Hitting a partner until they cry is against the law in Canada. As is striking an animal. The same needs to be true of taking swings at children. That the perpetrators blame the children for hitting them shouldn’t pass as an excuse. That defenders of this practice use the euphemism of “spanking” instead shouldn’t fly either. This abuse is illegal in 55 countries as it ought to be in Canada. Instead it’s explicitly permissible by law in Section 43.
Since at least 1994, advocates have been trying repeal that section. There was a constitutional challenge. However, in 2004 the Supreme Court ruled in favour of upholding the section. In their ruling they set that assaulting children with objects wasn’t permissible, only using hands to strike them, and they prohibited taking swings at infants or teenagers. Bill S-21 was then introduced in 2004 to repeal the law. It died on the floor. In 2015, the Liberal government stated they would repeal the law. They did no such thing during their tenure. Senate Public Bill S-206 was introduced in 2015 to repeal the law. It was killed by delay. This needs to be a government bill to have a chance to pass in this environment.
Violence against children, including corporal punishment, is a violation of the rights of the child. It conflicts with the child’s human dignity and the right of the child to physical integrity. It also prevents children from reaching their full potential, by putting at risk their right to health, survival and development. The best interests of the child can never be used to justify such practice.
There’s no popular movement to push this. Nonetheless, Section 43 has to be repealed.
Happiness for me requires some intentionality. I’ve found that I can’t choose to be happy, but that I can make a number of choices that make it easier to be happy. I’ve listed some of these below:
How I interpret interactions with others affects my happiness. I have attachment issues as a result of dysfunctional relationships with my family of origin. This has warped my perception of interactions predisposing myself to believe that I am unlovable and that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Becoming aware and addressing the way I draw conclusions from interactions has greatly helped my mental health and contributed to my happiness.
How I regulate my emotions affects my happiness. Cutting, hitting myself, drinking, binge eating, and sexual encounters with strangers without proper safety precautions have all been part of my repertoire to soothe myself. Finding ways to regulate my emotions without undermining my well being contributed to my happiness.
How I manage conflicts affects my happiness. On-going tensions can elicit feelings of sadness, frustration and anger throughout the week. Addressing conflicts directly and setting limits where resolution isn’t possible contributes to my happiness.
How I structure time with friends affects my happiness. I don’t seek to recreate special moments or pine for the closeness of the past. It’s never as special the second time and hoping to be close again is less appealing than the reality of the present but is an empty promise. Instead, I hang out with friends as if I may never see them again, I seek out those who share the desire to spend time with me, and I try to make each encounter unique in some way as to create lasting memories. Appreciating the present contributes to my happiness.
How I prioritize sleep affects my happiness. I feel better when I have at least eight hours of uninterrupted rest at night. Scheduling my evenings such that I can get to bed at a reasonable hour and having no screens within reach after bed time contributes to my happiness.
What I choose to keep inside affects my happiness. Being closeted and silent on my mistreatment out of concern for the perpetrators was suffocating. Being candid, living my truth, speaking to a therapist, and blogging contributed to my happiness.
How I prioritize my spending affects my happiness. I am more content when I do not have my finances weighing on my mind. Aggressively paying down debts and aiming to save enough funds to carry me through a job loss contributes to my happiness.
What values I choose to elevate affect my happiness. I have body image issues related to my weight and gender presentation. Removing myself from almost all social media, following fat-positive insta feeds, reading zines and queer comics, ignoring television, the news, shitty magazines, and staying away from people who make pronouncements on bodies contributes to my happiness.
How I approach uncertainty affects my happiness. The most important contributors to my happiness such as starting hormone replacement therapy, moving places, breaking up, undergoing surgeries, quitting unpleasant jobs, and getting my first car all involved leaping into the unknown. This was very difficult for me as I’m so routine-oriented, I lacked support, and there was never any assurance it would make things better. Approaching uncertainty by accepting the worst outcome as an opportunity in its own right and being mindful that there’s no better time than the now enabled me to make these life decisions that greatly contributed to my happiness.
How I approach my goals affects my happiness. I write a list of objectives that can be accomplished in the short, medium and long term. Then I schedule what I can in manageable pieces. I also periodically remove goals I won’t realistically accomplish. This approach has helped me attain life goals which has contributed to my happiness.
