As communities rise from the margins, they undergo a process of introspection, microscopic self-examination and self-definition.  It’s a process of healing, throwing off the ill-fitting definitions that had been imposed previously by a majority that didn’t experience and most often didn’t understand what it was building a box around.  It’s a process of finding pride in oneself and one’s identity.  It’s an important and necessary step in emerging and finding one’s strength and will.  It is this process that the trans community (or communities?) is evolving through.

But history shows that when left to happen without agreed-upon parameters, this newfound freedom to self-define has a tendency to exclude and marginalize others that share some fundamental common purposes.  I’ll try not to belabour the point as it’s been made many times before, but it seems to need regular repeating, so I’ll do so and move forward to (I think) a more substantial solution.

As the gay community became able to articulate their issues as ones of sexual orientation, it facilitated the ejection of trans issues of gender identity and expression (sometimes along with people who were branded feminine or drag), which they tended to feel were irrelevant or even embarrassing — decades later, it has become clearer that LGB people are inevitably as much stereotyped by gender expectations in society as orientation issues, even if those expectations are sometimes a fallacy.

As lesbians who did not fall under the “butch/femme” motif felt comfortable enough to come out and define themselves, they ejected those who they felt perpetuated “bad stereotypes” of who they were.  Years later, there has come to be acknowledgment that this had only served to injure an integral part of that community — a part that was often integral to the early years of lesbian emergence.

As feminism came into its own and defined itself, it ejected sex workers, transwomen, housewives and more who didn’t fit the emerging definitions of the modern woman (to be fair, there are various branches of feminism, and not all succumbed to this).  Today, it’s increasingly understood that each have valuable insights into the ongoing dialogue of womanhood, even if they aren’t always completely representative of the whole.

Self-definition is important up to but not including the point where it seeks to define others by comparison. Emergent communities have often made this mistake and caused years of bitterness and resentment as a result.  And in most cases, they have been seriously wrong in crossing that line.

The problem arises when a community or a part within a community sees an opportunity to rise above its marginalization and concludes that it is prudent to distance itself from its potential allies to do so.  Historically, racial groups in North America demonstrated this visibly.  German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Scottish and other European heritages weren’t always considered “white” (or more accurately, “us”) by the standards of early immigrants, but as society evolved and appeared prepared to accept these nationalities at the price of mostly assimilating into English-derived culture, many happily embraced it at the expense of other marginalized cultures and races.  Among African-Americans too, “skin privilege” allowed whiter-looking people or those of mixed heritage to rise from the lowest levels of discrimination to partial authority, with the compromise being the reinforcement of marginalization of black people.  Today, white-looking Natives, Hispanics, Jews and mixed heritage people still often enjoy “passing privilege” and have the option to say nothing when confronted with prejudices about people of similar background — which some do, sometimes even participating (offhand, I am reminded of a local white supremacist who is said to be of Métis background).

In other words, as each – gay, lesbian, feminist, ethnic European, or white-appearing – found the opportunity to say to mainstream society that “we’re just like you; we’re non-threatening” through new self-definition, they (and by this I mean general majorities, not necessarily overwhelmingly) tended to give in to the human tendency to take the path of least resistance, and left behind or even injured brothers, sisters, allies or kin.

Today, the trans community (or for phraseology that some are more comfortable with, the collision of transsexual and transgender populations) provides an intricate microcosm in which one can see the evolution of minorities, the struggle against oppressions, the quests to assimilate.  The emergent divisions are exacerbated by diversity, views on stealth, the embrace or rejection of sex-negative mores, existing and evolving medical frameworks from outside trans spheres, and the fomenting of resentment between the elapsed time between the genesis of trans activism in the late 1960s and the development of real, substantive progress in the late 1990s (later in Canada).

Part of the battleground has been over the word “transgender” itself, over its appropriateness as an umbrella term or whether there should even BE an umbrella term at all.  The word was invented to describe exclusively crossdressers who were attracted to women, and reviled transsexuals or androphiles (people attracted to men), so it came into this world with some baggage in the first place.  Others fear that by using an umbrella term, the unique needs of sub-communities such as transsexuals are erased – although my experience (perhaps unique to the region I live in?) has tended to be that transsexual issues and identities have been at the forefront of trans activism and sometimes threatened to erase other trans identities.

[Either way, I’ll be clear:  I don’t give a f@&# what the word is, as long as there’s somewhere we can all meet for coffee once in awhile and talk about things that are of mutual importance.]

One development has been the emergence of genderqueer as a movement, an embrace of either dual-gendered, non-gendered, mixed-sex or third-sex identity.  Genderqueer warrior conceptualization has invited an influx of people – mostly younger and progressive-minded, occasionally trend-seeking – who don’t feel that they really fit into the socially-constructed boxes of “male” or “female” and seek a new category.  Gender deconstruction derives significantly from a relatively recent evolution of feminist thought.

Another has been the development of Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS), Woman Born Transsexual (WBT), Classic Transsexual and other forms of transsexual-only philosophy.  I’m not the best person to describe the nuances that separate them.  These tend to embrace a belief in duality of gender, the current medicalized structure of transsexual treatment and the emergent and increasing scientific discoveries demonstrating a strong likelihood of a biological origin of transsexuality.  And if this were the sole framework of HBS / WBT / Classic thought, I’d be quick to support – unfortunately, many of the people driving this branch of self-definition, however, have made it a central point to deride and vilify other trans identities.

