Canadian father jailed after publicly objecting to minor daughter taking testosterone
A father who has long objected to his minor daughter taking testosterone as part of an experimental gender transition has been jailed in British Columbia for contempt of court.
Robert Hoogland was arrested Tuesday after a warrant was issued by a judge earlier this month for telling the public his name and showing his face, according to sources close to the situation. He will reportedly remain in police custody pending a decision on his release to be made at 9:30 a.m. Friday in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver.
Sources told The Christian Post this week that at the Friday hearing, Hoogland’s attorney will ask that the arrest warrant be voided and that he be released on the basis that the detention is unlawful.
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Hoogland has been outspoken in his opposition to what is now known as “gender-affirming” medical care in hopes of preventing his daughter from undergoing irreversible harm. Hoogland’s ex-wife, who is supported by the Canadian medical and legal system, is proceeding with their child's transitioning against his wishes.
The father discovered that his daughter’s school had been showing gender identity education materials called SOGI 123, The Post Millennial reported Tuesday.
His daughter had several complex problems, but they were all attributed to gender dysphoria. When his daughter was in seventh grade, her yearbook showed her being referred to by a different name as the school counselor changed her name without informing her parents.
The school decided to do so on its own after having received input from psychologist Wallace Wong, a known gender ideologue, according to The Post Millenial.
Wong reportedly advised Hoogland’s daughter to take testosterone and referred her to an endocrinology unit at a nearby hospital. When Hoogland contested the matter in court, the judge at the time held that his consent was not relevant and that if he did not affirm her as a male, he would be implicated in the criminal offense of “family violence.”
“I had a perfectly healthy child a year ago, and that perfectly healthy child has been altered and destroyed for absolutely no good reason,” Hoogland told The Federalist in a gag order-breaking interview from February 2020, referring to it as “state-sponsored child abuse.”
“She can never go back to being a girl in the healthy body that she should have had. She’s going to forever have a lower voice. She’ll forever have to shave because of facial hair. She won’t be able to have children…”
Hoogland stated that sometimes he wants to “scream so that other parents and people will… jump in, understand what’s going on.”
“There’s a child — and not only mine — but in my case, my child out there having her life ruined,” he said.
Hoogland’s attorney is now petitioning the court to adjourn the trial on the criminal contempt of court charge until after judgment on a similar issue in a proceeding Notice of Application previously scheduled for a hearing on April 12.
The attorney working on behalf of the attorney general of British Columbia responded, both in open court and on the record, advising Hoogland’s attorney approximately 10 days earlier that there was never any intention to proceed with a trial in respect to the arrest and criminal contempt charges of and against Hoogland.
Hoogland is referred to as “CD” in court documents and is arguing that the provincial government’s move to arrest him and hold him in custody with the foreknowledge that a trial will not be held is an abuse of his liberties under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the legal rights listed in the Constitution Act of 1982.
The law states that when a person is arrested or detained by police, they have the right to be “promptly informed of the reasons therefore” and “can retain and instruct counsel without delay.” They also have the right to “have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful.”
Regarding proceedings in criminal and penal matters, the law also provides that anyone charged with a criminal offense has the right to be informed “without unreasonable delay of the specific offence” and “be tried within a reasonable time.”
Sources told CP that Hoogland’s attorney maintains that the conscious decision to violate his charter freedoms “is the very definition of arbitrary” and for law enforcement “to obtain a warrant from a Supreme Court justice without advising there was no intention to have a trial, is to mislead the court.”
Thus, “the warrant issued in this case in such a manner is therefore a nullity, and the arrest following upon the nullity warrant is therefore a false arrest,” a source said.
