Category: Human Rights

Twelve years after it was first introduced to Parliament, the law to add gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act has finally passed. The final vote in the senate was 67 in favour, 11 against, and 3 abstentions.

The day had started with conservative senators arguing that recognizing the rights of trans people infringed on freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and brought up fears of sexual predators. These statements received applause from Conservatives in attendance.

The inclusion of a new group in the Canadian Human Rights Act and in relevant hate crime sections of the Criminal Code does not improve the condition for those who are discriminated against. I would like to reiterate strongly that our laws, including the Criminal Code, are no place for an awareness campaign to assist in building understanding for those who do not fit into the colloquial “norm.”

This will allow men to go into women’s change rooms and bathrooms across the country.

If a person is unwilling, for religious or cultural reasons, to show a man one’s hair, how are we expected to force such a person to share the most private and intimate of spaces with someone who appears, in all physical and biological ways, to be of the opposite sex? I ask, honourable senators: Is it possible that, in passing this bill, we would be discriminating against our Muslim friends, as well as other groups, and their practice and policy of modesty?

One of those potential consequences, as some witnesses in committee had mentioned, is that Bill C-16 in its current form may compel speech, which goes against a fundamental right that we uphold in Canada.

 

Senator Plett’s motion to add one sentence “For greater certainty” — and if I may read the full sentence:

For greater certainty, nothing in this Act requires the use of a particular word or expression that corresponds to the gender identity or expression of any person.

…which was defeated, would have added language to this bill that would have given assurances of protecting free speech.

To the “compelled speech” argument, a brilliant retort came from senator Lillian Eva Dyck:

Even here, in the chamber, we do not have unlimited freedom of speech. […]

 

As an example, recently when Senator Plett felt or perceived that Senator McPhedran had called him a bigot, he raised a point of privilege and the Speaker ruled in his favour.  […] Senator McPhedran said it was not her intention to offend Senator Plett. So there was a ruling made on the balance between what was said, what was intended and what was perceived. That’s what freedom of speech is all about, and that’s also what harassment is all about. If Senator McPhedran had continued to speak along those lines, then she could have been found guilty of harassment, but she did not do that.

 

How does this relate to Bill C-16 and pronouns? I’ve already outlined that. If I or any other person were to call a trans woman by the pronoun “he,” that trans woman may well be offended. If that trans woman spoke to me and said to me, “Please, I would rather be called ‘she’ than ‘he’,” and I ignored that and continued to call that trans woman “he,” that would be discrimination. She could take this case to a human rights tribunal, and in all likelihood I would be found guilty of harassing her because I called her by the wrong pronoun and had done it willingly and as a way to discredit her, humiliate her or make her feel less than what she was really worth.

The Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould, who had introduced Bill C-16, came by to sit down in the Senate gallery while we were observing the proceedings. Following these speeches against and in favour the bill came to a vote.

The Speaker asked those in favour to yell “Yea”. So yelled numerous senators. Then he asked those against to yell “Nay”. The nay yells appeared to be louder. My heart stopped. “The yays have it”, declared the Speaker. Two senators stood up to trigger a roll call. The Speaker announced a half hour intermission.

At 3:54 pm, the senate was far fuller than it had been throughout the proceedings. Each senator in favour stood up to have their vote recorded, then the senators opposed, and those abstaining, followed suit. The final vote was 67 in favour, 11 against. Plett was unsurprisingly among the eleven. The gallery cheered and stood up, to the security guard’s dismay, who was trying to get us to be quiet. The senate applauded, looking up at us as they did so.

Afterwards, we headed to Senator Grant Mitchell’s office, the senator who had sponsored the bill. The Minister of Justice joined us. There was a brief chat, then they left, and we took the following photo.

Some of us, myself included, headed to Dunn’s to celebrate, while other advocates headed to Nate’s. News outlets pickled up the story within hours with mostly positive coverage. The response was much more significant than it had been throughout the bill’s life cycle following its introduction. The National Post and the CBC published stories opposing the passage of the bill.

I don’t feel particularly joyful at the news of the bill’s passage. There are benefits to C-16 that will permeate across the country. For instance, when someone in an HR department copies the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination for their own internal policy, it could now include gender identity and expression. Trans employees will benefit from that. When pollsters look to define populations, they might pull from the prohibited grounds list, and trans people will now be counted. Specific hate crime statistics will also be collected now that gender identity or expression is part of the Criminal Code. Individuals challenging institutional discrimination will have another argument to call upon. There’s lots of freebies that comes from the passage of this law, without it ever being used in a human rights case.