With transsexual-only philosophy deriving from a physiological focus and genderqueer thought from dissection of social constructs, two of the three factors of human behaviour (biology, socialization and choice), they have a tendency to be fundamentally in opposition to each other by dismissing the other’s fundamental principles.  Self-definition is important up to but not including the point where it seeks to define others by comparison, and each has sought to elevate at the other’s expense to some degree.  HBS / WBT / Classic thinkers have had a habit of ejecting moderates who are willing to embrace a “transgender” umbrella, with genderqueer people happy to take in the refugees, but both have a capacity for betrayal in those times that they insist on discounting the other.  HBS / WBT / Classic writing has had a particular habit of taking genderqueer thought and painting it onto other trans segments – crossdressers, non-operative transsexuals – sometimes exploiting the same shock value that transphobes have taken advantage of for centuries.

I don’t believe that either are wrong at their foundations, but each risks repeating the mistakes of the past when they seek to define others and deny the validity of lives and experiences which may be different but no less real.

Although I may seem to pick on HBS / WBT / Classic thought more (in part because my experience of some of the more hardline people has been quite negative), I certainly know that the problem is not one-sided.  In fact, stripped of any practice of criticizing others’ experiences or identities, it’s probably where I’d find myself most at home (though I do not seek to).  During the GRS delisting controversy, I was confronted by one genderqueer person who insisted that surgery is a “cop-out,” that blurring all gender lines was the key to human harmony and that surgery could never make one whole.

“Gender Reassignment Surgery is not even on the radar of my issues,” my combatant told me.  “I hope you never get your surgery relisted.  That money should go to real medical problems.”

Taking a hardline view from any direction is equally capable of alienating real lives and real experiences.

In a recent interview, Rocky Horror Show creator Richard O’ Brien laid bare some of his own trans experience:

“All my life, I’ve been fighting, torn in two and battling – never belonging, actually. Never being male. Or female. Wondering if I was born transgender? Did it happen in the womb? That might have made it easier. I don’t know. Or was it psychological? I’d been going to therapy, treating what I was as though it was some kind of illness – getting more and more depressed, wondering, ‘could I be cured?’ I went mad, really. My marriage was going down the tubes and I just lost it.  Lost it. Lost it…”

This seemed to me to drive home the reality of what is often the most denigrated part of the trans community, crossdressers (although I don’t know if this is how O’Brien identifies).  In the past, I’ve offered advice and support in many online trans communities and various local groups, transsexual, crossdresser, mixed and more.  Something that is to me universal among all of them is a struggle with confusion from being outside societal expectations, a struggle that is inevitably only resolved by following one’s heart to self-realization.  Although the realizations may vary, the “realness” of identity is just as genuine.

In order to find commonality and learn the valid lessons that each of our realities can illuminate, we must learn to respect other identities, and not fall back on philosophical means to invalidate each other.  I’m going to pick on HBS / WBT / Classic thought here, though this trait is not exclusive to one philosophy.

The Quest for Biological Legitimacy

Now, I have to admit, I’ve been as interested as anyone in the ongoing studies in brain sex, genetics, endocrine disrupting chemicals, and other biological factors that have been increasingly linked to transsexualism.  I’ve pointed to them to demonstrate publicly that our identities are not just “all in our heads,” although I also have to admit I’m a bit more of a barstool scientist (which is to say, not a scientist at all), and don’t always grok the nuances of the research myself.  I’ve followed them with some fascination at the intricacies of how 3-variable combinations of biology + socialization + choice produce seemingly infinite numbers of perspectives, and ridiculed the far right for asserting that we “choose our lifestyles.”  I’ve pointed out to people who look at the data and say it legitimizes transsexuals and denigrates other trans identities that the latter tend not to be in the studies at all, so it really says nothing about them.

Yet something that bothers me (and isn’t mentioned much in the quest for biological legitimacy) is that clear proof of a biological origin would not only fail to convince our detractors, it is also not the holy grail it’s made to be.

We’ve been learning that socialization only accounts for a part peoples’ essence (a crucial part, but a part nonetheless), so the power of biology should not be underestimated. Bipolar disorder appears to have a biological component; so does autism (and studies linking transsexualism with Asperger’s Syndrome matches a great deal of what I’ve seen in our community too).  Biological causation only proves that we exist — it does not impart anything positive or negative on our condition, certainly not beyond the stigmas or empathies that society chooses to surrender to any condition.

The illusion of validity based on biology derives from earlier thinking, and keeps getting thrown at us by religious groups and far-right conservatives, who contend that trans anything (and GLBT anything) is a choice which can be overcome by changing one’s mind.  We know from our own experiences and sometimes lifetimes of trying to change our minds that we haven’t chosen our identities and orientations, and that there is something more intrinsic that we cannot put our fingers on that makes us who we are.  Religion in particular has to push this belief, because if a god created homosexuals and trans people, then that completely undermines the ability to create villains of us — and Machiavellian religious leaders understand that the most effective way to consolidate people under their wings is to create villains for them to abhor and oppose.

So we play the opposite response: “it’s genetic.”  Well, maybe it is, but both arguments completely overlook the fact that neither chosen lifestyles nor biologically-driven identities of themselves validate or disqualify value in a human being, a scenario reflected in our communities’ definition of self.

Moreover, we might not exactly be comfortable with the implication of imparting all things biologically-connected with legitimacy.  Imagine a finding in which pedophilia is shown have some genetic trigger.  Certainly many predators of this and other sorts find behavioural change to be difficult or impossible, and describe a compulsion they feel is beyond their control, so it’s not unthinkable that there could be an intrinsic component.  But such a discovery should never be used to legitimize the molestation of children.

So biological causation only proves that we exist.  We cannot depend on it for rights or to change hearts and minds.  We cannot rely on it to find pride in our lives.  It’s fascinating, marginally validating, but it does not provide the standard against which we measure ourselves as humans.

