A B.C. nurse has been suspended and asked to pay nearly $94,000 in costs for making “discriminatory and derogatory statements” about transgender people.
The B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives says a disciplinary panel has issued a decision against Amy Hamm, suspending her for one month, while also ordering her to pay the college costs and disbursements within two years.
The panel said in its verdict in March that Hamm committed professional misconduct for making statements across “various online platforms” between July 2018 and March 2021 that were partly designed “to elicit fear, contempt and outrage against members of the transgender community.”
The college says Hamm has filed an appeal of the discipline order in B.C. Supreme Court, and the decision on penalty and costs is stayed until that appeal has been resolved.
Trans people are protected from discrimination by laws in both B.C. and Canada, providing them with the right to be treated according to their deeply felt gender identity.
B.C.’s human rights code was amended in 2016 to include protections against discrimination based on gender identity or expression, while the federal human rights and criminal codes were updated the following year.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms says in a release that Hamm was penalized for “her statements defending the right of women to access female-only spaces.”
The release says Hamm had worked in health care for more than 13 years and had been promoted to be a nurse educator.
Lisa Bildy, Hamm’s lawyer, says in a statement that they believe the panel made “legal and factual errors” in reaching its decision, which penalizes the nurse for expressing “mainstream views aligned with science and common sense.”
Hamm says in the statement that her comments are not hateful.
“I’m appealing because biological reality matters, and so does freedom of expression,” she says.
Non-discriminatory care
The college says in its notice of the penalty decision that the verdict is an “important statement against discrimination.”
“Nurses and midwives occupy a position of trust and influence in our society,” the notice says.
“The college will continue to stand up against discrimination and believes it is a core aspect of our public protection mandate to ensure nurses uphold the important principle that the health care system is non-discriminatory.”
Human rights complaint filed
The announcement comes nearly a month after the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announced it had filed two complaints with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
Hamm has maintained that she is not transphobic, and that she takes issue with an “infringement on women and children’s rights,” and was particularly concerned with transgender women having access to women-only spaces including prisons and change rooms.
She previously said she completely rejects the concept of gender identity, calling it “anti-scientific, metaphysical nonsense,” and on social media posts has referred to transgender women as men.
Hamm has received supportive statements from a wave of online followers, including author J.K. Rowling, and has written several columns for a variety of media outlets on multiple issues, including politics and crime, as well as sex and gender.
She helped pay for a billboard in Vancouver supporting Rowling after she shared her views on gender identity online.
