LIVE UPDATES: Day 2 of closing arguments for B.C. nurse penalized for 'two genders' comment
The long, drawn-out disciplinary hearing for a British Columbia nurse fighting for both her livelihood and freedom of speech will be wrapping up its concluding oral arguments today.
LIVE TRIAL THREAD:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Final arguments in a disciplinary trial for Amy Hamm, a BC Nurse, mother of 2 & activist has begun.
The @BCnursemidwife’s counsel argued that Hamm’s advocacy for safe spaces for women & girls equates to advocacy against trans peoples existence
Follow along👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/Uklitwb69C
Hamm, a registered nurse and single mother of two, is on trial by the B.C. College for Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) for allegedly making off-duty “discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people” online while also identifying as a nurse or nurse educator.
The nurse’s plight first made headlines back in 2020 when anonymous complaint was lodged against her for her part in setting up a “I ❤️ JK Rowling Billboard” in Vancouver to show solidarity with the author and child protection advocate's stance on gender ideology.
81. Bildy asks Hamm how and why she got involved with the I ♥️ JK Rowling Billboard that was posted on Glen Dr. in Vancouver.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) November 4, 2023
*I met and interviewed Hamm for the 1st time before cancel mobsters had the billboard removed after it had only been up for 36hrs https://t.co/foFJ4ihqx0
Yesterday, Rebel News brought you live updates of the concluding arguments that counsel for the college, Barbara Findlay and Michael Seaborn, submitted orally before a three-person panel.
Findlay, a 'cisgender queer' activist lawyer, recapped some of the allegedly offensive 'wrongthink' Hamm’s been accused of posting online while advocating for same-sex safe spaces for women and girls and expressing biologically sound statements such as “trans women are not women.”
15. Bildy’s questions for Hamm have concluded.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) November 6, 2023
Hamm is now being cross examined by the college’s blue haired, self proclaimed “old white cisgender queer” activist lawyer, Barbara Findlay. pic.twitter.com/7R9gsZrBrl
Although evidence presented during the quasi-criminal trial revealed Hamm had never received a complaint from a patient, treating transgender patients with the same quality of care as any other patient, Findlay argued that Hamm’s advocacy for biological men to not be in women’s prisons and rape shelters means Hamm would rather transgender people be “pariahs, ostracized from the community.”
“The respondent [Hamm] is most typically talking about a view of the world which erases the existence of trans people. An insistence on a worldview… that says only sex is real, gender identity is a metaphysical construct,” stated Findlay.
Findlay further argued that when Hamm disclosed her nursing profession during interviews or in social media posts while also advocating for sex-based rights and against gender identity, her speech “breached the professional standards of the college” and made transgender people “believe that health care is not a safe place for them.”
To be honest I feel that was the most difficult day to sit through. I’m enraged and sad and miserable.
— Amy Eileen Hamm (@preta_6) March 18, 2024
Today, I will be giving live updates on the closing arguments from lawyers Lisa Bildy and Karen Bastow, who have been hired by the Justice Centre of Constitutional Freedoms to defend Hamm, will be presenting.
Arguments that will likely push back on the college's position that advocacy for safe spaces for women and children and stating that there are only two sexes and two genders does not equate to advocacy against the existence of people who identify as transgender.
Click here to keep up with updates on X, or follow along on the page below:
3) Lisa Bildy, one of two sharp lawyers hired to defend Hamm against her college by the @JCCFCanada is now up!
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
She’s starting off strong.
Photo of Hamm’s counsel:
Lisa Bildy ( @LDBildy ) on the left and Karen Bastow on the right.
Hearing link: https://t.co/t4n1P5EUCY pic.twitter.com/V1mHrHpEGt
5)Bildy says it is important to understand the social context in which Hamm’s statements were made which is relevant to their tone social value and the good faith intentions behind them
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Says this is a “ highly unusual disciplinary case” because it’s not linked to on duty conduct
7) Bildy says the college’s labeling Hamm as discriminatory, transphobic or a risk to vulnerable health services for espousing one side of a necessary debate and being her to trail for such is “wholly inappropriate in this case should be dismissed on this basis alone.”
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
9) Bildy also mentions how the College’s self proclaimed “old white queer cisgender” lawyer, Barbara Findlay did not present such cases and that the college tried very hard to not have any of Hamm’s expert witnesses be heard.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
11) Bildy cont’d:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Do you remember in my opening submissions which was sprinkled with the phrase “women's rights are not transphobic?”
Well, we heard it yesterday.
Women’s rights are transphobic.
13) Bildy cont’d:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Women in society are not just being asked to make space for trans women to pee, we are being forced to accept and promote gender ideology…
No one can even express any concerns about this because as we heard yesterday, that's transphobic.
15) Bildy:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Ms. Findlay’s little thought exercise was interesting but as you know the panel has to decide cases on the facts before it, not on fantasy and an imaginary litigant.
17) Bildy says the college argued that the heart of this case is that its their duty to discipline a registerant for engaging in conduct that is discriminatory towards a marginalized population and contrary to the fundamental values of the nursing profession. “That is incorrect.”
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
19.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Bildy says the heart of this case is “whether Ms. Hamm’s charter protected off duty expression rises to the level of unprofessional conduct that can justifiably be sanctioned by the regulator.
21) Bildy: It is an important distinction that Ms. Hamm’s comments are mainly critical of trans activism and gender Ideology.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
There is no victim of discrimination here in any meaningful sense of the word.
23) Bildy brings up the colleges argument that Hamm, has done significant damage to the reputation of the nursing profession and undermined public confidence in the health care system.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
25) Bildy summarizes some of the case law that’s been discussed through the hearing.
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
Says according to submissions regulators must tolerate a degree of discordant criticism in a free and democratic society and it should not be taking a side.
27) Bildy cont’d:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
The fact is that professionals do have private lives and merely saying in the introduction to a podcast or in a biographical statement at the bottom of an article that one works as a nurse should not be enough of a nexus to pull 300 pages of tweets…
29) Bildy:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
There are people who would enthusiastically curtail all the speech that they don't like and we are coming very close to having a protected class of people and surrounding ideology that are almost sacred.
31) Bildy:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
…It might be speech we find distasteful today. Tomorrow it will be something you thought was perfectly innocuous.
Unprofessional conduct must not be redefined to include speaking on popular truth.
33) Bildy cont’d:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
… and the more stringently the protection of those rights must be upheld.
35) Bildy:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
… this characterization is a fig leaf covering its actual purpose, censoring dissenting viewpoints on matters of gender ideology.
37) Bildy cont’d:
— Drea Humphrey - Prepping and Politics (@DreaHumphrey) March 19, 2024
The Panel may conclude at this stage of the analysis that there is no pressing and substantial objective that warrants infringing Ms. Hamm’s constitutional rights and dismiss the charge.
Drea Humphrey
B.C. Bureau Chief
Based in British Columbia, Drea Humphrey reports on Western Canada for Rebel News. Drea’s reporting is not afraid to challenge political correctness, or ask the tough questions that mainstream media tends to avoid.