How much screen time I choose to get affects my happiness. I used to lose hours every day to mindless surfing. Time that would have been much more satisfying spent writing, reading, cooking, or pretty much anything else. I got rid of my watch, desktop computer, game console, and almost all social media accounts. I charge my phone away from my bed, got rid of the YouTube app so now I have to use the more inconvenient browser, picked up a laptop that I rarely use, and got speakers with a voice assistant. Having less screen time contributes to my happiness.
How much I own affects my happiness. I used to feel owned by my stuff. For the past five years I’ve had a rule that if I didn’t use it in the last year, I got rid of it. It was hard, but I got rid of almost all my books in the process. I have two small boxes for sentimental things. On my last move everything fit in the back of a pickup truck in a single trip. It might take two trips now but I feel much freer and this has contributed to my happiness.
How I tackle cleaning affects my happiness. I find it easier to feel good when my place and body are both clean but I find it hard to do when there’s too much at once. So I clean my kitchen as a I cook throughout the week and I dedicate Saturday mornings to cleaning while listening to music and drinking coffee. This sets up a happier week.
There’s a common refrain that money does not buy happiness. I disagree. It’s just that spending money indiscriminately or to keep up with peers is not a recipe for happiness. However things like therapy, living arrangements, cooking ingredients, a vehicle, medication, surgeries, goods (typewriters!), clothes – all cost money and can all make it easier to feel happy.
I don’t want to suggest through this that happiness is a choice. It’s not. Diseases of the brain like depression and economic inequality are not a choice and these are far more impactful. Perhaps though some of the lessons I learned above to help foster happiness in myself will resonate with you.
This article has been updated to include events of the summer.
Since the late nineties, organized antagonists of gender and sexual minorities were largely Christians or affiliated with major conservative political parties. The dynamics have changed. In the past few years, there’s been a rise of nationalist groups across Canada and they have been inserting themselves in spaces created by these anti-gay and anti-trans voices. They are going to Pride with the intent to intimidate and harass gender and sexual minorities, as well as attending events that advocate to institutionalize the oppression of these minorities.
In June 2019, nationalists under the banner of Yellow Vest went to the Hamilton Pride event. Some had body armor. They joined up with the anti-gay Christians that had showed up to harass members of the gender and sexually diverse community. In response, queer people put up a black cloth fence and blew whistles to drown out the hateful rhetoric. The nationalists then attacked with punches.
Nationalists at Hamilton Pride 2019.
A week later in Toronto, men wearing shirts that said “Canadian Nationalist Party” and Christian t-shirts attacked people in the Eaton Centre during the Dyke March. The men were shouting anti-gay slurs and saying they were going to the gay village in Toronto. The timing isn’t a coincidence. One of the attackers in Toronto is the man seen with the body armor in the photo from the attack at Hamilton Pride above.
A man wearing a helmet with a shirt that says “Jesus Christ is King of Kings Lord of Lords” goes to punch a queer person in the Eaton Centre. The man behind him with the helmet and body armor is the same one pictured attacking people during Hamilton Pride.
A homophobic preacher (black clothes, standing) and a Yellow Vest member (right, blue) harass children and young families at a Pride storytelling event in Ottawa.
Meanwhile in June 2019, members of the Soldiers of Odin were front and center at an anti-trans rally in Vancouver. The Soldiers of Odin is an nationalist group founded by a self-declared neo-Nazi in Finland in 2015 and developed multiple chapters in Canada by the summer of 2016. The rally was to oppose SOGI 123 which is a set of policies, resources and curriculum to create welcoming schools for students with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
Soldiers of Odin visible by the “S.O.D.” patch at an anti-trans rally in Vancouver. The speaker to their right runs the website Transanity.
A member of the People’s Party uses a loud speaker to harass those attending a Pride flag raising in Surrey.
Then in May 2019 on Vancouver Island, the Soldiers of Odin attended the event “The Erosion of Freedom: How transgender politics in school and society is undermining our freedom and harming women and children”, to act as the body guards for its presenter.
An advertisement for the anti-trans event on its presenter’s website, Transsanity.
Anti-LGBTQ march in the heart of Toronto’s gay village, with a banner for the People’s Party at the front.
