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Amy Hamm: Misgendering case an absurd waste of time and resources

Physician, receptionist summoned before rights tribunal for addressing new walk-in patient by the pronoun listed on their medical records

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An Ontario court has ruled that the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) must hold a new hearing, with a different adjudicator, in the case of a Black trans man who complained of discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression at a walk-in medical clinic.

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Jordan Renae Thorne originally filed an HRTO complaint alleging he was “repeatedly misgendered” by a physician and an office assistant at a walk-in clinic in December 2017.

Amy Hamm: Misgendering case an absurd waste of time and resources Back to video

The Ontario court dismissed the complainant’s secondary claim of racial discrimination but insists the tribunal did not do a proper legal analysis regarding the misgendering.

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“The issue the Tribunal was required to address, that it did not address, was not whether the receptionist or the doctor intended to discriminate against Mr. Thorne when they misgendered him, but whether the misgendering was related to his trans status, what impact their behaviour had on him and whether that impact was adverse. The Tribunal’s decision contains no analysis on this issue. This is a fundamental gap,” wrote Judge Harriet Sachs.

Jordan Renae Thorne’s complaint against Good Health Walk-in Clinic was dismissed by the HRTO in October 2024. The decision details how Thorne professed a “heightened sensitivity to transphobia.” It also describes how the complainant threw medical files onto the floor, swore and called the medical receptionist a “bitch” for referring to Thorne as “she.” The receptionist was referring to health records that listed the patient (who had never been to the clinic before) as female.

The physician also used female pronouns for Thorne based on information in health records. This led to a “confrontation” in the exam room, causing the physician to walk out, but not before Thorne called him an “asshole” for refusing to prescribe narcotic medications, and accused the physician of transphobia.

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Thorne’s complaint alleged the discrimination also included not being prescribed narcotics, and not having “gender reassignment surgery” (double mastectomy) wounds examined. The physician denies that Thorne asked for a wound assessment. Additionally, the clinic had two visible notices regarding its policy of not prescribing narcotics to new walk-in clients.

Following the incident, Thorne attended a different walk-in clinic and obtained a narcotic prescription.

After the complaint was dismissed by the HRTO, Thorne applied to the tribunal for a reconsideration of the decision. It was at this point that Thorne introduced a claim of racial discrimination (that the clinic “treat[ed] him as a drug-seeking Black person”), in addition to the claim of discrimination based on gender identity/expression. This application was dismissed by the HRTO in February 2025. Thorne then applied for a judicial review in the courts.

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Judge Sachs’ resultant ruling cites a 2021 B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruling in which a “non-binary, gender fluid, transgender person who uses they/them pronouns” was awarded $30,000 for being misgendered while working as a waitress. Sachs pulled several paragraphs from that ruling to include in her own. That included this line: “When people use the right pronouns, they can feel safe and enjoy the moment. When people do not use the right pronouns, that safety is undermined and they are forced to repeat to the world: I exist.”

There are two main problems with this entire circus of a legal case: the first is Canada’s institutional obsession with gender identity and the insistence that “misgendering” is some sort of devastating discrimination, rather than a minor (often accidental) faux pas; the second is that we would legally persecute a physician in this manner at a time when the country is struggling with a severe doctor shortage. We cannot afford to behave this way.

The original HRTO decision states that Thorne “acknowledged that he used abusive language for both the doctor and the receptionist. He further acknowledged that the receptionist gave him referrals for other hospitals which he tossed away and said, ‘I don’t need them.’ He also testified that the whole incident with the doctor and the receptionist was less than 15 minutes, and the police never contacted him,” reads the decision. (The receptionist threatened to call police after Thorne threw items on floor and became verbally abusive.)

To recap: a patient, behaving in an abusive manner, experienced a few minutes of distress, because medical staff referred to pronouns found in the medical record. This patient is now permitted to embroil medical professionals in years of costly legal battles over hurt feelings.

All of this is absurd.

According to the Canadian Medical Association, 6.5 million Canadians — and growing — lack regular access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner. In five years, we expect to be short 20,000 physicians across the country. Should we really be using lawfare to chase away the ones who are on the front lines of our already overburdened health-care system?

Likewise, should we really award so much institutional time, power and resources to “misgendering” complaints? Might those resources be better allocated elsewhere?

Canada just cannot seem to help itself.

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