This bill would of had a much greater impact had it passed when it was introduced twelve years ago. Perhaps my lack of celebratory feelings is related to thinking of all the people who were harmed while Parliament let these intervening bills die through action and inaction. The bill, though a positive step, has less impact now.

Perhaps my muted response comes from knowing that this law alone won’t alone protect transgender, non-binary and otherwise gender variant individuals. It isn’t laws like this which significantly changes statistics in short order, like these ones I picked for trans youth:

• 40-50% of Ottawa homeless youth are LGBTQ
• 70% of Canadian trans youth reported sexual harassment
• 36% of Canadian trans youth were physically injured or threatened in the past year
• 70% of Canadian trans youth reported discrimination due to gender identity
• 37% of Canadian trans youth attempted suicide
• Only 15% of Canadian trans youth with a family doctor reported feeling “very comfortable” discussing their trans status and trans-specific health-care needs
• Only 10% of Canadian trans youth always felt safe in school washrooms
• Only 5% of Canadian trans youth felt always safe in school change rooms

This is unsurprising given the attitudes of cisgender Canadians:

• 42% to 59% of Canadians would restrict or prohibit washroom transgender individuals from using washrooms
• 29% of Canadians agree that being transgender “is just unnatural”
• 42% of Canadians say that transgender celebrities worsen their opinion of trans people
• 24% of Canadian men are uncomfortable with a transgender person moving next door to them

These numbers are a sobering reminder that legislation represent a small component of a much larger effort. I do want to acknowledge that there’s a lot of positive changes lately though, and I’m pleased.

I also want to recognize former NDP MP Bill Siksay, who first introduced this legislation as a private members bill in 2005, and current NDP MP Randall Garrison who took over the task of introducing it’s successors after Bill Siksay retired from politics. I am likewise thankful to Grant Mitchell the sponsor of the bill in the Senate and Amanda Ryan, Susan Gapka and the many others who tirelessly lobbied for this. This is a victory. This law was needed, and their work has made a difference.

This past month, the National Post published an article in opposition to Bill C-16, the legislation that would add gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act. It is the eighth such article by the newspaper opposing the anti-discrimination bill for trans, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals in the past year.

In this piece, the newspaper articulated the view that the anti-bullying “Day of Pink” is harmful and that the inclusion of gender identity and expression in the law that prohibits advocating for genocide would curtail freedom of speech. The paper did so despite acknowledging the high bar to charge someone for advocating genocide, recognizing that it “involves an intent to destroy or kill an identifiable group and requires the consent of the provincial attorney-general.” They stated:

With the criminal code, it means the section against hate propaganda — this is the one under which advocating genocide falls — is similarly enlarged to include the tiny percentage of people who don’t have the same gender identity as their biological sex.

 

That means, presumably, that if someone like Eric Brazau were to fixate on the gender-fluid and say negative things about them, he too could be charged with advocating genocide.

 

No wonder Peterson raised the alarm.

 

Defy the stultifying parameters around public discussion that exist in this suffocating country at your peril.

Such arguments blending free speech with violent overtones have not only been promulgated by the national newspaper but also in Parliament.

Senator Don Plett, perhaps the most vocal opponent of Bill C-16, invited Gad Saad to serve as a witness on the Senate committee for the legislation. The Concordia professor had no professional or personal experience with trans or non-binary individuals but regularly made disparaging remarks about them on Twitter and in his YouTube show, The Saad Truth. In the private event organized for him on Parliament Hill afterwards, Gad Saad suggested that including “gender identity” and “gender expression” in the Canadian Human Rights Act was not merely an impediment to free speech, but would lead to the “death of the West.” As he stated in Parliament earlier the same day, the “slippery slope of totalitarian lunacy awaits us.”

On Twitter, the Concordia professor continued to ridicule trans and non-binary people advocating for their rights.

He wasn’t the only witness to blend freedom of speech arguments with suggestions of calamity. University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, also invited by Plett, said in his testimony that these rights would infringe freedom of speech and were a “vanguard issue” in an “ideological war” with a “neo-Marxist base“. That these protections would lead to “re-education committees“. That trans advocates were “unforgivable and reprehensible“. That the request for these rights showed “how deeply a culture of victimization has sunk into our society“. Like Gad Saad, Peterson regularly admonished trans and non-binary people on Twitter and YouTube.