The introduction of nationalists in Canada is new and it makes the situation more hostile to gender and sexual minorities in attendance. But it’s not a radical departure from how things were already. Even without nationalists at their side, conservatives and Christians have been disrupting events intended for gender and sexual minorities. For Haldimand-Norfolk Pride, they installed themselves in front of the stage with a loudspeaker. In Ottawa, the same group protested WinterPride, while previously another individual disrupted a support group for parents of trans youth, and another bunch harassed families during a picnic at Pride.
Homophobic Christians disrupting the Haldimand-Norfolk Pride in May 2018. Note the handheld loudspeaker.
Google Trends indicates that interest in nationalist groups in Canada such as the Proud Boys and Soldiers of Odin started in the 2016-2017 time frame. This matches Donald Trump’s presidency and Trump hats were visible in both the Hamilton and Vancouver events mentioned at the start of this article. The Canadian Nationalist Party was founded in 2017. The People’s Party of Canada was founded in 2018.
An official video from the Canadian Nationalist Party saying that being gay shouldn’t be normalized, same-sex marriage should be put to a referendum, and that Pride parades should be defunded.
Also keep in mind that it’s really only a small core group of antagonists at the heart of all of these events. It’s the same few nationalists that attacked people during the Toronto and Hamilton Pride events and that harassed children and young families at the Ottawa Pride event. It’s the same group of Christians that crashed Pride in Ottawa, Hamilton, Haldimand-Norfolk. It’s the same speaker at the anti-trans rally in Vancouver and who did anti-SOGI talks on Vancouver Island. These antagonists seem bigger than they are because they go to so many events and physically impose themselves. But at the end of the day, they are a fringe group vastly outnumbered by the gender and sexual minorities they are harassing.
Still, this doesn’t negate the harm they are able to accomplish. There needs to be an organized response to protect those who attend the events with a focus on minimizing the impact on the participants. This means blocking harmful messaging and discouraging conflict escalation. To that end, The 519’s mobilization kit is a welcome initiative, as was the noise makers and cloth wall seen used at Hamilton Pride. Calgary Pride is an example of the tactics learned from Hamilton in action.
Twitter post from Calgary Pride.
There also, however, needs to be a response on behalf of the media and politicians. In particular, they must acknowledge that this white Christian nationalist moment is harmful. Gender and sexual minorities shouldn’t have to be alone in this. They must also recognize that giving these white nationalists a platform is a choice that bridges the gap to the mainstream.
I want to push back against the idea that trans women don’t experience male privilege. It’s not universal, but some do despite also simultaneously experiencing transphobia and transmisogyny.
If a trans woman came out later in life in today’s climate, after she was already a software developer or in the top 10% income bracket ($80,000/year), then the statistical likelihood is that she benefited from male privilege to get to there. If during the majority of her life perceived herself to be a man and was gender conforming during that period, then she likely benefited from the thousands of microscopic benefits conferred by male privilege. These include reduced instances of sexual harassment on the streets and at work in the teenage years and beyond, having positive representation in movies and television, not having shitty magazines tell her to be thin, her toys being oriented towards building and leadership rather than home-making, not having her opinion devalued on the basis of her gender throughout her career, not having to experience punishing dress codes, not being asked about her raising children during interviews, and so forth.
So even though she might now be experiencing transphobia, because she is still living off of an income surplus as a result of her male privilege earlier in life, she is still benefiting from male privilege even now.
Cis women are under-represented in the top 10% income bracket. Source.Cis women are under-represented in software development. Source.
The earlier in life a trans woman comes out, or is gender non-conforming, then the fewer benefits of male privilege she has received to the point of having had none. The same system of gender-based beliefs that elevates men in this society conversely punishes deviations to those norms harshly especially for trans women. That dynamic is called transmisogyny.
If a trans woman came out as a teen in the past few decades, she would have felt unsafe in school. Her parents would have likely not been strongly supportive or at all. She might not feel safe to live at home. This creates a slew of punishing consequences, which can include experiencing homelessness and poverty. This then reduces the likelihood of being able to afford post-secondary education, which translates into lower income job prospects. The loss of opportunities during this period will carry with her for the rest of her life. She is more likely to experience mental illness as a result of how she was treated throughout these early years including for her perceived gender non-conformity. She wouldn’t be experiencing male privilege, but it’s inverse that pushes her down through a constant stream of negative interactions.
If a trans girl came out during her childhood in a supportive family today, she also would not experience any male privilege. She would have led the life of any other girl.
