How the Jailing of a BC Father Shows the Extremes of Transgender Ideology and the Failure of the Media
https://off-guardian.org/2021/04/09/immolating-parental-rights-and-overruling-truth/
Jenn Smith
Abstract: There are important parallels between the 1963 case of the self-immolation of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức and the recent case in British Columbia (2021) of a father who was forced against his will by the court and the state to facilitate the pharmaceutical “sex reassignment” of his teenage daughter. Both cases speak to the desperation of people whose rights were trampled by an invasive all-powerful state and who were ignored by an indifferent and corrupt establishment-beholden media.
A Strange and Distant Memory.
“[Civil Disobedience] seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” Martin Luther King Jr.
The story of Thích Quảng Đức and the now infamous photograph taken by Malcolm Browne of his shocking act of self-immolation during the Vietnam War, has fascinated me from the first moment I saw it.
The photo (see below) shows Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk, who lit himself on fire as part of a planned political protest at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963. It was truly one of the most visually and emotionally stunning media events of the 20th century. Then-President John F. Kennedy, who would only live another five months himself, said of the photo:
No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world.
Unfortunately, the Vietnam War would produce many other startling photographs before it was over.
Photo taken by Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne, on June 11, 1963, Saigon, South Vietnam.
While many disturbing images came out of the Vietnam War, there was something unique and disturbingly surreal about the Quảng Đức image and what it represented. Unlike few other images in human history, the image of Quảng Đức sitting calmly in the middle of an inferno of his own creation caused much of the world to stop and look. Other now-famous images from that era, almost without exception, portrayed things being done to somebody, in this case it was somebody doing something terrible to himself.
The impact of this photo globally was overwhelming. For a moment people all around the world simultaneously put their hands on their mouths and went silent. What brings a man to do something so horrific to himself and yet with such apparent calm lucidity?
One of the few reporters that bothered to attend the event, David Halberstam of the New York Times, wrote
I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think … As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.
Why would somebody light themselves on fire for a political cause? What could possibly justify such an extreme act of self-destruction? Who was this person and what motivated him?
In order to understand the case of Thich Quảng Đức and how it relates to the case I am involved with today in British Columbia, you must understand the political landscape upon which it transpired.
Quảng Đức and his fellow monks had been trying desperately for some time to get a corrupt and seemingly indifferent global media to focus on the religious oppression of Buddhists in Vietnam by the Catholic-dominated Diem government. A ban on the flying of religious flags led to a large protest by Buddhists in the city of Huế on May 8, 1963. Some nine thousand people attended the protest which was eventually rocked by an explosion of uncertain origin followed by police and military opening fire on the crowd, killing 9 and wounding many others, including two children who were crushed underneath the wheels of government armored personnel carriers.
Buddhist protestors in South Vietnam in 1963 during the so-called “Buddhist Crisis” that led to the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức.
The government blamed the Huế massacre on the Vietcong and the global media either ignored or failed to give the event the attention it deserved. The US ambassador to South Vietnam sided with the Diem government and called government explanations “objective, accurate, and fair,” which was repeated by much of the global media.
The dishonesty and indifference of the media and government became a very pressing and frustrating problem for the Buddhists of Vietnam. The government was now openly slaughtering Buddhist protestors and the media was either ignoring or spinning it in favor of the government.
Indeed, the aforementioned David Halberstam of the New York Times, who would be one of the few journalists to attend the press gathering in Saigon on June 11, had himself subtly implied that the Hue protest might be linked to Communists and that the casualties were caused by an agent provocateur in the crowd rather than government forces.
How could Buddhists get a largely indifferent media to give their situation the attention it deserved? The problem, of course, was solved quite dramatically, but it was not a spontaneous event and only a handful of international reporters were in attendance that day.
The self-immolation of Quảng Đức was part of a strategic plan to force the international media to pay attention. If you look at the photo closely you will see other monks with cameras walking around. This event was carefully staged.
The plan did work, the world media did pay attention, because it was hard to ignore something so dramatic as a man lighting himself on fire in order to protest injustice. Several copycats immolated themselves later that year as well but did not get the same level of attention and in fact led to one official in Vietnam saying that she would…
clap [my] hands at seeing another monk barbecue show.
The flippant attitude was not shared by the rest of the world, and Quảng Đức’s sacrifice ultimately set off a chain of events that led to the end of the Diem government, but one must understand the key to this event was that it forced the global media to pay attention, and that was what caused a shift in public opinion and ultimately helped bring about change.
The story of Thích Quảng Đức returns to me again today because, ironically, a case I have been a part of in British Columbia (BC), Canada, shares some of the same basic features — although not as extreme or visually startling in its outcome as the case of Quảng Đức, the case of a father that has become known by the pseudonym of “Clark Kent” and referred to in court documents under the anonymized initials of “CD”, and who was forced to facilitate the pharmaceutical “sex reassignment” of his daughter against his will and his reaction to that, raises many of the same questions and points to some of the very same motivations and answers.
The Rise of Transgender Ideology and Its Resistance.