The intent of modern law in western society is to extend full and equal rights to everyone, up to but not including where those rights negatively impact the rights of others (note I said intent — application becomes far different).  This potentially creates a measure of a person based on respect for safety, responsibility, consent, respect and identity.  Yes, I’ve phrased those according to terminology I’ve learned while welcomed among BDSM folks, perhaps there are other terminologies, but I do see these points as being objective, quantifiable but independently impartial increments of measure.  I’ve not said “moral,” because of the way that word is abused in as many different ways as there are belief systems.  I do believe that the intent of law provides us with the simplest, most equitable way of co-existence.  Now if only it were actualized, by authorities, judiciaries and citizens alike.

Defining to Inclusion

Increasingly, it’s becoming clear that defining to exclusion — while probably a natural impulse for emerging communities — is a flawed and potentially injurious approach.

Certainly, there are times we need to differentiate ourselves.  I’ve seen it happen in medical care where we will sometimes have physicians who are willing to see trans patients under the belief that we’re simply gay or lesbian, and then a trans woman shows up with her girlfriend — the reaction can often be “wha? If you like women, why did you want to be one?  I don’t get it…” and a withdrawal occurs.  So when addressing medical professionals, for example, I do find it necessary to explain how gender identity is different from sexual orientation.

Invariably, in diversity training, part of what I communicate becomes: “we’re not gay necessarily… but it shouldn’t matter if we were; we’re not sex workers necessarily… but it shouldn’t matter if we were…” and so on.  Which is a very clunky way of going about things, yet still necessary to maintain context and perspective.

From our perspectives at this point in time, we have many opportunities to grow and learn without repeating the mistakes that other communities have made.  As troubled as transsexual and transgender communities are by the “mental illness” stigma, our experiences should give us keen insight on how other high-function communities are similarly tarnished — people with Asperger’s or Bipolar Disorder for example (or even the disabled in general).  As tuned in to double-standards as we are by violating a gender binary, we should be able to see past other dichotomies — such as when a predominately white culture that gets protectionist with regards to immigration turns around to Aboriginal populations and says, “it’s our place now, get with the program.”  Being shunned, marginalized and pushed into a framework of shame and fear, we should be able to develop empathy for other marginalized and shamed populations.  By being pushed toward subsistence or poverty, we should be attuned to how classism relentlessly divides and punishes the poor.  By being classified with sexual minorities from asexuals to BDSM practitioners, we should be able to clearly see how responsible, consensual and respectful practices get warped into terrifying myths that they are not, all driven by society’s fear and manipulation of attitudes pertaining to the simple, human biological drive of sex.  Yes, the particulars may be different… but the more we look, the more we see opportunities to build connections, to link with allies.

Majorities (and we’re not just talking about white as an inherent trait here, it just happens that in our society, the majority tends to be white) that are blind to their privilege and how it negatively affects others have unconsciously tended to use minority definitions to divide them into subclasses — colonies — in order to manage them.  These divisions often turn people against each other, rather than the oppression that they struggle against.  By playing that game and defining to exclusion, we perpetuate that same framework that allows others to be marginalized.

Defining to inclusion is different, and requires that context and perspective.  We as trans populations need to be able to find our place in the world, and willingly share it with populations that have some inevitable overlap.  We need to first respect, then learn about and communicate with those beside us.  Instead of playing along with the rules of marginalization, disadvantaged communities need to come together and redefine the game.

It’s the only way to truly end the cycle of “better than” and othering that forces communities to repeatedly and defensively self-define to exclusion on their own solitary paths to acceptance.  We need to take care to base our definitions on responsible, mutually-respectful foundations, and avoid taking the various parts of the elephant we’ve blindly discovered for the whole.  It is my wish that our loose coalition of trans (or whatever name we want to gather under) identities can learn from the past and show the future how self-definition should be done.

(Crossposted to The Bilerico Project)

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  That’s the way I see it, and with the steamroller momentum of birtherism, teabagging, speechies, marriage protection and the like, one can’t help but just want to take the easier road of rolling with it.  Even my home Province of Alberta, Canada is swinging to the right like never before, cutting GRS funding, refusing to add protections for gender identity to human rights legislation, passing a provision to ensure that children can be evacuated before tolerance / evolution / Shakespeare / anti-bullying discussions can take place, and now handing a byelection over to a party that tells the Progressive Conservatives that they’re not nearly far right enough.  So I say, hey, roll with it, nobody likes the humiliation of losing.  For those who’d like to join me, here’s a few pointers.

Being a conservative (and by this I mean the far-right Fundamentalist variety, not those moderate lukewarmers who use the word), of course, is relatively easy and requires very little commitment in terms of time, energy and thought.  A conservative can get by very simply with news made up of sound bytes and spur-of-the-moment emotion-driven billboards that show photos of babies with blurbs like “liberals want to kill these.”  It’s much easier than examining the issues to try to understand the poverty, desperation and other factors that might drive a woman to have an abortion.  Things read so much better in black and white. 

Besides, all we have to do is say “death panels” to win – it grabs attention, and it doesn’t even have to be true, but the lefties will spend so much time trying to refute it that it will look true.

So I thought I’d make it easy and provide a little primer to assist the change in thought required to be a conservative.

Definitions:

“Moral.”™ Only certain brands of belief systems have the right to determine what is moral™ and immoral.™ Said belief systems should also be noted not to include “affirming” faiths, whose god is totally embarassing to our god.

“Perverse.”  Again, it takes a born-again believer’s eyes to seperate “normal” from “perverse.”  Perverse covers most sexual acts, particularly any that are not engaged in for the purpose of conceiving children.  Consent is not a factor in determining the difference between the two.  Adultery is not “perverse” if the minister asks for forgiveness afterward.

