Article: activist judge in custody case, brief ref to Dr. Childress

[kells76]

If you can handle reading a harrowing story of a dad losing custody, this is an eye-opener to how one judge is managing the courtroom:

https://www.city-journal.org/child-custody-gender-gauntlet

The dad asked that Dr. Craig Childress be used to perform a parental alienation assessment, and the judge instead focused on how "wrong" the term "parental alienation" is, and equated the dad's request to talk with his son through Dr Childress as "coercing" the son to have a relationship with him.

The judge herself, in my opinion, is using disordered and "alienation" type language -- she is positioning herself as "the one who truly understands" the child, while the dad is the "persecutor" who is "abusively unempathetic" and doesn't truly understand. The child must be rescued from the father by the judge... it's a classic triangle.

So, so messed up.

I will be curious if Dr. Childress ever references this on his site.

I'm also sharing this because I suspect the "vibes" or "flavor" in family court is rapidly changing, and those who are heading in need to know what they'll be facing in some states.

[Notwendy]

We, in the US, and it appears, a lot of the world, are strictly divided along political lines- which has influenced other areas, such as medicine, education.  I agree, in the case where two parents are not aligned on these topics, even if neither parent is  a harmful parent, court decisions will possibly be influences by these divisions.

Personally ( and without taking sides or having a political discussion which is not in accord with the board rules ), I wonder if our entire way of seeing things isn't similar to a dysfunctional relationship- including "black and white thinking"- one side is all good, the other is all bad. One view is all good, the other is all bad. Our politicians go along with this and then proclaim themselves the "rescuer" of their constituents from the other side. The possibility of a middle of the road "grey" area is not a consideration.

In this situation, mother agreed with one perspective. It doesn't appear that the father completely objected, he just wanted more time to consider the intervention, but "being in the grey area" was not acceptable. Both decisions require consideration of the benefit/side effects- one is to proceed with the treatment, the other was to separate a child from a parent- which has potential emotional impact. I am not sure the judge made a decision due to her own dysfunction but I think her own experience along with where we are in our culture influenced it.

I think it's a good thing to be prepared for this kind of thinking in family court. Where at one point, a disordered parent could sway the decision with a false premise of the other parent being "abusive"- the potential for bringing in a controversial issue is there too.

[ForeverDad]

Despite the dad's resistance to "surgeries", he was clearly blindsided by the hormone "treatments".  He's right, no one can say for certain whether hormone suppression or insertion can be undone.  That he was slapped with a temp protection order doesn't equate to his surprised reaction.  I suspect they had that  prepared for when he found out.

I too realize this is a sensitive topic, especially today with so many rules, standards and norms of yesteryear being tossed out the window.  I have my own views on the matter but at least I felt safe to say that a minor shouldn't make such decisions.  The boy is less than two years from being an adult, let it be resolved when he's an adult.  It's been stated that youths' brains are still developing until the mid-20s, but at least 18 can be a compromise.

Just imagine what the other son is experiencing.

[Notwendy]

What concerned me is the extreme penalty for expressing concern. The father clearly expressed that he would love his child no matter what and did not have strict religious objections. The concern was factual. This is a fairly recent level of intervention- and the long term outcome is not known. Even if the father was in agreement with this plan, being concerned resulted in losing custody. Using the wrong pronoun was also an issue.

I understand that being called by the correct pronoun is important. However, this takes some practice. I had known a transgender person as one name, the original pronoun for quite some time, and so there's the habit of referring to them in that context. There were a few slip ups before getting used to how to address them now. No bad intentions were meant, it was a habit and change took practice. 

The child's psychological benefit is stated as the reason for the transition, but what about the psychological benefit of having the child's father be involved and the harm of interfering with this.

These are not one side all wrong, one side all right situations. There's gray between the "all black" and "all white" - the pros and cons, the individual child, the family. Sadly, I don't think we deal with "gray" well these days.