Maëlys McArdle

Blog

  • Updated: Covid-19 Continues

    Updated: Covid-19 Continues

    June 20th, 2020

    Much has changed in the last few months. In Ottawa, the incidence of coronavirus has pretty much gone. There are now only 58 recorded active cases and two people are currently hospitalized. Accordingly, the city has started to open up. Restaurants can now accommodate patrons, albeit outdoors. Parks are open for more than just walking through, although play structures remain closed. Shops beyond essentials like grocery stores and pharmacies have opened, although with social distance measures in place.

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  • Who is posting anti-trans stickers around Ottawa?

    Who is posting anti-trans stickers around Ottawa?

    Note: I will only keep to Twitter handles and screenshots of public Twitter posts.

    Starting last year, anti-trans stickers began appearing all over Ottawa. It was the work of a small group linked to the new wave of anti-trans organizations in Canada that co-opt women’s rights language to argue that gender diverse people are a scourge to society. After a brief pause, the sticker campaign has resumed, this time capturing a bit of media attention. Neither article covered who was doing this.

    There’s evidence that the individuals associated with the following Twitter accounts either put up the transphobic stickers or know who has:

    • @MrsDrBee
    • @Mason134211f
    • @Karrie__2019
    • @StellaDoves
    • @lakefemme (defunct)
    • @radicaldata
    • @argeliapeagui
    • @_CryMiaRiver

    They all follow each other as well as accounts on Twitter devoted to purging trans people from society, accounts representing organizations who sell these stickers to raise funds, so it tracks. Among the groups they source stickers from are Cawsbar and Women Matter, the latter’s innocuous name being a ruse:

    Cawsbar and Women Matter Canada both sell the anti-trans stickers spotted in Ottawa.
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  • Is it genuine support?

    Work hosted a lovely workshop on pronouns and trans 101. It was well attended, everyone was doing their best, the presenter was qualified, yet I couldn’t shake my internal skepticism. That I felt this way really bothered me; why couldn’t I just appreciate this?

    I think my apprehension wasn’t to do with the presentation at all, but a larger question that has kept coming up as acceptance has made unprecedented inroads: are people nice now because they’re questioned the foundational beliefs that led them to mistreat others in the first place? Or have they not done this work, and this newfound kindness because they personally benefit by tapping into this trendy thing?

    Because with the latter, they’re not going to stand up to adversity when there’s repercussions; which would be precisely when their support actually matters. I also don’t consider rhetoric around inclusion laudable if the speakers are going to be just as exclusive to other groups that don’t enjoy the social capital that being trans-inclusive confers in some circles. Substituting tranny jokes for mocking people based off of looks isn’t progress.

    I keep seeing this shallow acceptance play out. So as I watch colleagues navigate this topic, I just can’t help but wonder how authentic of a change will be for them, especially those drawn to spotlights.

  • Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation & What You Can Do

    Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation & What You Can Do

    This is the transcript of a session I led at my company, a San Fransisco start-up in the solar energy space where I work as senior software engineer, and where I also volunteer on its rainbow ERG. The slides are available here.

    Who Am I

    My name is Maëlys (she/her), and here I’m a backend dev, but for most of my adult life I’ve also been actively involved in advocacy work on queer & trans issues. This is me in Parliament during Bill C-16, which added gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act:

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  • More troll than threat

    More troll than threat

    In the past five years, I’ve documented two new forms of transphobic organizing in Canada:

    This is in addition to the organizing by various Conservative parties and Christian entities who have long tried to eradicate gender and sexual diversity. In recent years the nationalist groups have not been able to physically intimidate queer people in their own spaces as a result of the pandemic and the cessation of in-person events, with some exceptions. So I want to focus instead on this new wave of activism that has co-opted the language of women’s and gay rights for prejudicial ends.

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