“Media bias.”  This only occurs when media leans toward the left, in the form of acknowledging civil rights issues, gay agendas, feminism, sex-positivity and other things that should not be recognized (see “Freedom of Speech™“), without a strong voice to the contrary in condemnation – even if the media does not endorse these things, the fact that it is dignifying them without criticism at all proves a bias.  On the other hand, speaking out against this kind of immorality, condemning it or insulting it for humor’s sake does not consititute a bias, because it simply reinforces what is moral™ and normal™, as opposed to the immoral™ and perverse.

“Family™,” “The Children,” and “One Man and One Woman™.”  These need to be interpreted within a strict Judeo-Christian definition that assumes a number of things, for example that children are impressionable enough to be permanently swayed into behaviour that they would normally never be inclined toward, just by hearing about it or seeing a suggestion of it somewhere. 

“Traditional Marriage™.”  This is an easy one.  We get to leave this undefined.  If anyone put some serious thought into it, they’d probably realize that we’re not just talking about procreation (not all marriages end in children, nor is it necessary to be married to spawn), and not even about parenting (otherwise, we’d be more vocal about single parents and divorce).  No, it’s about traditional roles, women obeying their husbands and all that, things that wouldn’t be very popular if we said them out loud, so we’ll just keep this undefined, wink, wink.

“Radical,” “Anarchist,” “Liberal,” “Leftist,” “Left-wing,” “Progressive,” “Moderate,” ”Socialist” and “Communist.”  Interchangeable words for anyone who isn’t conservative enough.  Webster’s Dictionary defines these terms as meaning ”Real Americans™ hate these people.”  No other distinguishing is necessary.

“Fascist.”  See above (just overlook that little bit about being polar opposites).

“Diversity.”  This is an insidious catch-word used by liberal anarchists to try to justify promoting homosexual agendas, to push to have Black, Native, Latin and other groups given access to where they are not wanted, to promote the feminist agenda of encouraging women to develop careers than pursuing their God-ordained purpose of motherhood and to otherwise sabotage the ideal of a white Christian-dominated environment.

“Civil Rights Advocates.”  This must be clearly defined, because not all people who claim to be fighting for equality are civil rights advocates.  Some are pushing the homosexual agenda.  Conservatives define a difference.  When it comes to conservatives’ right to speech, it certainly qualifies as civil rights.  And as of forty or fifty years ago when we were corrected on the matter and told that slavery wasn’t acceptable even though the Bible okayed it, peoples’ fight for racial equality stopped being civil disobedience and became civil rights too.  And, sigh, we even accept the fight for womens’ rights as a civil rights cause now, even though we have our run-ins with feminism.  But when it’s gay people, we don’t call them civil rights advocates.  They can be homosexual behavior advocates or whatever, but never call it “civil rights” — that would imply that they’re fighting for equality (see “Special Rights and Privileges”).

“Special Rights and Privileges.” This applies to laws that would classify violence against homosexual and/or transgender people because they are homosexual and/or transsexual as “hate crimes,” thus requiring them to be given more consideration than would happen in cases where the accused can claim to have understandably acted in the heat of passion and therefore should not be punished in the same way as someone who committed a similar crime against a human being.  It also applies to laws that would enable same-sex partners to have the same rights and privileges as other married couples, such as the right to be present in their hospital room when they are dying, to inherit their partner’s belongings, to receive their partner’s health coverage and any other benefit normally provided to a Real Spouse™.  “Special rights” also includes granting housing and employment privileges typically available to normal™ people, and the right of transsexuals to use a public restroom.  Tangentially, it also includes the rights of people to not be fired from their job because their clothing, hair or any other part of their gender expression differs from what is expected from a man or what is expected from a woman.  “Special rights” does not include exemptions provided to religious institutions (and sometimes also given to religious businesses and businesspeople) from adhering to said laws — these exemptions are just considered proper.  It also doesn’t include special exemptions from taxes or code of ethics laws that govern exchange of services or political involvement.  This will be examined later under “Freedom of Speech™” and “Seperation of Church and State,” below.

“Seperation of Church and State.”  Seperation of Church and State exists to protect the church from taxes, unfair legislation and the special rights of others.  It is not meant to protect the state from the church.  It is widely understood that a political leader absolutely must be a born-again Christian of strong moral background and that their history of sexual fidelity and strong heteronormative convictions are a true measure of their fitness to run a country.  It continues to be important to run a nation based on the current interpretation of a controversial and centuries-old book, despite the fact that previous interpretations have justified slavery, the subjugation of women, millenia of war against Muslims that began before the Crusades and continues today, the mass slaughter during the Inquisition of pagans whose belief was interpreted as “witchcraft” (along with other non-believers, scientists and just plain people whose property you could gain by spreading witchcraft lies about them), the continued population explosion beyond what the Earth is capable of supporting, an economic system that rightly sees God’s chosen 1% of the population control 80% of the world’s wealth, and the continued unbridled exploitation of the Earth’s resources, which proceeds safe in the knowledge that either God will fix it or that the rapture will happen to give us the Get Out of Jail Free card before it all comes apart.

“Freedom of Speech™.” This should only apply to those endeavors considered Moral™.  We wouldn’t want actual freedom of speech — that might lead to obscene music lyrics, gay teachers speaking out in schools, hindu idols at the zoo, text from the Quran spoken in the Legislature, and all sorts of hateful things.  Pornography, cursing, anti-religious hate speech, agendas that would advance the cause of homosexual and trangender activists, sex-trade communications, dialogues that question the subjugation and extermination of the Native peoples during our society’s early occupation of their land, and any other controversial form of expression all need to be acknowledged as obscene and curtailed at the bud.  However, “Freedom of speech™” is an effective rallying cry to be used when calling for the total abolition of Human Rights Commissions.  “Freedom of speech™” exists to protect moralists who rightfully sound off on the evils of their enemies and discuss the actions that should be taken to suppress liberals, feminists and homosexualists.  The best measure of infringements on “freedom of speech™” is to ask the question, “would this ban anything that would be spoken from a church pulpit?” (See “Seperation of Church and State.”)

