Another disappearing article
(Or the ideological capture of the Canadian legal system)
On the 5th February Canadian Lawyer Magazine published an opinion piece by Shahdin Farsai.
The article concerned British Columbia’s recent adoption of the use of preferred pronouns in court. Last December the BC Supreme and Provincial courts issued ‘practice directions’ that require both lawyers and ‘parties’ (ie defendants, plaintiffs etc) to state their preferred pronouns at the beginning of court proceedings. All participants in court cases, including the judge, must adhere to these pronoun choices.
Consequently, a rape victim giving evidence will be compelled to refer to her attacker with female pronouns if they are his stated preference.
Lawyer, Shahdin Farsai, believes these practice directions raise three areas of concern; potentially compelled speech in court, a breach of privacy rights and damage to the perception of judicial impartiality. She discussed these issues in her article.
Almost immediately after publication, the Gender Stasi burst in, all hyperbole blazing, to scream about the article’s bigotry and transphobia and literal questioning of people’s right to exist etc etc…
This law student didn’t want her followers to read the article itself, but she was keen for them to hear someone else’s opinion on it.
Of course, there was the usual virtue-signalling about ‘trans folks’.
And even an attempt to conflate enforced use of pronouns with race. (Perhaps Doron Gold failed to notice who authored the ‘abomination’ to which he refers.)
An all-out bullying campaign against the Canadian Law Magazine was led by Frances ‘she/her’ Mahon.
Mahon is a civil rights lawyer whose BC law firm specialises in representing ‘the LGBTQ2S community’ and ‘sex workers’. She is also the chair of the Canadian Bar Association Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Community.
She encouraged a boycott of the magazine and organised a letter from members of the legal profession.
“We request that Canadian Lawyer remove the article, issue a retraction and apology, and outline the steps it will take in the future to ensure that its articles are both legally correct and respect the human rights of all of our community members, particularly members of the LGBTQ2S+ community.
Until Canadian Lawyer takes these steps, we will decline any requests to write articles, provide quotes, or otherwise contribute to Canadian Lawyer”.
As the online mob advanced, torches ablaze, the publication date on the article was changed from 5th February 2021 to 1st October 2020. This was possibly an attempt to de-boost it from the magazine’s website. But that was never going to work.
It only took 24 hours for the Canadian Lawyer Magazine to cave in to the bullies and remove Shahdin Farsai’s article from its site altogether.
Tim Wilbur, the Editor-in-chief, made a brief statement about the removal of the piece from the site, stating, “The article did not reflect the views of Canadian Lawyer Magazine, Key Media and its related entities”.
Perhaps Wilbur has never read the magazine’s own website.
Did this article from November 2019 about Jonathan ‘Jessica’ Yaniv reflect the views of the magazine and its related entities?
“A recent B.C. human rights tribunal decision, which found a trans woman was not discriminated against when denied Brazilian-waxing services, is a step backward for trans people and an example of their need for pro-bono and “low-bono” legal services.”
An outpouring of sympathy for a perpetual litigant and menstruation fetishist who tried to ruin a number of working-class women because they didn’t want to handle his genitals. That’s still there. But suggesting that a traumatised victim of sexual violence shouldn’t be forced to pretend her rapist is a woman is not?
Canada is truly down the rabbit hole.
Because if citizens cannot expect to hear and tell the truth in a court of law, we know the ideological capture is complete.
Ordering a woman to refer to her rapist as she/her in court is abusive, dishonest and a major form of gaslighting. There are enough barriers to conviction for rape without putting women and girls through this additional trauma.