How Does This Even Happen?
Article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/judges-order-4-year-old-boy-not-to-wear-girls-clothes-in-southeastern-alberta-city-1.3816829
tl;dr: Child from separated family decides he wants to be identified as a female. Primary care-giver mom tells dad, dad files for sole custody, wins. Three judges order child to wear only boy clothes in public.
This is amazing to me. There are so many articles in the news that are about judges who make orders on things that are violations of human rights or against the law entirely. I have wondered in the past and do again today about what kind of vetting process they have to become judges, or if the ones we have are just so old-school that they are completely out of touch to begin with. I remember growing up and learning in Sunday School about the biblical judges, who brought justice and taught the Israelites how to live righteous lives. Now, when I think of a modern-day judge, all I can associate is the person who is looking to punish a guilty party in a way that they feel is fitting. Of course, the majority of judges in the majority of cases must rule appropriately, but far too often there is one case or another where it just goes entirely the wrong way. And this is one of them.
First of all, does the child have psychological problems and is maybe confused about how to behave in a split-family environment where the primary adult influence is female? Possibly. I'm sure that is part of the argument the father is using to get custody of the child. And the child probably needs to see a qualified professional to truly gain an understanding of what he or she is really feeling. That being said, just about any kid - especially one from a broken home - could benefit from psychiatric help. Most adults too. The danger in this situation, and what the judges were completely complicit in, was that they are forcing a gender roll on an impressionable child by changing the terms of the custody arrangements, which no matter what happens, is going to cause harm to the child psychologically.
I am of the opinion that mothers get custody in the vast majority of custody cases by default regardless of the fact that the child or children would benefit more from being in the father's care, and this is done because historically it was this way and we are just too weak as a culture to address it and fix the system. There should be a fair review of the facts before any decision is made, and made without any bias. In this case, maybe the father is an equal or better provider, but what you already know by the decisions he made about using this to fight for full custody is that he does not believe in the child's right to decide his or her own identity. The long-term effects of forcing a child to mold to the parent's ideas of what that parent believes is appropriate will be harmful more often than not when that parent is acting on negative ideals. Why do we have so many racists in the world today? Because their parents were racists.