Category: Trans Rights
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Transphobia and the intelligence apparatus of the right
I gave a five minute talk as part of a panel I was on today at a conference discussing transnational far right movements. This is that speech. You’re no doubt aware that trans people are the subjects of a moral panic in the United-States and in the UK. This year in the US, Republicans have…
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The radicalization of an Ottawa teacher
In this article, I’m going to document how an alleged high school teacher in Ottawa went from being supportive of LGBTQ students to making her entire public persona about being a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Though she used to put a full name on Twitter, and there is a teacher by that name currently working…
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Beyond the Baseline
This week, the Aquatic Federation of Canada, a body representing Diving Canada, Canada Artistic Swimming, Swimming Canada, and Water Polo Canada, voted to effectively ban trans women from women’s events. This vote was for a policy with the international body FINA governing its events of which the Aquatic Federation is a member. Contrary to assertions,…
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Cultural templates
This past weekend, a man on the TTC called my best friend and I faggots and warned us not to look in his direction. I had rested my head against my best friend’s / ex’s shoulder. The man’s demeanour suggested he might be mentally ill. This interaction made me think of Panthea Lee’s words during…
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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…
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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…
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More troll than threat
In the past five years, I’ve documented two new forms of transphobic organizing in Canada: 2016 – 2019: A rise in violent anti-trans and anti-gay nationalist groups 2019 – Present: A wave of anti-trans groups under the pretence of women and gay rights This is in addition to the organizing by various Conservative parties and…
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Ottawa’s Covid Party
Lead Up FOX News, Tea Party & Trumpism A dozen years ago, I went to Washington, D.C. for a Tea Party mass event with my friend Jon and partner Jay. The movement at the centre of this this “Restoring Honor Rally” arose in the wake of Obama’s election; its makeup almost exclusively white people, aggrieved…
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“The first trans person in Canada”
While researching the archives of The Ottawa Journal, I found this article from the March 22, 1954 edition of the paper, on Page 30. It denotes “Canada’s first sex change” of Frances Marie Jefferson, age 24. I always find any assertion of “first” with the media deeply dubious; first known to the author no doubt.…
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Comically uninformed books about trans people
Some history Up until very recently, gender diverse people were shut out of the publishing world. If they wanted to exchange ideas in print, they had to do it in their own newsletters and zines such as in Friedrich Radszuweit’s Das 3. Geschlecht – Die Transvestiten (translation: “The 3rd sex – the transvestites”, 1930-1932) or…