Canadian throuples and the future of parenting
by Mary Harrington, UnHerd:
Progressive campaigning, by definition, seeks to bring into being a desired world that — we’re told — would be an improvement over the existing cruel and ugly one. Recently, such campaigning has taken a radical new turn: the pursuit of legal reforms designed to enable everyone to bring into being the particular version of the world they wish to inhabit — often regardless of the degree to which that conflicts with others’ versions of reality.
Canada is the forefront of this drive for the mass customisation of reality. Recently, for example, a Canadian judge ruled that all three adults in a polyamorous relationship should be registered legally as the ‘parents’ of a two-year-old boy they are raising as a ‘throuple’. And last month, Vancouver postman Rob Hoogland was jailed for calling his natal female child ‘she’ — because his estranged wife, and the school his child attends, have been supporting the child (known as A. B.) in “socially transitioning” to a male identity. Hoogland was forbidden by court to refer to her as ‘she’, or seek to influence his child in any way to desist. He refused to comply, and has now been jailed for contempt of court.
Back in 2016, the Canadian academic (and now self-help superstar) Jordan Peterson rose to prominence for his protest against Bill C-16, which he feared would result in ‘compelled speech’ and the threat of punishment for using words that reflected his understanding of reality rather than an officially orthodox one. Column inches were expended at the time explaining why this was mere fear-mongering. But five years later, it seems Peterson was right: in Canada at least, the balance of power has tipped decisively in favour of individuals’ right to tailor their own reality to personal preference — and to use the law’s coercive force to compel public compliance.
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