Terms like “genocide”, “war”, “murderous ideology”, “re-education”, “death of the West” were being used by Peterson and Saad when discussing the inclusion of “gender expression” and “gender identity” to federal anti-discrimination protections.

Peterson and Saad’s arguments in Parliament largely targeted the rights of non-binary individuals. They were joined by witnesses who took aim at transgender women. Here the rhetoric shifted from language around totalitarianism and atrocities to rape.

Paul Dirks, the pastor behind the “Woman Means Something” campaign, explained that trans women were predators and a threat to women:

But there is one piece of evidence that’s important in this, and that is that there exists amongst trans women certain criminal patterns that do not exist at all amongst women.

In the Okanagan in B.C. recently, in 2017, women were being kicked out of women’s shelters because they objected to having a [trans woman] in their space where they are unclothed. We have all sorts of examples where these predators are getting in.

Dirks stated on his website that being inclusive of trans women was an “erasure of women’s identity and idealogical rape“. Members from the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter asserted that transgender women did not exist but rather were men who took on sexist stereotypes and that “gender expression” included rape. Members from Pour les droits de femmes du Québec stated that transgender women had no place in women’s washrooms, change rooms, sports, prisons, and shelters under implied threats of sexual assault:

With regard to prisons, everyone remembers Colonel Russell Williams, who was found guilty on 92 charges, including murdering two women and numerous sexual assaults. Colonel Williams liked to take pictures of himself in his victims’ underwear after committing his crimes. Why might he not decide that he would be better off in a women’s prison?

The witnesses had deep misconceptions about trans women and non-binary people yet were treated as authorities on the matter in Parliament and given extensive time to air their views. Those misconceptions were then further distributed through outlets such as the CBC. Opponents largely had neither professional nor personal experience with trans people, which is why they spoke to hypotheticals in asserting their opposition whereas proponents spoke to the present and measurable discrimination that trans and gender variant individuals encounter.

As I write this, it’s the day after Peterson’s testimony and Bill C-16 just passed the senate committee. This is the furthest this legislation has gone in the 12 years since former NPD MP Bill Siksay introduced the first such bill and in the 7 years I’ve been following its various incarnations. Every previous iteration – Bill C-392 (2005), Bill C-326/C-494 (2006), Bill C-389 (2009), Bill C-276/C-279 (2011) – was killed. C-16 is now likely to become law by the end of June. A conclusion to this legislative process will hopefully mark the end of these committees, and thus of inviting transphobic bigots from across Canada to spread their harmful misconceptions through Parliament and the media coverage that ensues.

Opponents have used rhetoric around rape, murder, war and genocide when describing their fears of what would happen in a world where trans women such as myself could change after working out at the gym. This isn’t a fringe view: it’s advertised in Parliament and in our national newspapers.That so many influential people equate the simple things I do with such violence is scary. I ground myself in the knowledge that things are the safest they’ve ever been.

Here are some experiences I’ve had:

• I go on a date. While saying goodbye to the date, a man comes up to me, inquires about my gender, and gropes my breasts to find out if I am a man or a woman.
• I go to the gym. After my work out, a patron tells me to get out of the change room.
• I eat in a food court. The table next to me has five older men talking about trans people derisively, with straw-men arguments.
• I go to an outdoor music festival. A woman pulls at my sports bra. A man follows me to inquire why I’m wearing feminine attire.
• I watch a new movie. There’s a tranny joke.
• I go buy clothes. A sales associate follows me around the store after I try on leggings, stops by me, and eyes me up and down giving me a look of disgust.
• I go get my brows done. The aesthetician laughs in my face when I ask for thinner more feminine eyebrows.
• I’m at work. A coworker tries to bond by deriding their ex for being trans. He doesn’t know I’m trans.
• I go to a laser hair removal clinic. The receptionist looks at my file, sees the medications I’m on, and berates me for being on hormone replacement therapy.
• I walk to a coffee shop downtown. On the way a pedestrian yells that I’m a man.
• I walk to the grocery store. A guy at a pub patio along the way mocks me over my breasts to his friends.
• I walk up to a bus stop. A lady waiting for the bus ogles so hard that she nearly falls over when she bends forward to get a better view.
• I take the bus home. A man points at me repeatedly and laughs.
• I buy a coat. The sales associate tells me I’m in the wrong section, the men’s is over there.
• I take a walk. A man passing me mutters that I’m wearing a women’s coat.
• I walk to work. A man loudly asks his friend if I’m a guy or girl. I turn around to see if he’s talking about me, then he promptly yells that I’m a dude.
• I take a cab. The driver solicits me for sex.
• I go to a bar and use the facilities. I overhear a man say that a guy went into the ladies washroom. Leaving the bar, a patron yells at me that I’m a guy.
• I read a national newspaper. There’s an op ed portraying trans rights as a threat to children.
• I update my insurance info. They won’t let me change my gender marker until I have surgery that renders me sterile.

