Amy Hamm - Canadian Nurse being disciplined for being GC

She has nothing to lose, has she? They've already damaged if not destroyed her professional life as a nurse, and no doubt deeply disturbed her private life - I feel so grateful for these brave women who put themselves through court cases and tribunals, at great personal emotional cost.

We already knew she was brave, knowledgeable and articulate, and now she's got nothing holding her back - watch out BC College of Nursing and Midwives, you don't know what you've stirred up!✊

She's not taking it lying down

https://x.com/preta_6/status/1903156589605032403

Another article perhaps casting some light on how the panel was empowered to reach the decision they did

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-criticize-transgender-activists-at-your-professional-peril?taid=67d97560d2cb870001e764d8&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

@IcakethereforeIam I'd say the paper is small potatoes, with a definite slant. There are many articles about her - and Amy writes for them as well. Here's the CBC's article about the outcome. Remarkably (for them) objective, no editorializing.

There's an article in the New Westminster Times

https://www.newwesttimes.com/news/miscarriage-the-sham-trial-of-nurse-amy-hamm/article_f06a0f9a-01d5-11f0-8c12-6383c66de51c.html

Which is fairly scathing.

I don't know anything about this publication. Is it widely read and influencial? Or is it more niche?

I'd forgotten that Amy's witnesses were, when they were even permitted to give evidence, not questioned. Almost as if the Board had no interest in what they had to say. Almost as if they'd already made their minds up.

I hope Amy appeals.

As a BC resident, I am appalled by this decision. On a personal note, I live in an area that has had difficulty recruiting doctors. My local clinic has not accepted new patients for years. As gp doctors leave or retire, they are being replaced by nurse practitioners who all belong to the BC College of Nurses and Midwives. This has just happened to me. Word of mouth says the nurse practitioner is "very good", but now I am wary as well as angry. I'm of a mind to say something on my next visit, but don't want to risk being cast out of the clinic.

@SopranoPipistrelle Unfortunately no response. I may try again up the chain but I agree, it's an issue they don't want to deal with at present, especially after watching the US.

I read transcripts of the BCCNM proceedings and was absolutely shocked by some of the experts saying there were more than 2 sexes. I have finally almost wrapped my head around the grammatically incorrect they/them. But how anyone can believe an XY can become an XX is gobsmacking. Dress & live however you want, but a man telling women he's decided he's now a full fledged woman is the ultimate misogyny. Also, creating lifelong healthcare issues through surgical & pharmacological interventions (based on evidence from faulty studies) flies in the face of reality - just read some of the statements from detransitioners. It's not all rainbows and unicorns, or the fantasy in Picoult's Mad Honey.

I'm still finding it disconcerting to agree with certain hard core right wing people on this issue.

Wow! Bravo, Amy, you are dead right.

That’s a brilliant article. What a woman.

That's an excellent article, I admire her courage in ignoring her lawyer's advice. All power to her.

@Justsaynonow
What response did you get when you wrote to your MP about the gender issue?

Agreed re the highest priority being the safety and security of the country as a whole. Poilievre has lost his main attack point and advantage against the Liberals with Carney dropping the carbon tax, and the big poll swing back to the Liberals suggests that much of the Conservative/Poilievre support was from pissed off Liberals who were tired of the Trudeau government - so they were probably not core conservative voters. I don't really have a sense of how big the conservative vote really is without the bump it got from Trudeau's unpopularity. With Trudeau resigning and the threats from Trumpland it looks like the conservatives have lost the advantage, but it all seems very unpredictable how that will play out given it's such a recent change.

As someone who is broadly centre to centre-left and has never voted conservative but is extremely disillusioned with the Left/Liberal abandonment of women's rights as well freedom of expression in general I was genuinely at a loss of who I could bring myself to vote for in Canada up until Trudeau resigning and Trump's threats to Canadian sovereignty. I have decided I will vote Liberal/Carney given the current reality Canada is facing, but I also think the gender issue will simply be buried at the bottom of the pile of non-priorities. Which is depressing but not surprising - when there's an existential threat all energy goes towards dealing with that.

Don't want to derail the thread entirely into the current state of Canadian politics and the potential election, although it is relevant to how sex-realist women move forward in this current situation. I also have very little sense of how much of a priority it is for many Canadian women - talking about it is too risky, as we can see with Amy Hamm's case.

Anyway, here's a barnstormer of an article from Amy from today: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/amy-hamm-i-spoke-the-truth-about-womens-rights-that-isnt-professional-misconduct

"...Poilievre campaigning on the gender issue as getting into bed with Trump and he will want to distance himself from the US and show his patriotism."

He's following the US campaign approach with stupid nicknames, attack ads, and messaging to meet whatever he thinks voters want to hear (not what he plans to do). Not to mention he supported the Freedom convoy that never did figure out what they were actually protesting. He's been in parliament for years and done nothing.

He campaigned on getting into bed with Trump and his cronies on much more than the gender issue - he only changed his wording when Trump got so hostile. I don't trust him at all. He'd sell us out to the US in a heartbeat. He's been endorsed by the high profile US right wingers - Joe Rogan, Elon, etc.

