The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ordered a Christian family doctor to pay $28,100 after declining to inject a trans-identifying 14-year-old with a hormone blocker because “doing so would go against his religious beliefs.”
“Dr. Henry Ajaero, who has run a family practice in Delta since 2014, was ordered to pay the compensation in a Sept. 1 B.C. Human Rights decision, which found his conduct was discriminatory,” the CBC reported. In March 2021, he was asked to inject Lupron and stated that “he did not feel comfortable administering it” due to his religious beliefs and “because it is outside the scope of his practice.”
Ajaero, who attended medical school in Nigeria and practiced medicine there as well as in South Africa and rural British Columbia before coming to Delta, sees about 50 patients per day and has close to 3,000 patients. The decision noted that “his religion is an important part of his life.”
The teen at the center of the case began identifying as transgender in 2020, and Ajaero referred the teen to the B.C. Gender Clinic, where the teen was prescribed a puberty blocker to be injected every three to four weeks. Although the drug can be injected at home, the family requested that Ajaero do it, but he declined when he discovered what it was. He had been the teen’s doctor for about four years.
“He explained this was for religious and cultural reasons, and he hoped that was OK,” the tribunal’s decision stated. “Mother Q said it was not OK.” Ajaero’s own charting read: “I noticed that the injection is for gender re-assignment as patient is already in the waiting room with (her) mother. I called mother into the room and explained to her that I would not be able to give the injection. Based on my religious belief and cultural background.”
Instead, the family promptly initiated legal proceedings and never spoke with him again. They found a walk-in clinic to administer the injection that same day.
According to CTV, “The tribunal also found that Child Q was ‘misgendered and deadnamed,’ both by Ajaero during her appointment and by an office assistant during a nearly two-hour wait in the clinic despite her mother’s objections. ‘Child Q’s gender identity was not respected. Her dignity was not upheld,’ Cousineau wrote.”
The BC Human Rights Tribunal rejected Ajaero’s religious objection, claiming that “while it is true that Lupron was prescribed through the Gender Clinic, and was intended to give Child Q time to consider options relating to her gender identity, it is not medication for gender reassignment.” According to the tribunal, “(Lupron) does not, on its own, conflict with Dr. Ajaero’s stated religious belief that ‘God created man and woman.’”
In other words, the BC Human Rights Tribunal decided that for the purposes of this case, puberty blockers are not “gender reassignment.”
“Dr. Ajaero has not established that either the Religion Standard or the Expertise Standard were reasonably necessary to achieve their purposes. This is likely because they were developed quickly, in the context of a busy and stressful day, with incomplete information,” the decision reads in part.
He testified that he had never interacted with a trans person (to his knowledge) or been involved in any “gender therapy.” He had never administered Lupron for any purpose. It was apparent from his evidence that, in all of the circumstances, he felt uncomfortable and unprepared … I accept that these feelings motivated his decision to deny services to Child Q and were not based on an intention to discriminate against her.
But the tribunal concluded that “(t)his context is an explanation for Dr. Ajaero’s decision, but it does not justify his decision to deny medical services to a vulnerable trans youth because of her gender identity.” Additionally, the tribunal rejected Ajaero’s application to “limit the publication of information that could identify him and his clinic,” but the tribunal denied it.
Ajaero was ordered to pay Child Q $20,000 for “injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect” in recognition of “the serious impact the discrimination had on a vulnerable trans youth, while she was seeking important and publicly funded medical services from her family doctor.” Ajaero was further ordered to pay an additional $8,100 to Child Q for the fee owed to the expert for the tribunal hearing.