And there we have it.  Silly commies, you’ve probably been thinking, “now why haven’t I thought of this before?”  Conservatism is easy.  Stay tuned for more in my forthcoming book, “Turncoatism for Fun and Profit,” and don’t forget to donate to my Foundation for Life, Asserted Truth, Earnestness, Altruism, Righteousness, Tradition and Healing.

(Crossposted to The Bilerico Project)

(And I should probably add that the above is purely for sarcasm purposes only, for those who didn’t get that or have taken something too literally)

In early October of 2008, substitute teacher Jan Buterman was informed that he was being dropped from the teacher list and should not report to a scheduled class that day. Jan had spoken with the Deputy Superintendent at the Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division No. 29 the previous June about his transition from female to male and that he would be returning to work after the summer break as Mr. Buterman — a minor change, since he had a mostly masculine gender presentation as it was. But in the start of October, the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese of the Catholic Church objected, and directed the school board to end his employment. The Archbishop felt that Jan “would create confusion and complexity with students and parents as a model and witness to Catholic faith values.” This from the organization that felt that the best way to deal with pedophile priests was to give them a free ride to a faraway diocese and a get out of jail free card… and have other pedophile priests cut a deal with the victims.

In Alberta, Canada, the Catholic School Board is publicly funded, and therefore subject to the same standards as any government entity. Nevertheless, the Archbishop and School Division felt so strongly about the need to fire him for transition — even though there is no quantitative reason to believe that students are in any way negatively affected by the presence of trans teachers — that they put it in writing.

Alberta has encountered this type of issue before. In 1991, chemistry lab instructor Delwin Vriend was fired by The King’s College (a private college — now a University College — operated by the Christian Reformed Church) for being gay. He attempted to file a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, which refused to hear the case on the grounds that sexual orientation was not a protected class. He then fought the case in an Alberta court and won in 1994, but the Province stepped in and appealed, and the ruling was overturned in 1996. At that point, Vriend took on the Province and appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which finally ruled in 1998 that Provinces could not exclude gay, lesbian and bisexual people from human rights legislation. This landmark ruling won equal rights for GLB people across Canada.

Gender identity, however, is only expressly protected in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Since Vriend v. Alberta, Canadian Human Rights Commissions have considered gender identity and expression as “read in” to the Human Rights Act alternately under the terms “sex” or “gender.” As in most situations where there is implicit inclusion, any time a case goes before the Commission, it needs to be repeatedly demonstrated how transsexuality qualifies as a gender class, and even then, other factors can sometimes be given more weight. Earlier this year, a U.S. court gave more weight to a company dress code than to an employee’s gender identity in a similar circumstance — Canada’s track record has been better so far, but there are no guarantees.

In June of this year, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Laurie Blakeman tabled an amendment to Alberta’s Human Rights Act that would have added gender identity to the list of protected classes — MLA Ken Allred led the charge against this, claiming that the amendment was duplicitous and unnecessary, and the ruling Conservatives overwhelmingly voted against it. This led to some speculation that the Alberta Government might try to use a similar tack to Vriend’s case by pushing the Alberta HRC to rule that gender identity is not a protected class, in order to dismiss several complaints being filed when Genital Reassignment Surgery (GRS) was delisted from Health Care Coverage. However, Albertans remember the embarrassing attitudes of the Ralph Klein government when this was attempted before, and the stinging cost of losing that battle, so there is little political will to do so. So far, the AHRC is viewing the GRS-related complaints seriously and the first few have been forwarded to the Province for a response.

Federally, Member of Parliament (MP) Bill Siksay will be bringing a Private Member’s Bill up for debate in the House of Commons this Fall (assuming that the minority government doesn’t fold before then) calling for explicit inclusion of gender identity in hate crimes and non-discrimination legislation. Nudge-nudge to Canadians to remember to enlighten your MP.

Canadian Human Rights Commissions have been under mounting pressure for the last few years from right-wing commentators and interest groups / churches, saying that hate speech provisions impose upon their freedom of speech. Some of the most vocal critics of human rights commissions have been Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, The National Post and Jonathan Kay, MacLeans Magazine, Rev. Stephen Boissin, the Roman Catholic Church, Marc Lemire, Mark and Connie Fournier and Paul Fromm (Lemire, Fromm and the Fourniers also have ties to white supremacists, though with the exception of Fromm, they’ve been largely able to whitewash that). No surprise: virtually all of them have been on the losing end of hate speech cases. But they’ve also been able to whip up the Conservative base into a frenzy of calls to abolish Human Rights Commissions.

The Nixon v. Rape Relief case surrounding a transsexual woman’s right to train as a rape counsellor, the reinstatement of GRS in Ontario, the pending GRS-related cases in Alberta, a case against a women-only gym owner, a case in which an Ontario surgeon refused to do cosmetic revisions to 2 vaginaplasties not caring if there were no other local options, and a couple other cases revolving around transsexuals are inevitably the cases always put forward and twisted out of context in order to make the statement that Human Rights Commissions are out of touch with reality. Most of the arguments are against hate speech, but non-speech cases involving transsexuals appear to be the support “evidence” of choice. Alberta’s HRC was the location of one of the best known hate speech cases in Canada, Lund v. Boissoin, over a conservative minister’s letter to the Red Deer Advocate a few years ago — which has recently been heard for appeal.

