America's siblings threaten medical professionals who challenge gender ideology, even in satire

The Anglosphere is cracking down on medical professionals for promoting the sexual binary over gender identity, threatening their licenses for expressing themselves outside the clinic rather than for any alleged misconduct toward patients.

Canadian nurse Amy Hamm filed complaints last week with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives, which found her guilty of professional misconduct this spring, and Vancouver Coastal Health, which fired her shortly after, alleging discrimination based on political belief. 

The BCCNM opened an investigation of Hamm four years ago for putting up a billboard reading "I (heart) J.K. Rowling," referring to the gender-critical "Harry Potter" author, but a year later revised the charge from sharing "medically inaccurate information" to "discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people."

Hamm appealed the finding in April to the BC Supreme Court, which BCCNM belatedly recognized two months later when it updated her discipline order, which still says BCCNM has yet to "deliberate on the appropriate penalty and costs."

Australia's Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week found doctor Jereth Kok committed professional misconduct in a 177-page ruling for expressing common conservative Christian views, including opposition to gender ideology in schools and COVID-19 restrictions and support for opposite-sex childrearing and therapy to overcome same-sex attraction.

The Medical Board of Australia opened an investigation in March 2018 based on a single "social media post" and suspended his license in August 2019 through the rest of the proceeding. 

"In that time, he had to retrain in another career just to support his wife and young kids," Australian Christian author Kurt Mahlburg wrote in a lengthy X thread on the case.

The tribunal reviewed 85 Kok posts from 2010 through 2021, finding that 54 "support one or more of the allegations and particulars" from the board's complaint and were not protected by the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act.

Four shared conservative Christian satire from The Babylon Bee, which the tribunal deemed "denigrating, demeaning, disrespectful and derogatory to the LGBTQI+ community." 

Mahlburg showed 13 of the posts, summarizing the message of the ruling as: "You may no longer be a doctor in Australia if your conscience, faith, or moral beliefs conflict with progressive ideology – even outside the clinic."

Australia's Family First Party responded to the punishment by promising to run "candidates at next year’s South Australian, Victorian and the 2027 [New South Wales] state election who are committed to restoring free speech and ending this culture of fear."

National Director Lyle Shelton said Kok's case "must be a turning point" for Australia and "whether Australians – especially Christian and conservative professionals – are still free to express their views without losing their livelihoods."

'No prior record of disciplinary issues of any kind,' no patient complaints

Canada's Hamm has been just as vocal as Australia's Kok but solely focused on protecting women's spaces from males, though BCCNM also found her guilty based on a much smaller record: "four public items in which she had identified herself as a nurse – three articles and one podcast episode," her Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms case page says.

"The caregiver had no prior record of disciplinary issues of any kind, even while working with transgender patients," according to JCCF. BCCNM stretched out the hearing over 18 months, with 23 days of hearings.

Vancouver Coastal Health suspended Hamm in May 2024 following an internal campaign against her "affiliated with the activist group Care Not Cops, which publicly called for her firing and encouraged complaints to her union and employer," and investigated Hamm for more than 10 months, flagrantly violating the 60-day limit in the union contract, JCCF said. 

It is paying for her lawyer, Lisa Bildy, who repeatedly wrote to VCH "to raise concerns about due process, a threat against Ms. Hamm’s life, and the VCH’s failure to address her complaints against these other employees who were trying to get her fired," JCCF said.

The regional health authority claimed Hamm's personal beliefs caused "harm to individuals" and could hurt its reputation. This would be the first Canadian case to evaluate "whether gender critical views are protected beliefs," as the U.K. High Court held this year, Bildy said.

Hamm seeks "reinstatement, a public apology, a declaration that she was discriminated against, and monetary compensation," JCCF said. 

A spokesperson declined to provide the complaints to Just the News, citing "particular rules around publishing documents when they relate to Tribunals," which operate under different rules than Canadian courts, and recommending talking to Bildy when she returns next week.

Mocking progressive racism is itself racist?

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal threw the kitchen sink at Kok, portraying all manner of conservative Christian beliefs as outside the pale for the medical profession.

The Chinese doctor "denigrated, demeaned and slurred medical practitioners" who perform abortions, treat gender dysphoria and "recognise that people who identify as transgender are not suffering from a mental health condition," and "expressed sentiments of violence and made derogatory statements" toward racial and religious groups and abortion providers.

Kok's expression "denigrated, demeaned and were disrespectful of and derogatory to LGBTQI+ persons and community," and he both mocked those who "accepted and considered it right to follow COVID-19 public health orders" and "drew on and legitimised antivaccination and vaccine hesitancy rhetoric and contained misleading information regarding vaccines."

He was also accused of mocking people who "follow COVID-19 public health orders, whether in relation to COVID-19 the posts drew on and/or legitimised antivaccination or vaccine hesitancy rhetoric and/or contained misleading information regarding vaccines," the ruling said.

Kok told the tribunal several times it was misreading his comments by claiming they were "directed at medical practitioners" and that they expressed racist sentiments, rather than mocking what Kok perceived as progressive racism and "western cultural supremacy" and reclaiming a slur against his own people by using it in a "light-hearted" way.

His comments about an Islamist terrorist attack, contrasting Islam with his own "Religion of Peace," show he slurred a religious group and lacked "respect and sensitivity for those from culturally diverse backgrounds," the tribunal found. (It claimed without evidence he slurred a racial group as well.)

The tribunal rejected the plain satire of many of his posts, including one that compared foreign aid for abortion in poor black countries to racial genocide, instead claiming he slurred racial groups by mocking the progressive case for "family planning" in scare quotes.

Sharing a Babylon Bee article with no comment of his own – that the Chinese military would now "shout wrong pronouns at American troops" to hurt them – nonetheless "belittled and trivialised the use of personal pronouns" and violated the 2020 Code of Conduct for Australian doctors by failing to "respect and be sensitive to gender diversity."

Kok simply quoted at length from another Babylon Bee article he shared, "Congressional Prayer Lasts Two Days As Democrat Includes All 5,787 Genders," which alluded to Missouri Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver ending a public prayer with "amen and awomen."

Though the "worst allegations were not upheld" and the tribunal recognized satire, sarcasm and "genuine religious or political commentary" in some posts, the body "gave little weight to constitutional or freedom of speech protections," Kok's lawyers at religious liberty law firm Human Rights Law Alliance said.

"The decision raises concerns about whether Australia will continue to allow employers, regulators, and government to exercise power over free speech and the expression of personal, political, and religious opinions," it said, adding it hasn't decided on an appeal.