When Berating Judge For ‘Misgendering’, Stanford Students Were Defending Inmate Convicted Of Possessing Child Porn

The recent outrage by Stanford Law students shows just how bizarre the New Leftist Puritans are when it comes to anything LGBTQ+.

Apparently, the Stanford Law students were upset that a sitting Fifth Circuit Judge, Kyle Duncan — a Trump appointee, which probably didn’t help his popularity on campus — refused a petition from Norman Varner, a transgender-identifying man, who wanted some of his court documents changed to reflect his new identity as a woman including using female pronouns.

His name is Norman Varner — but he'd rather everyone call him Katherine Jett.

Norman's insistence that a circuit court use female pronouns in his case has captured the public's attention. https://t.co/YjI6eLXCia

— Family Research Council (@FRCdc) January 18, 2020

In case you missed the hullabaloo, ClashDaily covered it here:

Judge Invited To Speak At Stanford — Given A Maoist Struggle Session By Students And Staff (VIDEO)

Ian Millhiser of Vox reports on Judge Duncan’s decision in United States v. Norman Varner.

The case involves Kathrine Nicole Jett, a trans woman who is incarcerated in a federal prison. (Jett does not appear to use the name “Varner,” but for the sake of clarity, this piece will refer to her case as United States v. Varner because that is the only name the courts have assigned to it.) Jett made a couple of requests from the federal judiciary relating to her transition from male to female. She asked that her name be changed on certain court documents from “Norman Keith Varner” to “Kathrine Nicole Jett,” and that judges hearing her case refer to her as a woman and use feminine pronouns.
The name change request was denied on procedural grounds (although the judges hearing the case disagree about why this request should be denied, no judge suggested it should be granted). But the question of how individual judges should refer to a transgender person does not appear to be answered by any law. All three judges hearing the Varner case appear to agree that this decision is entirely up to their discretion.
Unfortunately for Jett, she drew a panel of judges dominated by two unusually conservative Republicans. The author of the Court’s opinion in Varner, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, spent part of his career as general counsel to a leading Christian right law firm and litigated multiple cases seeking to restrict LGBTQ rights.
Source: Vox

At no point in his article does Millhiser mention what the conviction was for — instead he rails on and on about how the big, mean Republican judges aren’t caving to the ideological colonialism of the Leftist Rainbow Mafia.

This is reflected in the handwringing plea of Varner himself.

“I am a woman, and not referring to me as such leads me to feel that I am being discriminated against based on my gender identity. I am a woman,” insisted Varner. “Can I not be referred to as one?”

In the decision, Judge Duncan explains that Varner’s argument is that “female pronouns are nonetheless required to prevent ‘discriminat[ion]’ based on his female ‘gender identity’” but he fails to mention any statute or rule that requires courts to use language and pronouns in line with someone’s gender identity. These are, after all, legal documents from 2012, and retconning them to reflect Varner’s identity that began in 2015 is objectively a strange request.

Judge Duncan makes it very clear that Congress can legislate on gender identity discrimination, but it has not prevented courts from “referring to litigants according to their biological sex, rather than according to their subjective gender identity.” Courts opting to use preferred gender identity as a “courtesy.”

The Family Research Council website has a piece by Tony Perkins praising Judge Duncan’s decision. Perkins mentions the “courtesy” used in some courts and summarizes the rest of the decision.

Secondly, he went on, if a court were forced to use the preferred pronouns of litigants, “it could raise delicate questions about judicial impartiality…” After all, he points out, this subject — sex and gender identity — is increasingly being raised before the courts. “In cases like these, a court may have the most benign motives in honoring a party’s request to be addressed with pronouns matching his ‘deeply felt, inherent sense of [his] gender.’ Yet in doing so, the court may unintentionally convey its tacit approval of the litigant’s underlying legal position.”
Last, but certainly not least, Duncan explained, indulging these gender fantasies “may well turn out to be more complex than [they] appear.” There are literally dozens of pronouns that judges would have to learn — one university’s guide, he noted, has more than 45 possibilities. “When local governments have sought to enforce pronoun usage, they have had to make refined distinctions based on matters such as the types of allowable pronouns and the intent of the ‘misgendering’ offender. Courts would have to do the same. We decline to enlist the federal judiciary in this quixotic undertaking.”
Source: Family Research Council

But the interesting part here is that the documents that Varner wants changed to reflect his new-found “female” identity is his second conviction for possession of child pornography.

From Judge Duncan’s decision:

Norman Varner, federal prisoner # 18479-078, appeals the denial of his motion to change the name on his judgment of confinement to “Kathrine Nicole Jett.” The district court denied the motion as meritless. We conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the motion and so vacate the court’s judgment. In conjunction with his appeal, Varner also moves that he be addressed with female pronouns. We will deny that motion.
In 2012, Varner pled guilty to one count of attempted receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to 180 months in prison, to be followed by 2 years supervised release. Varner’s federal sentence was influenced by his previous convictions at the state level for possession of child pornography and failure to register as a sex offender. In 2018, Varner wrote a letter to the district court requesting that the name on his judgment of committal (“Norman Keith Varner”) be changed to reflect his “new legal name of Kathrine Nicole Jett.” Varner’s letter explained that 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.” Attached to Varner’s letter was a certified copy of a 2018 order from a Kentucky state court changing Varner’s name. The government opposed Varner’s request, arguing principally that Varner alleged no defect in the original judgment and that a “new preferred name” was not a basis for amending a judgment.
Source: United States v. Norman Varner (Emphasis added)

The federal appeals court judge who was heckled by Stanford Law students for "misgendering" a litigant who identifies as a woman. The litigant was twice convicted for receiving child pornography.

Trans activists went to the mat for a male pedophile. https://t.co/7tFhA88BWw pic.twitter.com/lBRGl714Kl

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) March 14, 2023

In protesting Judge Duncan, Stanford Law students were coming to the defense of a man that has been convicted of possessing child porn and is in the clink for 15 years because he failed to register as a sex offender after his first conviction.

Reality is more bizarre than satire these days.

Sources:

1. Millhiser, Ian. “Trump judge lashes out at a transgender litigant in a surprisingly cruel opinion.” Vox. January 17, 2020. https://www.vox.com/2020/1/17/21067634/trump-judge-transgender-cruel-kyle-duncan-united-states-varner

2. Perkins, Tony. “The Pronoun Throw Down.” Family Research Council. January 17, 2020. https://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20200117/pronoun-throw

3. Duncan, Kyle. “United States v. Norman Varner.” Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. January 15, 2020. http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/19/19-40016-CR0.pdf