Maëlys McArdle

Author: Maëlys McArdle

  • Transphobes in Canada are Connected

    Transphobes in Canada are Connected

    I mapped out some of the ways that high-profile anti-trans advocates in Canada are related. The chart is a mess because these transphobes are highly interconnected:

    While there are hundreds of thousands of trans or gender non-conforming people in Canada, it only takes a handful of cisgender individuals to harass people at Pride parades, fill newspapers with transphobic vitriol, and architect an opposition to our rights in Parliament. This handful amplify each other while occupying positions of power furthering the very reach that is denied to the hundreds of thousands of voices they lobby against.

    In such a ecosystem, it becomes very easy for a previously unknown person with views that are marketable by these anti-trans advocates to be amplified and in turn be made an amplifier. This is what happened with Lindsay Shepherd, whose only involvement was that she was a T/A that was reprimanded by her university administrators for showing without context a transphobic exchange featuring Jordan Peterson, another member of this ecosystem. The National Post wrote 29 articles supporting Lindsay Shepherd from authors like Barbara Kay and her son Jonathan Kay. Now Lindsay Shepherd an author with the National Post, is an author with The Post Millennial (Barbara Kay is a contributor there), is a fellow with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (Barbara Kay is on the boards of directors there), is a writer at Quillette (Jonathan Kay is an editor there). Shepherd promotes other members of this ecosystem like Meghan Murphy in her work. This past fall Jonathan Kay and Meghan Murphy were on a panel together moderated by Lindsay Shepherd named “How Media Bias Shapes the Gender Identity Debate“. The self-amplification is constant.

    It is frustrating that a handful of cisgender people are able to have such a disproportionate influence in shaping the dialog around the rights of hundreds of thousands of trans and gender non-conforming individuals. On the outset, they appear to be independent voices representing many more, when in reality, they’re only representing each other.

  • One year since surgery (NSFW)

    One year since surgery (NSFW)

    It’s been one year since I’ve had bottom surgery.

    The healing process has run its course. I am glad I had the surgery. I sleep much better now that I don’t have my sleep interrupted by spiro-induced runs to the washroom. I feel safer wearing tight-fitting clothes in public spaces. I feel less frightened in change rooms. I feel like there’s fewer worse-case scenarios travelling.

    I have mixed feelings about the surgical results. I opted for what the surgeon termed a vaginoplasty without vaginal cavity. It was the right decision. I’ve never liked sex; and going this route means I wouldn’t have to dilate. Meanwhile, I have a clit, and I’ve had no problem masturbating and reaching orgasm.

    But when it comes to external appearance of my vulva, the results weren’t what I had expected. I had seen photos of the genitalia of other trans women following surgery online, and theirs looked indistinguishable from cis women’s. This was not the case for me. My labia is an asymmetric fold of fat with a crease that goes much further up the front of the body than a cis person’s. So while I am pleased I had bottom surgery, and do not regret it by any stretch, I also feel some disappointment.

    I also feel significant reservations about sending people to the surgeon I saw in Montreal. While the surgeon was friendly when I talked to him for the first time an hour before surgery, and the staff were great during my stay, the experience of dealing with their staff before my stay and after was quite negative. There was no meaningful follow-up and communicating with them was like pulling teeth.

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  • Transphobia in the National Post

    Transphobia in the National Post

    The National Post publishes articles with titles such as “How trans activists are unethically influencing autistic children to change genders“, “Pronouns are ruining the best thing about hockey” and “Are zee ready for the dictatorship of the gender warriors?” The newspaper has published at least 131 opinion pieces that normalize the rejection of trans and non-binary people since 2011. Twenty-four of those have been in the past year.

    The advocated rejection appears to be deliberate. The staff at the National Post brings in contributors known specifically for their transphobic views to opine on current events involving trans or non-binary people. Among them is Susan Bradley, who oversaw conversion therapy of trans youth. She wrote in the National Post that trans people were “recruiting” children. Also featured is Jordan Peterson who was made rich when his rejection of non-binary students at the University of Toronto went viral. He wrote in the National Post that he “hates” non-binary pronouns and equated their use to “the Marxist doctrines that killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century.“

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  • Sex Work and the Church

    Sex Work and the Church

    I recited the following at our 5 pm church service, which brings in a different guest to speak every week. The lectionary reading that day was Luke 20:27-38.

    One of the things that I like about coming to a church like ours is hearing people’s stories. Every one of you has something to share. Stories are important. I’ve seen them subdue the impulse to ridicule, fear, and avoid those who’ve had a different life journey.

    No one is owed stories. If sharing a story requires vulnerability from the speaker, then the recipients too must demonstrate equal care in listening. This has not been the case in a lot of churches when it comes to the stories of women, indigenous members, sexual and gender diverse Christians and/or those who have experienced homelessness. And I would add to that sex workers. Or as we have called them from our readings on Sunday mornings, whores, prostitutes and sexually immoral.

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  • Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, Oh My!

    Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, Oh My!

    I just came back from a two week trip to Dublin, Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona with my dad. We were in Ireland two weeks before Brexit when no deal had yet to be reached, and in the center of Barcelona’s mass demonstrations following the ruling against Catalan leaders.

    Dublin, Ireland

    Dublin was the first stop of this journey. We were on the River Liffey by Trinity College, home to the Trinity College Library. The Library was beautiful and is pictured below.

    You could see the history of Ireland physically embodied in the humble architecture of the city and the stickers and political graffiti for worker’s rights and that of the marginalized. No other European city I had visited to this point had had quite such an explicit activist culture.

    Lisbon, Portugal

    Next up was Lisbon. The weather was warm and sunny. Advertisements and banners were all over the city from the 2019 Portuguese legislative election and there was a lot of related communist political graffiti. The highlight here was overlooking the city at the São Jorge Castle with a glass of wine.

    Madrid, Spain

    Madrid reminded me more of New York City than any large European metropolis with its urban vibe. Perhaps it was the concentration of theater productions, the commerce on its boulevards, the density, and the way its urban landscape was structured that gave me this impression.

    More than any other city on this trip, this is the one I’d like to revisit the most. I felt like I only scratched the surface.

    Barcelona, Spain

    I got to see two sides to Barcelona. On the one hand, I was able to have the experience of running up the hills of the Mediterranean city, resting on its beaches, eating street food, taking the metro, checking out a flea market and trying the beer from a local brewer.

    My time there also coincided with the severe sentences of over ten years issued to the leaders of the Catalan referendum. So on the Friday, half-a-million demonstrators descended in the city to voice their opposition.

    The atmosphere was celebratory during the day, with demonstrators being largely comprised of young people. Riot police started to install themselves throughout the city center during that time, including forming two blockades that cut us off from our hotel.

    The situation deteriorated in the evening. Protesters set off fires across the city, police beat youth that had been sitting peacefully in front of the blockades, police drove their vans at high speeds through dense crowds injuring people, demonstrators were firing fireworks at police, and police were shooting foam bullets. Much of this took place immediately in front of me, as I watched from behind steel gates.

    A second demonstration took place the next evening, this time largely attended by older adults and families, to protest police brutality.