It’s not just about the age at which a trans woman came out but when. Coming out fifteen years ago might mean losing her job, her partner, and access to her children. The loss of income and opportunity she faced then, in addition to regular harassment in her daily life, would have halted any benefit of male privilege. Most of the older trans women I know today who came out in the decades ago live in poverty. Even if the world is now more accepting, the lack of income mobility in Canada means that economic realities set decades ago self-perpetuate into today.
I want to pivot away from this idea that trans women don’t experience male privilege. Some do, some don’t. Part of what’s complicating things right now is that TERFs are using the experience of male privilege as a way to delegitimize women. They’re wrong. But so too is a knee jerk reaction denying that some trans women benefited from male privilege.
June is Pride month, and both federal conservative leaders in Canada and the US have used this as an opportunity to claim support for LGBT/LGBTQ people.
The spokesman for Conservative leader Andrew Scheer stated this week:
“Canada’s Conservatives have a proud history of fighting for the rights and protection of all Canadians, including those in the LGBTQ community, at home and abroad. There are many ways to support these communities, and it is vital that the rights all Canadians are protected regardless of race, gender or sexual preference,” said Scheer spokesman Daniel Schow.
As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort!
Both assert they support these communities, yet their actions speak differently. For the Conservatives in Canada:
2010: Almost all Conservatrives vote against adding gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act with Bill C-389. This include Scheer.
2011: Almost all Conservatives vote against adding gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act with Bill C-389. Scheer does not vote.
2012: Almost all Conservatives vote against adding gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act with Bill C-279. Scheer does not vote.
2013: Almost all Conservatives vote against adding gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act with Bill C-279. Scheer does not vote.
2017: Removes guidance protecting trans students under Title IX.
2017: Justice Department abandons its lawsuit against North Carolina’s anti-trans law.
2017: Trump announces on Twitter he’ll ban all trans people from serving in the military.
2017: Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are instructed not to use the word “transgender”.
2018: Department of Health and Human Service propose a rule to encourage medical providers to deny service on the grounds of religious freedom. This is coded language for denying service to women, gay, and trans individuals.
2018: Bureau of Prisons roll back protections for trans inmates.
2018: Department of Labor releases a new directive no longer requiring federal contractors to comply with nondiscrimination laws on the grounds of religious freedom. This is coded language for denying service to women, gay, and trans individuals.
2019: Department of Health allows adoption and foster agencies in South Carolina to discriminate against LGBT caregivers.
2019: Ban on trans service members goes into effect.
2019: Trump announces opposition to Equality Act, which would add protections for LGBTQ Americans and others.
2019: Department of Health and Human Services proposes a rule that would remove all recognition of all nondiscrimination laws intended to protect trans individuals.
So what’s going on here? The hint can be found in the message on Trump’s official Twitter account focusing on abroad. The same is true of Scheer, with his spokesperson explaining:
Schow pointed out more-recent examples of Scheer’s advocacy for members of the community. In June 2017 Scheer moved a motion in the House of Commons that, among other things, condemned the actions of Vladimir Putin’s Russian government against LGBTQ individuals.
The Canadian and US government use human rights as a tool against countries that undermine their foreign policy objectives. This is why the Canadian and US governments vocally criticize Iran on the basis of human rights, but are quiet on more repressive Saudi Arabia. Since gay rights is fashionable, they’re using that. There’s a word for this: homonationalism.
These conservative leaders do not recognize their role in encouraging prejudice in their home countries. For them discrimination is a thing of the distant past, or that happens in isolated incidents, or that occurs abroad, or in the case of transphobia – is seen as just. Scheer had an opportunity to confront his party’s opposition to these rights. It would have been a moment of humility and introspection, acknowledging how good people ended up advocating to hurt so many. Such a party would be less likely to advocate against the rights of minorities in the future.
Scheer has chosen not to take these hard steps, and instead misrepresent recent history as one in which the Conservative party supported the rights of sexual and gender diverse people. Now he’s using the same individuals he publicly maligned for years as a tool to promote his foreign policy. An entirely expected, but nonetheless unfortunate, development.
The denial to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin is particularly jarring because the ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, is spearheading an administration push to end the criminalization of homosexuality in roughly 70 countries that still outlaw it, as NBC News first reported in February. Grenell, the most senior openly gay person in Trump’s administration, has secured support for that campaign from both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
The purported support of LGBT rights abroad is not genuine for neither Trump nor Scheer.
