Writes letter to the Chief Justice of India citing ‘woke’ rules of the Provincial Court of British Columbia
This week, a ‘queer’ lawyer wrote a passionate appeal to the Chief Justice of India D.Y.Chandrachud requesting a “small administrative direction” to include preferred pronouns in court appearance slips. This additional section on the slip is to “affirm the identities of queer lawyers,” and will also be reflected in Court orders and judgments.
CJI Chandrachud assumed office earlier this month, and has wasted no time in setting the wheel in motion. He is seen as a dynamic pathbreaker, whose refreshingly non-conformist views are often an affront to the rich and powerful. Chandrachud is an ex-officio executive chairman of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and one of the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court of India. He was also the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court and a former judge of the Bombay High Court. In less than a month, since his tenure began, he has been instrumental in nullifying the marital status of women seeking abortion. As an admirable way of bringing two issues to the forefront, Chandrachud’s bench concluded that for reasons of medical termination, a rape (even within marriage) should be considered valid as long as it is within the 24 week ambit. Given that India is one of 36 countries not to criminalise marital rape, this judgement flies in the face of some of the questionable legal recourse (or lack thereof). His judgment recognising privacy as a fundamental right led to the historic decriminalisation of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code on consensual adult homosexual relationships. He stated that 377 “poses a grave danger to the unhindered fulfillment of one’s sexual orientation as an element of privacy and dignity. (…) it is difficult to right a wrong by history. But we can set the course for the future.”
Despite his astute judgements and provisions for women, Chandrachud has not been able to categorically distinguish sex and gender. Based on his views on the ‘LGBTQ+ community’ as a whole, force teaming TQ to the group, I suspect he too has been consumed by the ideology. Perhaps his readily liberal approach towards law and its people are being thoroughly exploited by the likes of lawyers who want ‘muh pronouns’ on court slips. Would the CJI listen and factor in the views of feminists like me? I am yet to find out.
Now back to the letter. The number of times TRAs evoke the NALSA judgement for their demands is beyond boring now. That said, I too will never miss an opportunity to call out the ludicrousness of it; NALSA versus the Supreme Court interpreted the word ‘sex’, as given in Articles, to include ‘gender identity’. Accordingly, “both gender and biological attributes constitute distinct components of sex.” Quite instead of defining ‘gender’ as a set of sex stereotypes, it is interpreted as ‘gender identity’. And with this spurious delineation (not in line with the Constitution of India – which soley mentions ‘sex’ as the protected category) the Supreme Court concluded that protection from sex-based oppression under the Articles inadvertently includes gender and gender identity.
Bhatt posits that all stakeholders of the state’s entire legal machinery be swayed in favour of gender ideology and shouldn’t “assume” someone’s sex. In placing such a demand, he asks to eliminate every identifier possible – name, appearance and voice. And declares how such a deception would “herald a new era” in judiciary.
Sex is biological, dimorphic, and immutable. Whereas gender identity is a person’s “feeling” of what ‘sex’ they are. This legal ambiguity within the NALSA judgement has set a dangerous precedent for all further judgements. These policies have attempted to create a set of legal statuses without undertaking a prior impact assessment for the effects on the rest of society, particularly women. Additionally, it contains a number of provisions that enable the erasure of legal history, and hence open the door for potential misrepresentation. Continued emphasis on ‘preferred pronouns’ is a relentless endeavour to force people to flout the evidence of their own eyes and ears.
The letter sent on November 26 by Rohin Bhatt says,
Such a small step will go a long way in improving experiences within the legal system for trans, gender non-confirming and gender diverse lawyers. This will help the court to identify correct pronouns and forms of address by adopting one practice that applies equally to all and will go a long way in avoiding lawyers or parties having to raise the issue only after incorrect titles or pronouns are used. This will go a long way in addressing gender dysmorphia in queer lawyers. Finally, this will herald in a new era of a queer-friendly judiciary that supports a shift in professional practice towards asking all people how they should be respectfully addressed, acknowledging that this should not be assumed based on name, appearance or voice.
