Last updated on January 28th, 2020 at 09:53 pm<\/p>\n
The panel wrote that \u201cCongress has said nothing to\nprohibit courts from referring to litigants according to their biological sex.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n NEW ORLEANS\u2014A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals\nfor the Fifth Circuit on January 15 rejected a motion by a prisoner convicted\non child pornography charges to alter the judgment against him to reflect his\npreferred name and pronouns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The convict, Norman Varner, had argued that, since he had\nlegally changed his name to \u201cKathrine Nicole Jett\u201d and identifies as a female,\nreferences to him in the judgment sentencing him to prison should be altered to\nreflect these changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fifth Circuit panel rejected both arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the argument regarding his legal name change was\ndismissed on the basic of jurisdictional reasons, with the Court saying that\n\u201cVarner\u2019s\u2026 request does not fall into any\u2026 recognized categories of\npostconviction motions,\u201d it rejected his demand for pronounal changes after\nconsideration of the merits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court wrote that \u201cno authority supports the proposition\nthat we may require litigants, judges, court personnel, or anyone else to refer\nto gender-dysphoric litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender\nidentity.\u201d It explained that, while practice varies from court to court, none\nof these practices creates a legitimate binding legal precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, the panel continued, \u201cCongress has said nothing\nto prohibit courts from referring to litigants according to their biological\nsex, rather than according to their subjective gender identity,\u201d adding that in\nsome cases a court\u2019s use of a \u201cpreferred\u201d pronoun could raise concerns about\njudicial impartiality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Varner, who in addition to the child pornography charges is\nalso serving time for failing to register as a sex offender, has said that he\nhopes to undergo gender reassignment surgery soon. It is unclear whether\ntaxpayer funding would pay for this surgery. \nIt is also not presently known whether Varner will try to appeal the Court\npanel\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The panel wrote that \u201cCongress has said nothing to prohibit courts from referring to litigants according to their biological sex.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"511"},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[511],"tags":[825,824,456],"class_list":["post-4634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-court-cases","tag-law","tag-transgenderism"],"yoast_head":"\n