“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest – forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.” Hannah Arendt
On March 20, 2021, my phone rang and I was immediately greeted by a recorded message from a British Columbia (BC) remand correctional facility, essentially a jail that holds prisoners until they can face trial. A disclaimer was read to me that the call would be recorded and subject to review. I had to agree to the terms before the call would be connected. I did so and the voice of a man I had first met in December of 2018 said, “hello, Jenn?”
It was a surreal experience for me because I knew the man well and I knew he was no threat to anybody, and yet here he was calling me from inside a jail. While it had happened sooner than expected, I was in fact not entirely surprised that this tragic situation had finally come to pass, as I had seen it coming for some time. But to understand the travesty and tragedy that has occurred in British Columbia today — which should echo through the corridors of every legislature and courtroom in the world — I will need to take the reader back to the start for a brief summary of how the now-infamous case of AB v CD came to pass and my direct involvement in it.
Brief Background
First, for readers that may not be familiar with this case or myself, I should begin by providing some brief background information, not only on this case but on myself as well and the cause I have been fighting for, as I have been directly involved in this story since before it was in front of any judge, and I indeed wrote the very first story on this case in December of 2018. While I do not want to get too deep into all the complicated details, I believe this to be one of the most important legal and political cases in the world today and as such it deserves some due space and attention.
The case of AB v CD points not only to the most concerning elements of modern transgender ideology and politics, but to the complete failure of both the fourth and fifth estates (the media) in alerting the public to injustice and defending the truth. The act of desperation that ultimately transpired in the case of AB v CD can be shown to have been fueled by the same basic frustrations and forces that drove Thích Quảng Đức to his act of desperation almost six decades ago, but that will be illustrated in due time.
I am a 56-year-old transgender-identified activist. I am male. I present to the world in sometimes androgynous and sometimes feminine ways, but I have never claimed my presentation does or could ever change my sex. While it may be true that at one point I wanted to be a female, I was never able to get to the level of physical reality denial that is necessary to reject one’s biological sex, so I settled for playing the gender role without denying reality or insisting others do so. I am okay with just being male and being transgender, with “transgender” simply referring to a pattern of behavior. I believe this is the only healthy way to express transgender identity, not only for oneself, but for society as well, and the following story will illustrate for you the dangers of doing otherwise. We can play any part we want in this world but for the sake of everybody (including ourselves) we must always remain tethered to truth, particularly when it comes to law and the education of our youth.
I became involved in the political debate regarding transgender issues almost four years ago when I began using my academic background to research and write articles critical of what I call “the transgender agenda,” namely, this shift we have seen in society towards claiming males can be females (and visa versa), and the concerning indoctrination and confusion of our children in that process, not to mention the disturbing totalitarian undertones that seem to be driving it and which I discussed in my widely read essay Synanon, the Brainwashing “Game,” and Modern Transgender Activism.
Being transgender myself, I of course have never opposed the right for adults to dress or express as they like in the world, but I believe there are too many pressures and confusions associated with this behavior for minors to fully process and understand, as such I have always maintained that changing gender is something best reserved for adults. I further believe that particularly the medical or pharmaceutical transitioning (“sex reassignment”) of minors should be illegal because it has permanent life-altering consequences. I regard the mass chemical sterilization of our youth via the use of “gender affirming” drugs as a kind of medical crime, particularly when you understand the demographics of the youths identifying as transgender.
There has been a massive increase in the number of minors identifying as transgender over the last five or six years. This fact on its own is cause for serious concern, but it becomes even more alarming when you begin analyzing just what children are identifying as transgender. According to one study, 52% of “gender dysphoric” youths (minors identifying as the opposite sex) had one or more DSM-listed psychiatric conditions in addition to gender dysphoria. Numerous other studies have made the same basic findings, in other words, these are psychologically troubled youths.
Studies will vary, but researchers testing gender dysphoric youths have reported autism spectrum disorder prevalence at rates ranging from 8% at the low end to a staggering 54.2% at the high end. These numbers however do not become alarming until you realize that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in the general population is estimated by the CDC to be 1.7%. For autism rates in transgender youths to average around 30% or even 8% should be shocking to all thinking adults.
No serious person would suggest gender dysphoria causes autism, and the only reasonable answer is that these are psychologically vulnerable children that are falling victim to what is essentially a predatory ideology that turns them into life long pharmaceutical customers. But it gets even worse than this.
I was a foster child in the province of British Columbia (BC) during the 1970s and went through multiple different homes, and I was thus horrified to learn that BC’s leading gender specialist suggested that half of his 1000 minor patients came from the BC Ministry of Child and Family Development, in other words foster children and youths otherwise in the care of the Ministry. While we will not know how those numbers break down with certainty until we can get the subpoenaing power of a National Inquiry which I have been pushing for now for two years, I found this information highly alarming and it has made this subject extraordinarily personal for me.
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Jenn Smith is a writer, a public speaker, and a political activist. He lives in British Columbia, Canada. He can be contacted via his blog or his Facebook page.
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