Amy Eileen Hamm has been prosecuted by her professional body for believing in the binary nature of biological sex and speaking up for women’s rights.
One of the more absurd disciplinary hearings to grace the international stage in the recent half-decade is the trial of Amy Eileen Hamm, a nurse in the Canadian province of British Columbia who has been prosecuted by her professional body for believing in the binary nature of biological sex.
That's right, this nurse is 100 percent sure that men and women are two necessary components of the human species, that only when they mate can young be produced, and that women as the smaller, weaker, baby-bearing sex are vulnerable by virtue of those factors.
Since the hearing began in September 2022, there have been many changes in the landscape. Detransitioned men and women have come out of the woodwork to express the damage done to them in service to the lie of changing sex. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has been discredited as have so many doctors who perform trans surgeries, including the president of WPATH, trans Dr. Marci Bowers. The NHS in the UK has stopped the prescription of puberty blockers for minors after the lack of safeguards was revealed.
For her beliefs, which were simply common knowledge among all humans regardless of education, race, ethnicity, or even sex up until the early 2010s, Hamm faces the loss of her license and livelihood. It's a bit mind-boggling, but here are the facts. Hamm put up a billboard along with Chris Elston in 2020 Vancouver that read "I <3 JK Rowling" in white letters on a black background. Internationally renowned author Rowling is a vocal advocate of women's sex-based rights as is Hamm.
Both women are mothers, and both women felt the need, at a certain point in their lives, to speak up and counter the absolute gender ideology nonsense that had emerged suddenly and with force across the cultural landscape.
To trans activists, saying you support Rowling is the same thing as actually murdering trans people with hate in your heart. Rowling has been the recipient of death threats and doxxing as a result of her advocacy for women's rights. These activists believe words are violence, and that violence is the appropriate form of self-defense against mean words, so some anonymous trans activists who had never met Hamm or been in her nursing care complained to the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives to end Hamm's career.
The British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives was only too happy to comply and they launched an investigation into Hamm for unprofessional conduct due to the crime of transphobia. And yes, in Canada, "transphobia," as the factual discussion of biology and sex-based rights is defined, is in fact a crime.
Hamm is a nurse, a single mother of two children, founding member of the Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar) group, and frequent contributor to The Post Millennial. The allegations at the start of the hearing back in 2022 were that "Hamm made discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people while identifying herself as a nurse."
Opening arguments back in September of that year were offered by Michael Seaborn, who lists his pronouns as he/him, and stated that "The college will produce evidence that shows that transgender people are among the most vulnerable and marginalized populations in our society.”
“Common discriminatory statements directed towards transgender people include: statements that deny their existence such as by insisting that there are only two sexes, often referred to as erasure,” he explained, “or describing them as deviant or predatory for no other reason than they are different from a large portion of the population.”
Attorneys targeting Hamm then took over some 18 months in their attempt to do that. Experts came in to testify both that men aren't women and that saying this truth is "transphobic." One witness for the College said that telling "trans kids" they are their natal sex amounts to "conversion therapy," which is illegal in Canada. Dr. Greta Bauer claimed that questioning child sex changes is "transphobic."
Attorney Barbara Findlay, who prefers to write her name in lowercase letters in order to protest colonialism or something, said that in posting the billboard Hamm was attacking trans women. She cited statistics of trans persons being misgendered in healthcare settings or seeing "negative tweets" as evidence that Hamm's words caused damage.
Findlay said during her summation that the College of Nurses and Midwives had shown that "the respondent is misusing her status as a nurse to lend credibility to her off-duty discriminatory and derogatory assertions about trans people. When she includes her profession in her posts, in her writings, in her interviews. Because that inclusion is likely to confirm for trans people the view that they already hold that there is not a safe place for them."
"We submit that the respondent's statements, made while she identifies as a nurse, fundamentally breach the professional standards of the college and rise to the level of unprofessional conduct."
Findlay's colleague Seaborn joined her in their conclusion of this lengthy case, saying that there were two "concluding points." These were that the case law in this area is essentially settled. He'd cited the hearings against Dr. Jordan Peterson, who underwent a similar struggle session with his professional body in Ontario.
In their statements, they do two very key things: they claim that nurses cannot advocate for women's sex-based rights to the exclusion of males as it "brings the profession into disrepute," and they assert that advocating for women's sex-based rights to the exclusion of males is hateful on its face.
During her closing arguments, Findlay read Hamm's social media posts aloud. These posts had been compiled by the College attorneys in a 330-page dossier. Findlay's reasoning was that Hamm has her occupation in her bio and that therefore all statements she has made on the platform represent the entire nursing profession in Canada.
Findlay read through Hamm's tweets in support of sex-segregated rape crisis center Vancouver Rape Relief and Shelter, which has come under fire for serving women only, in support of sex-segregated women's sports, and claimed repeatedly that these "derogate or discriminate against trans women." Findlay complains that it is discriminatory for Hamm to say that men will destroy women's only spaces when they enter them.