In essence, Bhatt posits that all stakeholders of the state’s entire legal machinery be swayed in favour of gender ideology and shouldn’t “assume” someone’s sex. In placing such a demand, he asks to eliminate every identifier possible – name, appearance and voice. And declares how such a deception would “herald a new era” in judiciary. As innocuous as may seem to indulge these requests, gender identity is a trojan horse that will pave way for a complete erasure of women’s sex-based rights. So if the CJI agrees to include a column (I strongly feel he will), what would be their next demand? To offer ‘queer’ convicts the same courtesy?
Not long ago, a man accused of molesting a female colleague claimed that he was a woman himself, and therefore he considered the colleague a “sister.” According to the First Information Report lodged in October 2016, both the accused and the woman worked for the same company in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida in 2014, when he molested her at a party. The 33-year-old victim, a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis, was brought to the Delhi High Court in a wheelchair and refused to withdraw the case. Interestingly, the same court that wants to legitimise self ID, dismissed his plea. If such a perpetrator were to self declare his ‘womanhood’ in future, and demand that his ‘preferred pronouns’ are used, would the court entertain it? Or further still, record the crime and prosecute him as a woman?
Citing the Provincial Court of British Columbia
Bhatt’s letter draws from International courts where such ‘inclusivity’ has already been established. He cites the Provincial Court of British Columbia where ‘preferred pronouns’ need to be recorded as per the new procedure starting December 2020. Thank you, TRAnada!
Bhatt feels the words used to describe people are “essential to their gender identity,” and believes language tends to inflict “symbolic violence on transgender litigants and lawyers in Court and lead to enhancing dysphoria, which can lead to psychological distress.” So as a way to mitigate this “violence,” he finds obfuscating language to be the best way forward. He does feel “clarity and precision” to be paramount in legal writing, and misses his own statement’s irony by asking the CJI to be more “affirming!” He writes:
Use of correct pronouns in orders and judgements of the Court will affirm identities and challenge discriminatory attitudes, which, as your lordship will be well aware, is heightened when the subject of these attitudes is queer. The wrong pronouns in orders and judgements can disempower, demean, and reinforce exclusion.
His ambition with this “small administrative direction” extends beyond mere courtesy in Court during a hearing. Bhatt wants the judgements to reflect the preferred pronouns of the lawyers and litigants alike, thereby letting this ideology waltz its way into the legal curriculum. He goes a step further and suggests that clerks be trained to use “queer inclusive language,” and wants lawyers to submit briefs using the same muddied language and “eliminate the methods we were trained to use in law school.” Essentially, this small request is demanding an overhaul of an entire legal system, which is impotent to begin with.
Dangers of obfuscating language
In Western countries, women and children are having to pander to the demands of trans-identifying males by calling him ‘she’ and ‘her’. Children are told off for not calling their fathers ‘mom’ during court hearings. This is in cases where women have been abused by such men- with threats to revoke custody, whilst entirely plundering her financial stability. In an increasingly less rare occurrence, a family court in Jaipur granted in favour of the wife seeking divorce from her husband who, after 16 years of marriage, decided to get ‘gender reassignment surgery’. Would the likes of Bhatt demand this woman to call her husband a she? By being ‘inclusive’ isn’t he punching this woman, her reality and her whole life in the gut and excluding her from legal recourse?
There are also mounting cases of violence perpetrated by trans-identifying intact males who do not just demand to be called by pronouns of their choice. They demand to be housed in women’s prisons! Not surprisingly, as soon as their term is served, they revert to their male identities. How does this square with the agenda of woke virtue signalling lawyers like Bhatt?
Do these men genuinely not realise that the ramifications of welcoming this cult-like ideology far outweighs the largely imagined “violence?” This ideology seeks to destroy what is real. It preys on the gullible who think they are at the forefront of a modern day civil rights movement, but what they are actually engaging in is the wholesale destruction of women’s rights. Indians wish to emulate the West in an ill conceived desire to advance ‘woke’ modernity, but somehow the dangers conveniently elude them.
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