousineau wrote that she “can just as readily make findings of fact and draw inferences and conclusions without assistance from Prof. Goldsand.”
asserted
she → write → Goldsand
She did, however, admit the claimant’s expert witness, Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, the director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Nursing.
asserted
She → admit → Nursing
(Who also happens to have been called as an expert to testify against me in my free speech hearing with the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives.
asserted
Who → happen → Nurses
It’s a small world, after all.)
asserted
It → ’ → ?
First, she claims to have not required expert testimony on conscientious objection, when she clearly did.
uncertain
she → claim → objection
Health-care providers refuse to participate in or administer care all the time, typically related to euthanasia or abortion.
asserted
providers → refuse → euthanasia
This is explicitly permitted by health regulators and employers, including the CPSBC, which says that “licensees may make a personal choice not to provide a treatment or procedure based on their values and beliefs.”
uncertain
licensees → permit → values
The reason the CPSBC reprimanded the physician in this case was over his failure to have “any formal process in place” to refer patients like the claimant to another provider, if he conscientiously objected to providing care.
asserted
he → reprimand → care
Cousineau, on the other hand, found the physician guilty of discrimination merely for refusing to give the injection (though her ruling went on to discuss his failure to refer “for the sake of completeness”).
asserted
ruling → find → completeness
She ordered the physician to “cease the contraventions and refrain from committing the same or similar contraventions” — in other words, to act against his conscience in the future.
asserted
She → order → future
Cousineau either doesn’t understand conscientious objection, or has imbued herself (and the BCHRT) with the authority to rescind this critical ethical right from health-care providers in the context of the “gender-affirming care” scandal.
asserted
Cousineau → understand → scandal
The message this sends to all health-care providers in B.C. is clear: provide trans health care to minors — or suffer the consequences.
asserted
this → send → consequences
Second, Cousineau misunderstands the concept of “scope of practice.”
asserted
Cousineau → misunderstand → practice
All health-care providers have a legislated scope that defines what they are legally allowed to perform in their roles.
asserted
they → have → roles
…and 16 more, not listed.