The views that led people to act in the above fashion are widespread. They are so widespread that I’m still afraid when accessing gendered public spaces like change rooms.

It irks me when people claim that these views are silenced because some university declined to give this transphobia a platform or because some trans people protest it.

No. This view is all around us. Trans students at that university are immersed in that view, whether the administration hosts a transphobic speaker or that speaker finds another venue. I don’t buy for one second that free speech is under threat; not when this view is literally shouted from the streets of Ottawa. Not when this view is voiced in change rooms, in washrooms, in clothing stores, in food courts, outside bars, in clinics. Not when it’s advertised on Parliament Hill and in this country’s national and local newspapers, in recital halls, and television programs. That free speech is being exercised all the time with very significant displays.

Don’t conflate particular venues declining to lend their name to these views with being silenced. Don’t mistake trans people protesting this prejudice for a loss of free speech. To the contrary, that’s adding a voice to the mix that wasn’t heard before. But to those whose views monopolized the public sphere, having these new voices gain prominence can feel like a loss. It may be a loss of comfort from having to share space with trans voices, but it is not a loss of free speech.

A little while ago, I spoke about how professor Jordan Peterson acted as a lightning rod for Canadians to express their opposition with acceptance of trans people. This opposition has reached a point where it is threatening the passage of Bill C-16, also known as the trans rights bill. In this article, I’m going to cover the opposition.

Jordan Peterson

A few months ago, professor Jordan Peterson published an incoherent rant against non-binary people and Bill C-16, invoking the Soviet Union, calling the Ontario Human Rights Commission a “particularly pathological organization”, stating that using gender-neutral pronouns would make him a “mouthpiece of some murderous ideology person’s gender identity definitions.”

In response, trans people attending the University of Toronto where the professor taught spoke out about this vitriol and demanded that trans students at the university be treated with respect. They organized a teach-in.

An immense backlash followed, not against the professor, but against the trans students. Canadians perceived the opposition to Peterson’s assertions as an affront to their freedom of speech. As I documented in that blog entry, major media outlets in Canada indicated their support for the professor, with seemingly only small queer outlets sympathizing with those on the receiving end of his words. As best as I can tell, the only acceptable response that Canadian public would have tolerated was silence on the part of trans people and no demands for the professor to treat them with respect.

Peterson spoke against Bill C-16 in his rant, stating that it would infringe on freedom of speech. The backlash picked up that narrative, making its way through the media and Parliament. What was initially about a transphobic professor and students objecting to his bigotry at one university became much much bigger.

What Bill C-16 Does

As a refresher, Bill C-16 adds “gender identity and gender expression” to the Human Rights Act and to the criminal code. You can see the full text of the bill here.

The modification to the Canadian Human Rights Act, Section 2. This is the section that explains the purpose of the Act:

2 The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

The modification to the Canadian Human Rights Act, Subsection 3(1). This is the subsection that identifies the eligible grounds for discrimination:

3 (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

The modification to the Criminal Code, Subsection 318(4). This is in the subsection that makes it illegal to advocate or promote genocide:

(4) In this section, identifiable group means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.

The modification to the Criminal Code, Subparagraph 718.‍2(a)‍(i). This is in the section for sentencing after an individual has been found guilty of a crime:

(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or on any other similar factor,

The Opposition

Bill C-16 is currently in the Senate. The Senate is where the previous incarnation of this bill, Bill C-279, was killed. There is much more opposition now as a result of the lightning rod effect. According to Amnesty International, who have been involved in the effort to advance C-16, “Senators are being flooded with messages opposing” Bill C-16.

Current public exposure to Bill C-16, through Google search results, Twitter, newspapers and the media is being framed through the lens of the opposition. The focus of the opposition is around free speech and the claim that misgendering an individual would now be a hate crime.