I expect that in the same way Rev. Boissoin’s case has been flogged by conservative media to say that legislation designed to prevent incitement against GLB people stifles free speech, this case will be used to raise fears about ENDA and similar legislation. If and when it does, it needs to be remembered that the Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division is a publicly funded institution. Of course, Catholic School Boards haven’t always abided by Provincial standards, such as some boards’ decisions to refuse to offer HPV vaccinations for students — but it does mean that regulatory standards are supposed to apply.

In the meantime, Jan Buterman has been struggling to stay afloat and is hoping for a quick resolution.

Crossposted to The Bilerico Project and offered to Pam’s House Blend

Sprinter Caster Semenya has been placed on suicide watch in the wake of leaked tests apparently showing evidence of intersexuality as well as the negative press she’s received. The news of this has prompted Lord Coe, a vice-president of the IAAF (which oversees the World Championships), to push for mandatory pre-emptive gender testing, to ensure that intersex athletes can be screened out before they arrive at the public stage.

Coe will be discussing this issue with the other IAAF vice-presidents on the federation’s advisory board and their recommendations will then be presented to the IAAF Council at its next meeting in November. There is a suggestion also that Coe may travel with Lamine Diack, the IAAF president, on his proposed forthcoming visit to South Africa to resolve the situation in which Semenya now finds herself.

Because it’s more humane to dash an athlete’s dreams out of sight than to possibly get egg on your face for doing it publicly.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that not all motives to handle something like this quietly are conspiratorial or self-serving. I do, however, question the intent to sweep everything under the rug rather than take an in-depth, fair and scrutinizing look at a serious issue, and develop a more practical policy.

While the people who leaked the intersex findings regarding Caster Semenya to the media failed to indicate which intersex condition is implicated, there are many such conditions which may indicate physical intersexuality, but be essentially negligible when it comes to the question of competitive advantage. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome can be one such condition in which it could be entirely possible for Semenya to have “three times the amount of testosterone as the average woman” and still have that testosterone barely affect her body and abilities in any way. The problem isn’t intersexuality so much as the fact that the so-called pundits are only looking at half the picture.

The International Olympic Committee has fared better, previously reviewing the question of transsexual athletes (a different but related issue) and ruled that transitioned athletes who have had surgery and completed two subsequent years of hormone therapy are physically equal to their new gender. Why then is it so difficult to come to a more rational, balanced policy regarding intersexed athletes?

Until the IAAF can review the question thoroughly and fairly, it risks more tragedies like Semenya’s story or that of Santhi Soundarajan, except that they simply propose to play out those tragedies in hiding, where dreams can be dashed, identities can be quashed and families and national sports administrations will be able to discriminate against affected athletes without intersex-aware defenders to come to their aid. The proposed ass-covering changes merely sweep the issue under the rug and leave events such as the World Championships with outdated policies that will not stand the test of time and medical evidence.

Crossposted to The Bilerico Project

Update: That was quick.  Tim’s has withdrawn its sponsorship.

Original post:

Canadian donut franchise Tim Horton’s is sponsoring Marriage Day in Rhode Island.  This “Marriage Day,” as it turns out, is organized by the National Organization for Marriage, and in case there was any confusion, they loudly declare “This is a great opportunity to take a stand for marriage as God ordained it.”  As in, protecting heterosexuals from having to share the rights and privileges of marriage with same sex couples.

It’s very unlikely that there could have been any confusion about the event, as it’s being put on by an anti-gay organization and two churches involved in local lobbying against same-sex marriage, and features a worship music concert.

Change.org has already launched a petition on the matter.  At the very least, Tim Horton’s needs to clarify whether it actively opposes same-sex marriage.  Some Canadians might consequently want to reconsider spending their money there.

Popular opinion has it that Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS, often popularly nicknamed “sex change surgery”) is a cosmetic issue and motivated by a simple “want” to be female or male, by someone who was not born as such. However, extensive medical research into transsexuality dating as far back as the 1920s and continuing through modern studies have demonstrated otherwise, and consequently, medical standards of care have included GRS as a necessary procedure for decades. In order to understand this, people will honestly need to put aside preconceptions for a moment — and also realize at the same time that most transsexuals would rather see a health system in which preventative and quality-of-life treatments were uniformly covered, rather than one in which someone’s eye surgery or tendon issues are not, thus creating fighting amongst people in simultaneous need.

The experience of being transsexual involves one’s entire identity. They attempt to hide who they are, living a lie that feels unnatural in order to live up to others’ expectations, the hiding driven by a spiralling sense of shame and self-loathing, until it becomes an experience many liken to “suffocating,” or vents itself in an explosion of frustration. Transsexuals are unable to explain why they feel that their gender should be something different than their birth sex, and sometimes spend years attempting to mask themselves, to “pass” as the gender that society expects them to be. This restricts their ability to function socially, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, economically (it’s hard to be productive while constantly feeling out of one’s element and/or “backwards”), maybe sexually, and leaves them often suicidal as a result. If this continues into later adulthood, often a crisis point is reached in which the person suffers a complete emotional collapse.

“Gender Dysphoria” is the name for this condition, and treatment follows the standards of care established by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH, formerly HBIGDA), which includes GRS. No less than the American Medical Association has stepped forward advocating the necessity of surgery and its coverage. In fact, like the AMA, the American Psychiatric Association and their Canadian counterparts support GRS as a medically necessary part of treatment. It was partly for this reason that the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled in 2008 that that Province should restore coverage of the procedure.