Findlay brought up women's prison activist Heather Mason, who speaks out against men being committed to women's correctional facilities regardless of their gender identity, but declined to read that post as it was only shared by Hamm and not written by her.
Findlay read Hamm's social media posts for more than 120 minutes taking entirely for granted that "trans kids" exist, that speaking for women is mean to trans women, that men who say they are women are women, and that having a profession while speaking means that a person is speaking on behalf of all those who work in that profession, or could be perceived of as doing so.
In dissecting Hamm's posts, However, Findlay reveals her own bias when she criticizes Hamm for saying that trans women are feminine men, and Findlay says "feminine men are trans women," as though a man who has feminine characteristics cannot exist outside of a sex change. Findlay complains that Hamm "has a refusal to honor the gender identity of particularly trans women."
Summing up Hamm's perspective, Findlay said "so the respondent's positions are trans women are not women, trans women are really men, they're feminine men, they should really be protected on the ground of sex. What does that mean about where those people should pee? The answer is clearly that they should not be peeing in the women's washroom. That the proposition is that they should be protected on the basis of sex when they go to pee in the men's washroom illustrates how Alice in Wonderland is the regime that the respondent purports to propose. It is in the double-think of saying at the same time 'trans women should not be permitted to participate in gendered spaces as women, and I am in support of human rights for trans women, which is intensely discriminatory and derogatory, because it denies, fundamentally denies, that trans women, when their human rights are respected, have a right based on their gender identity to participate in women's gendered spaces."
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The trial has been going on both in the lead-up and formality for years. For years, Hamm has had her career held in limbo by a body that is more concerned with the views of randos on social media than the good work Hamm has done caring for her fellow Canadians. They have dredged up countless tweets that advocate for women and claimed that by speaking for women without including males who claim to be women Hamm has discriminated against trans people. They really believe that.
Attorneys for the College of Nurses and Midwives have attempted to paint Hamm as an anti-trans bigot who spews hate on social media and have used the idea that these (very reasonable and at times passionate) social media posts hinder trans persons from seeking medical services. They claim that her words have been existentially damaging to the nursing profession by depleting public trust in nurses. They contest that a nurse stating her belief in the reality of biological sex damages the credibility of nursing.
Those attorneys did not provide evidence of persons who declined to seek medical care because Hamm put up a billboard stating her affection for JK Rowling. In fact, as Hamm's attorney Lisa Bildy pointed out, they did not provide this evidence because they could not find a single patient who was harmed by Hamm's speech. The attorneys used a straw man to justify their argument that Hamm harmed the profession of nursing by speaking up for women's sex-based rights to the exclusion of males. Further, attorneys for the College of Nurses and Midwives argued that patients, the public, and the profession of nursing would have been better served by Hamm lying to patients, colleagues, and the public. This was the entire crux of their argument.
In their closing arguments, which took two days to complete, attorneys for the College of Nurses and Midwives argued that Hamm had sacrificed her professional integrity on the altar of women's rights, and as evidence they used her advocacy for women's rights, which they claimed outright was anti-trans. According to the College of Midwives, excluding men's rights from the fight for women's rights is transphobic because some men are women. That's not how they phrased it, of course. For their purposes, these attorneys representing a medical licensing body, saying that women's rights exclude men is enough to denote hateful bigotry.
In defense attorney Bildy's closing remarks, she said that Hamm "spoke out early" on the dangerous issues of sex changes for minors, the harm of gender ideology for women and women's rights. Bildy said the only reason there was a hearing at all was because Hamm put up a billboard and "some activists didn't like it." She pointed out again that none of the complainants even knew Hamm or had been treated by her. She found further that the College had not successfully evidenced that there had been "inferred harm" from Hamm's advocacy for women's rights.
Bildy also pointed out that the College of Nurses and Midwives has a duty to protect the public, not to enforce certain "political values." Moreover, the very concepts of gender ideology and sex changes for minors are being debated in public discourse. The tenets held dear by the College and their attorneys are being dismantled piece by piece as more evidence emerges that gender ideology harms women, children, and society at large.
Hamm doesn't believe in the concept of gender identity. She doesn't believe that this is an innate characteristic of all people. When given the opportunity to speak in her defense, Hamm defended her career as a nurse and defended her views, countering the arguments of the College's attorneys.
"The issue isn't about trans people," Hamm said. "The issue is about having sex-segregated spaces that don't have male bodies. Women have reason to fear male violence, and that is the reason that we got sex-segregated spaces in the first place. And I can certainly sympathize with trans women who appear female. I can sympathize that they might be afraid of using male washrooms or other spaces as well. The reason that they would fear that is because, again, male violence.
"But I don't believe that it should be incumbent upon women to accept males into our sex-segregated spaces to protect this particular group of biological males from other biological males. I would support third spaces, that sort of thing. But I strongly believe that in order for women, like I said, to preserve our privacy, our dignity and most importantly our safety, we deserve and are entitled to sex-segregated spaces."
A source close to the matter said that a verdict is expected in about 6 months.