Examples of Public Exposure to Bill C-16

Google Trends Data on Bill C-16

The chart above shows the popularity of particular Google searches over time. Two things to note. First, there’s much more interest in “Jordan Peterson” than there is in “Bill C-16”. Second, that the attention to Bill C-16, in particular it’s much publicized introduction on May 17th, 2016, is insignificant as compared to the attention it got following the Peterson affair. In other words, attention on Bill C-16 is shaped by interest in Jordan Peterson and his negative take on the legislation.

The chart above shows the popularity of Google searches by region, as well as showing related searches. A few things to note. First, there is interest in “Jordan Peterson” coming from the United States. Second, far more people are interested in Jordan Peterson than Bill C-16. Third, when they search for “Bill C-16” it’s in association with an interest in “Jordan Peterson”. Fourth, those with an interest in Jordan Peterson also demonstrate interest in “SJW”, which is an acronym for “social justice warrior”, a pejorative often reserved for individuals advocating for the rights of trans people and other marginalized communities.

Observations about the Opposition to Bill C-16

There’s a few things to note about the opposition.

• Opposition is far exceeding support. The opposition is dominating Google, Twitter, newspaper editorials, and television. It is flooding Senators offices.
• The opposition is almost entirely associated with Jordan Peterson.
• Americans are getting involved in the opposition.
• There is a fundamental misrepresentation of what Bill C-16 does that echoes Peterson’s alarmist and misguided take on the legislation.
• As a result of its dominance in the media and online, the opposition is getting to frame the bill for the public. In doing so, the content and effects of the bill are being misrepresented and reduced to fear mongering around pronouns, much like previous opposition had reduced the discourse around trans rights to fear mongering about washrooms.
• There is little interest by major media outlets in listening to trans people and presenting a more sensible review of the legislation, much less doing so without invoking Jordan Peterson. Non-binary trans people are being regularly lambasted for their pronouns in the media and the suggestion is made that Bill C-16 will restrict freedom of speech.
• Freedom of speech appears to be the main argument made in opposition of the bill. Freedom of speech seems to be the successor to the freedom of religion argument, presenting anti-discrimination legislation as infringing on the rights of perpetrators.
• The opposition would have been unlikely to exist in this amount had the bill proceeded through Parliament before the events surrounding Jordan Peterson. It could also die out in a year, as other lightning rod issues have. This is perhaps the most inopportune time for the bill to make its way through Parliament.

What You Can Do

Contact Senators

Here’s a list of priority Senators, provided by Amnesty International. Contact them. Let them know you support Bill C-16 and oppose the discrimination trans people face.

Opponents are reducing discourse of the bill to fear mongering around freedom of speech and washrooms. Discussions about the discrimination faced by trans people and what the bill actually does is getting sidelined. I’ve provided talking points below to assist in redirecting the discourse back to discrimination and the need for such simple anti-discrimination measures.

Talking Points – Supporting Bill

• Canadians support Bill C-16.
  • Angus Reid found that 84% of Canadians support expanding non-discrimination laws to include gender identity.
• Trans people represent a significant number of Canadians.
  • Angus Reid found that roughly 0.6% of Canadians are trans. That’s about 210,000 Canadians.
  • 24% of trans Ontarians are parents.
• Trans people face discrimination in Canada.
  • Discrimination acts as a barrier to employment, health care, education, travel, and full participation in society.
  • 96% of trans Ontarians have heard trans people are not normal.
  • 73% of trans Ontarians have been mocked for being trans.
  • 20% of trans Ontarians have been physically or sexually assaulted for being trans.
  • 34% of trans Ontarians had been verbally threatened or harassed but not assaulted.
  • 13% of trans Ontarians have been fired for being trans, and another 15% of trans Ontarians were fired, and believed it might be because they were trans.
  • 18% of trans Ontarians were turned down for a job; another 32% suspected this was why they were turned down.
  • 17% of trans Ontarians were declined a job they had applied for and were actually offered, because of the lack of a trans-positive and safe work environment.
  • 57% of trans Ontarians avoided washrooms over fear of their safety.
  • 32% of trans Ontarians had to move away because they were trans, either for their safety or to access services.
  • 40% of trans Ontarians had experienced discriminatory behaviour from a family doctor at least once.
  • 24% of trans Ontarians reported having been harassed by police.
• Discrimination costs lives.
  • 43% of trans Ontarians had a history of attempting suicide, including 10% within the past year.
  • The numbers are higher for trans people of colour, trans youth, trans seropositive individuals, trans individuals with lower educational attainment, and trans individuals with lower household income.
  • 57% of trans youth 16-24 in Ontario with unsupportive parents attempted suicide in the past year.
  • Research published in the Lancet Journal shows that the distress is not as a result of being trans, but as a result of the experiences of social rejection and violence.