Treatment of Gender Dysphoria encorporates surgical and endocrine intervention, because analytical and aversion therapies have historically proven damaging. As much as mainstream society would like to believe that electroshock therapy, anti-psychotic drugs or conversion (“ex-gay”) therapy would help transsexuals “just get over it,” modern medicine has realized that this approach simply does not work, and usually results in suppression, suicide or extreme anti-social behaviour. Aligning body to mind, however, has enabled transsexuals to become valued and successful people in society. There are, in fact, a few transsexuals who feel that they can live without having GRS, but they are the exception and not the rule.

Gender Dysphoria (sometimes called “Gender Identity Disorder,” or GID) is currently listed as a mental health issue, but ongoing study of both genetic ”brain sex” and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) show the possibility of some biological causal factor. In a study released in October 2003, UCLA researchers identified 54 genes in male and female mouse brains that led to measurable differences by gender, and went on to indicate the possibility of a brain being gendered differently to one’s physical sex. Studies of EDCs show another, possibly concurrent potential that exposure to chemicals that simulate hormone characteristics — particularly between the third and eighth week of pregnancy — can affect the signals sent out to determine psychological gender and biological sex, which appear to develop at different times during gestation. In all fairness, nothing is conclusively proven at this point, and there is not a lot of research money being put into further study, as most pharmaceutical companies do not yet see a payoff from doing so. But the anecdotal and observational data from EDC and brain studies of human and animal populations would tend to support an innate origin or component of transsexuality, and coincides with transsexuals’ convictions that they “just knew” that they were female (in the case of male-to-female transsexuals) or male (in the case of female-to-males).

There is more. Current legislation asserts that most forms of identification and legal documentation can only be changed to reflect one’s new gender after surgery has been verified. Without GRS, many pre-operative transsexuals experience severe limitations on employment, travel beyond Canada’s border, and treatment in medical, legal and social settings in which verifying ID is necessary. Prior to GRS surgery, transsexuals also face limitations on where they can go (i.e. the spa or gym, or anywhere that involves changing clothes) and difficulties in establishing relationships — as well as being in that “iffy” area where human rights are assumed to be protected, but have not yet been specifically established as such in policies and legislation. In hospitals, prisons and such, they are housed by physical sex rather than their gender identity, creating potentially risky situations, unless the authorities directly involved choose to keep them in isolation instead. And at the end of the day, without GRS surgery, one’s gender is always subject to being challenged or stubbornly unacknowledged by those who don’t realize that a transsexual’s gender identity was not a matter of choice. There is also an extremely high risk of violence faced upon the accidental discovery that one’s genitalia does not match their presentation.  No other supposedly “cosmetic” issue so completely affects a persons rights, citizenship and safety.

Transsexuality is not widely known or understood in mainstream society, and should not be confused with other aspects of the larger transgender (an umbrella term) culture. Although much sensationalism can be made of something like medical coverage of Gender Reassignment Surgery, the realities paint a very different story.

–
Take care,
Mercedes Allen
Alberta Transgender Resources: http://www.albertatrans.org/

On July 6th, I noted the story of Lu’s: A Pharmacy for Women, operated by the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective (VWHC) , and noted how the Vancouver pharmacy’s policy to serve only “women who were born as women and live as women” excluded anyone transsexual or of transsexual history.  At that point, I’d recommended opening dialogue as a first step solution.  After some initial protests and media attention, that dialogue has begun, involving several advocates.  The outcome is still uncertain, but two things that are becoming apparent are that 1) both sides want to talk, and 2) no one wants to see a valuable resource for women close — they only wish to see only the reassessment of a bad policy.

Lu’s is currently screening people via a locked door, something that began after a public protest on the 11th.  A visual inspection and a short discussion must be passed before a person is allowed admittance to the pharmacy.  There is no signage about the womyn-born-womyn only policy — it is not needed in these circumstances.

Tuesday July 7th

On the day Lu’s opened, Shannon Blatt entered and expressed support for the concept of Lu’s and that she wished to move her prescriptions to the pharmacy.  A discussion of the women-born-women policy followed.

Full text was recorded at the Facebook Group site:

I continued that the ‘women born women” policy was something that I had hoped to ask about on coming to the pharmacy, because I had read online that the pharmacy would only serve “women born women.” She confirmed that it is their policy, and went on to state that she felt they had been very open and up-front about the policy. I politely challenged that, noting that it was not at all clear on the web site for Lu’s or for VWHC. She replied that one had to review VWHC’s “political agreements” on the web site.

At about that point, I asked if there might be a willingness to engage in dialogue with trans people about the “women born women” policy. She indicated that there would be an openness to that, but reiterated that they had considered the matter carefully before enacting the policy. I indicated that I was pleased that they were willing to engage in dialogue, because I did not want to see women and communities becoming polarized as they had during the Nixon litigation.

She invited me inside, and we sat at a couple of chairs in the front waiting area (which was empty, save for one staff member behind the counter.) She began to tell me about how VWHC had considered the issue of whether to only serve “women born women”, and had concluded that their focus and emphasis was very much centred on women’s physiology, the physiology of “women born women”, including in particular issues like “bleeding” (which I understood to mean menstruation) and reproductive health. She told me that they had concluded that they simply did not have the expertise or knowledge to serve trans women.

I was somewhat incredulous, but politely asked whether she was saying that a pharmacist who dispenses medications prescribed by physicians, would be incapable of dispensing medications to trans women. She replied that “it’s not just that.”

…

We continued our conversation in a mutually courteous manner. She told me that the VWHC had engaged in extensive consultations when developing its policy and approach. I asked her if trans women had been included in those consultations. She replied in the affirmative and left me with the impression that more than one trans person may have been consulted, but she only specifically mentioned there being one person, a trans woman that spoke to them as part of the consultation process in the course of their policy formation. She did not identify the trans woman and I did not ask her to do so.

