A second judge maintained his ruling.
From:
NewNowNext
When Susan Smith began to fight for primary custody of her 4-year-old child, she knew the family court process would be tough on her and her husband. What she couldn’t have expected was that not one but two judges would explicitly try to police her child’s gender expression.
Smith, whose real name is being withheld to protect the child, vividly remembers the day last December when an Alberta judge ordered her 4-year-old to stop wearing feminine clothing in public.
“My first reaction to that was kind of like an out-of-body experience, like this isn’t my life, this isn’t happening, and then complete fear of how am I going to break it to my kid,” said Smith.
Smith, who refers to her child with the gender-neutral “they,” says that though they were born with male genitalia, they have long expressed their true identity as a girl.
The family initially brushed them off, but when they turned four, Smith could no longer deny that being confined to a male identity was causing her child harm.
“My child was severely unhappy and was prepared to do anything to prove to mom that they were not a boy,” she explained. “It was basically like a ton of bricks, I got hit. It was a major wake-up call.”
Smith sought professional help, read up on gender dysphoria and finally began to acknowledge her child’s identity.
“Our eyes locked and it was maybe the millionth time they told me they were a girl … and I promised I was going to do whatever I could to validate and support them and to be that one person they could go to.”
Weeks later, Smith’s husband served her with divorce papers, blaming her support for their child’s “gender confusion.”
The two went to family court in December 2015, where Judge Derek Redman ruled that Smith would be the child’s primary caregiver. He also added that the 4-year-old would be forbidden from wearing feminine clothing outside the home.
In February, the case went before Judge Fred Fisher, who maintained Redman’s ruling on the child’s dress code, but took primary custody from Smith and gave it to her husband. Smith was granted limited access.
Though her chance to receive full custody was shot, Smith continued to advocate for her child’s right to dress as they liked. In September, Judge Gordon Krinke made a final ruling on the matter, lifting Redman’s original ban.
Smith now plans to file a human rights complaint against the first two judges in the case and continue to seek primary custody of her child.
“I’m not going to hide under a rock and just give up — this is still a big fight,” she concluded.