Talking Points – Addressing “Freedom of Speech” Narrative

• There is no hate speech provision in the Criminal Code pertaining to pronoun use or where pronoun use would be applicable.
  • The Criminal Code changes has to do with advocating for genocide and considering gender identity or expression when someone is being sentenced for a criminal act, for instance, after having been found guilty of assault or murder.
  • While not using someone’s pronouns on purpose isn’t legally hate speech, it does create a toxic environment. In the same way that a cisgender purposefully misgendering another cisgender person would be bullying.
• There is no civil process to deal with hate speech in Canada. Police cannot charge anyone with criminal hate speech without the express approval of the provincial attorney general. Even once this approval is obtained, the process is time-consuming and expensive. 
  • This high bar was partially due to the repeal of Section 13 in 2012.
  • Mark Steyn is brought up as an example by opponents of supposed abuse of hate speech legislation. Mark Steyn wrote anti-Muslim articles and had a human rights complaint against him as a result. The case was dismissed, but opponents cite punishment by process (cost, time.) That case occurred previous to the repeal of Section 13.
• Clauses for gender identity and gender expression already exists provincial human rights legislation.
  • Clauses for gender identity and gender expression already exist in the human rights legislation of Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island.
  • Clauses for gender identity already exists in the human rights legislation of Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.
  • The cases that have come before the tribunals have to do with the discrimination that trans people face: being fired for being trans, facing sterilization as a requirement to update a gender marker on documents, etc.
  • Any other application of the law, such as to use “gender identity and gender expression” to restrict free speech, is simply not grounded in the reality of how these laws have been applied.
• These clauses already exist in the federal Human Rights Act for other grounds.
  • The other grounds are: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.
  • The tribunal has set a precedence of permissiveness with freedom of speech, including when it decided in favour of Mark Steyn for his outspoken anti-Muslim rhetoric. This would not change.
  • The “freedom of speech” argument appears only to be applied to gender identity and gender expression, in the same way that “freedom of religion” was seemingly only applied to sexual orientation. The arguments could be made of every other clause, but they aren’t.
• Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence.
  • Just as a professor spouting an incoherent sexist rant against women at university could face repercussions, so too a professor rallying the same against transgender individuals.
  • Trans people have a right to exercise their own freedom of speech and advocate for themselves. This is not a right that is only reserved to cisgender individuals. It is not an infringement of that right for trans people to affirm that they must be treated with respect.

Talking Points – Addressing “Bathroom Predator” Narrative

• Recognizing gender identity does not open the door for male sexual predators to use the women’s washroom.
  • Clauses for gender identity and gender expression already exist in the human rights legislation of Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island.
  • Clauses for gender identity already exists in the human rights legislation of Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.
  • Protections at the provincial level have not been accompanied by a rise in sexual assault.
  • These protections already exist in 16 states in the US. As Media Matters found, following the introduction of such protections, there wasn’t a documented rise in sexual assaults.
  • The bathroom predator threat is a myth.
• The predator argument is logically inconsistent.
  • Sexual assault is illegal. Using the incorrect washroom is not. The idea that predators are waiting for a non-discrimination clause to enter a washroom and commit an illegal act doesn’t hold water.
  • Subscription to this myth implies that male predators who are waiting to assault young girls are are already in the men’s washroom with young boys, and the discourse is to keep them in the washroom with boys. Letting trans people use washrooms doesn’t figure in this.
• There are many trans Canadians, and they deserve to use the right washroom.
  • Transgender Canadians make up roughly 0.6% of the population, or approximately 210,000 Canadians. 57% of trans Ontarians reported avoiding washrooms over fears of their safety.
  • Looking to the US, which largely mirrors Canadian data, 32% of trans people limited the amount they ate or drank to avoid restroom use. 24% had their washroom use questioned/challenged in the past year. 12% had been verbally harassed for using the washroom in the past year. 9% were denied restroom access in the past year. 8% had a kidney or urinary tract infection, or another kidney-related medical issue, because they avoided restrooms.
  • Isolated incidents is not reason enough to deny 210,000 Canadians the right to use the correct washroom.