I wrote to my MP about the Liberals' approach to the gender issue, asking if they'd look at the UK approach of protected characteristics of 1 group not impinging on another, but to me the highest priority is our country's safety and I hope the population votes accordingly.

@Merrymouse Yes the protections for gender identity and expression were introduced in 2017. I hope the UK doesn't go down the same route of protecting gender identity because it has been terrible for women's sex based rights in Canada, and has completely stifled any discussion or debate.

"Gender identity and expression as protected characteristics are written into Canadian human rights law in a way they are not in the UK (as far as I understand the Equality Act protections and GRCs but I'm not a lawyer so anyone with a better grasp please jump in!)."

Did that come in in 2017?

The UK Equality Act was passed in 2010, and protects 'gender reassignment', but there is no concept of 'gender identity', which wasn't really a thing then.

After that the Conservatives were in government for 14 years, and equality legislation isn't really their thing. (Although they did turn a blind eye to policy capture for years and flirted with self ID).

"other claims such as there are only two sexes, humans cannot change their sex, and sex chromosomes are immutable are either oversimplifications or not true given that sex is multidimensional."

It sounds as though they were confused.

Sex is not as simple as 'XY' and 'XX', but sex is defined by the organisation of the reproductive system around gamete production, not chromosomes.

None of this means that humans can change sex, or that there are more than two sexes.

Charles Darwin must be turning in his grave.

I had thought the same thing about Poilievre as well, but I only have Canadian citizenship recently and lived most of my life in the UK, so I although I know Canadian politics better than a complete outsider it's still new to me. I read something recently that suggested that Poilievre would be limited in what he could actually do because of the way provincial politics works, and that social liberalism (well what people think is liberal, obviously this issue is completely regressive) is baked into Canada so he would have little traction on this issue. Unfortunately I can't find the article, which is frustrating, but I do remember thinking after reading it that it would be pointless voting Conservative if in reality it would make no difference! Of course that article's perspective could be wrong, but I'm not sure Poilievre will want to push hard on this issue in the election campaign.

Trump's threats of to Canada's sovereignty and annexation are a big deal here and taken seriously, people are boycotting the US and are very angry so anyone aligning themselves with Trump is going to struggle in an election. So Poilievre has lost a ton of his appeal to lots of voters almost overnight. The Liberal ratings are now on par with the Conservatives, which is a major and sudden change. We'll see what happens but I think that Canadians will see Poilievre campaigning on the gender issue as getting into bed with Trump and he will want to distance himself from the US and show his patriotism.

Anyway, the Canadian political landscape has changed drastically in a short period of time - we'll see what happens when Carney calls an election.

My knowledge of Candian politics is surface level at best so take what I say with a grain of salt but I kind of presume Poilievre will force it into being an issue. They're on the same side with regards to tarrifs but maybe differ slightly on how to handle Trump whereas this is an area where they differ and the Liberal party can be hit hard. It wasn't as big of an issue as I expected in the US election but it still was an issue and the they/them ads had an impact.

If I was a reporter in Canada, I would be asking the Liberals what a woman is in the run up to the election.

To time travellers, obviously. It's why that lot love Dr Who.

given that sex is multidimensional'.

I hadn't picked up on that. To whom? Morons? Ill educated ideologues? Medico-scientific extremist deniers?

Fuck's sake.

An unsurprising but utterly depressing outcome :(

The situation in Canada is hopeless. Even if Carney is not a genderist (it seems unlikely that he is, and many Gen X and older generations are only in favour of of gender ideology because they don't seem to understand what it actually means in practice) it's unlikely to be much of a priority given Canada's current trade war situation. Canadians are also positioning themselves as against Trump and the US so I don't think the pushback that has been successful in the UK is going to happen in Canada.

I was toying with the idea of voting for Poilievre, as a single issue voter, but not sure if that would actually make much difference. And I dislike Poilievre and wouldn't vote for him or the Conservatives usually. Gender identity and expression as protected characteristics are written into Canadian human rights law in a way they are not in the UK (as far as I understand the Equality Act protections and GRCs but I'm not a lawyer so anyone with a better grasp please jump in!).

https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/canadas-gender-identity-rights-bill-c-16-explained

I can't see this legal landscape changing any time soon, although maybe Amy Hamm will take this case to the BC Supreme Court and it will turn into Canada's version of Maya Forstater.

All that time! The mountain laboured and gave birth to a mouse, sex to be determined.

That Amy gets castigated for accurately describing what trans activists have done because her talking about it might make trans people look bad. The actions though, the things they did, just handwaved. Can Canadians not talk about what criminals have done because it might make their groups look bad?

I hope she appeals. That should take another few years...decades.

No man can feel like a woman any more than a white person can feel black. Nobody has any idea what it feels like to be a member of the opposite sex. In truth nobody has any idea what it feels like to be a member of the same sex as we have no way of tapping into subjective feelings of others in that way.

I wonder if Posie Parker has her eye on Canada next.

The country congratulates itself so fucking hard on being woke, it will be interesting to see exactly how fricken unwoke it gets over Posey Parker.

How can these people be so wilfully dim? No-one is denying that some men say they feel like a woman, we just don't think the rest of us should have to go along with it, and we certainly don't think sex-based laws should be rewritten to accommodate this belief. (There's meme on this that escapes me right now.)