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The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the request of an inmate convicted for child porn to change his name on his prison paperwork to a woman's.
Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, said the Fifth Circuit "made a wise decision not to open Pandora's box of pronouns."
"Once that door is opened, there is no limit. This would open the floodgates to a mutiny of legal cases addressing the galaxy of delusions in today’s society," he said.
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Norman Varner, serving 15 years for a 2012 admission he tried to obtain child pornography, wanted to change his name to "Kathrine Nicole Jett."
He previously was convicted on state charges of possession and failure to register as a sex offender.
In the court's ruling, the judges explained he wanted his name changed because "he 'ca[me] out as a transgender woman' in 2015, began 'hormone replacement therapy' shortly after, and planned to have 'gender reassignment surgery in the near future' in order to 'finally become fully female.'"
The government argued there was no defect in the original paperwork and no basis for his "new preferred name."
The lower court rejected his demands, and he appealed.
Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, issuing the opinion on behalf of the appeals court, wrote that no authority permits a court to require litigants, judges, court personnel or anyone else to refer to "gender-dysphoric litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender identity."
Second, he said, "if a court were to compel the use of particular pronouns at the invitation of litigants, it could raise delicate questions about judicial impartiality."
The judge said it's especially true when a suit is related to whether the people should be treated according to their wishes as opposed to their birth sex.
Third, he said that if "a court orders one litigant referred to as 'her' (instead of 'him'), then the court can hardly refuse when the next litigant moves to be referred to as 'xemself' (instead of 'himself')."
"Deploying such neologisms could hinder communication among the parties and the court," the judge said. "And presumably the court's order, if disobeyed, would be enforceable through its contempt power."
The 5th Circuit upheld the rejection of the name change. But it noted that the district court didn't even have authority to consider the motion.
"We conclude that Varner's motion was unauthorized by any statute and that the district court therefore lacked jurisdiction to entertain it," the judges said.
Further, there is "no legal authority" to support Varner's demand to be addressed by pronouns for females.
"Varner identifies no federal statute or rule requiring courts or other parties to judicial proceedings to use pronouns according to a litigant's gender identity. Congress knows precisely how to legislate with respect to gender identity discrimination, because it has done so in specific statutes. ... But Congress has said nothing prohibit courts from referring to litigants according to their biological sex, rather than according to their subjective gender identity."
The judges said that should that road be taken, other pronouns could be demanded, including "em, eir, pers, vis, verself, xem, syr, hir and hirself."
"We decline to enlist the federal judiciary in this quixotic undertaking," the judges ruled.