She went on a bit more about how they had really carefully considered the policy and they wanted to work side by side with trans women, but that they just didn’t have the expertise. She indicated that “The Centre” (which I understand to have been recently re-named “Q-munity”) does fine work for trans people. I indicated to her that I was not “in transition” and didn’t need assistance with transition per se, but only with the dispensing of prescriptions. She replied that she understood, and that the trans woman they had consulted with was of similar status.

I asked her if Van City and UBC were aware of the “women born women” exclusive policy of the pharmacy. She replied in the affirmative both verbally and by nodding emphatically.

…

I indicated that I hoped to avoid confrontation and polarization. She very clearly indicated a desire to avoid any sort of confrontation on these issues. I was left feeling that the invitation to dialogue had been accepted, but I was also very much of the impression that her mind was not terribly open to the possibility of changing the policy.

The latter paragraph occurred as they parted ways.  Shannon concludes:

I am very hurt by the experience of being denied services by Lu’s Pharmacy, and have felt very sad and emotionally wounded by the experience, despite knowing full well that I might face it when I decided to visit the pharmacy to verify the reports that it intended to refuse to serve trans women. I am surprised at how hurt I feel, at how very “second class” it has made me feel as a woman. I believe this bespeaks the very damaging nature of such policies for those who are on the receiving end of the exclusion. While I myself am not a resident of the downtown east side, the policy of Lu’s Pharmacy causes me to have a particular and very considerable concern for trans women in the DTES who are addicts, recovering addicts, sex workers and otherwise street involved, and who would benefit from the services provided by Lu’s as much as any other woman in the area it serves.

Saturday July 11th

Since this occurred, Vancouver activists organized a protest of the pharmacy.  A group called the Femininjas intended to observe an attempt to fill a prescription, but the pharmacy had heard about the plans, and changed their hours in order to close that day.  The Femininjas have since abandoned this and released an open letter inviting dialogue.  VWHC has voiced objection to the letter, expressing that all dialogue must happen behind closed doors.

So while the pharmacy remained closed, activists staged a protest outside.  Contrary to reportage, I’m hearing that the protesters were a mix of trans and cisgender people, and that we definitely have allies in Vancouver.  This is encouraging, since the rifts caused by Nixon v. RR had cut deeply in previous years.

Monday July 13th

VWHC Executive Director Caryn Duncan responded to the press:

“We are an organization that has for almost 40 years supported women around their battle with breast cancer or unwanted pregnancy or delivering a baby with a midwife, [and] celebrating or dealing with menopause,” Duncan said. “It’s about bleeding—or wanting to bleed or not bleed. It’s about being a woman, and the physiology of being a woman.”

Of course, hormone therapy for transfemales has some clear and definite parallels if not outright similarities to menopausal HRT.  Breast cancer and menopausal occurrences are also things we can be susceptible to.  Where we would need a pharmacy most, Lu’s would in fact be equipped to help.  The insistent difference remains centered around menstrual and reproductive physiology, with the opinion that the pharmacy is simply not able to help anyone outside those requirements.

While I was reporting this in the comments on the previous article, I received an email from a woman of trans history, critical of the opposition to the policy and claiming that we’re demonstrating “obvious male privilege” by “stamping your feet and demanding admittance.”  This is in in spite of the fact that her own operative history disqualifies her as a woman in the eyes of the policy.  It seems that it is not only cisgender women who defend such thinking.  It’s also curious how quickly a desire for rights and recognition — that can be recognized as such for anyone else — can quickly be construed as “male privilege” as soon as it comes from someone who is trans (and that seems to work for both MTF and FTM folks).

Tuesday July 14th

Jamie Lee Hamilton was refused service when she went to fill a prescription.  According to the Facebook Group where it was first reported, a staff member referred to Lu’s as a health clinic rather than a pharmacy.  The Georgia Straight reported the incident, noting that there was a suggestion from VWHC to start a trans-specific pharmacy (presumably in a different location?) and that Ms. Duncan commented: “I have felt that people are employing intimidation tactics, and it’s hurtful to me personally.”  Hamilton and Duncan agreed to meet again on Thursday the 16th to discuss the matter before proceeding further.  Discussion seemed to go well, and another meeting was arranged.

Wednesday July 22nd

Femininjas, Kim Nixon, Melady Preece, and representatives from Qmunity, WISH, Battered Women’s Support Services, RainCity Housing, PRISM, Women Against Violence Against Women and Dancing to Eagle met with VWHC.  Brooklyn Zelenka, who attended the meeting, related new information regarding how things are progressing.  More details could occur at the Femininjas website.

“I hope that this information sparks a productive and useful discussion. The bottom line is that no one wants to see Lu’s close. It is a very important, and much needed space. I hope that we can find a solution that ensures that this pharmacy stays open and flourishes.”

…

“Prompted as to how they will determine who is transgendered and who is cisgendered (non-trans), the VWHC said that they are being practical about the situation and that sadly it is very much based on appearance. They restated this a handful of times over the course of the ensuing conversation. They also did verify that the door is locked, and that people need to pass a visual inspection.”

Qmunity, Vancouver’s LGBT centre, has offered to train VWHC’s pharmacist with regards to transfemale pharmaceutical and medical issues.  There seemed (to meeting attendees) to be some receptivity, and the VWHC has promised to discuss this possibility internally.

Qmunity, incidentally, was asked about a LGBT-specific clinic operated by Vancouver Coastal Health, the Three Bridges Community Health Centre that was developed in the wake of the closing of the gender clinic in Vancouver.  They responded that the Three Bridges clinic does not turn people away if they do not identify as LGBT (which is borne out by their literature).

Battered Women’s Social Services also discussed their own pro-trans policy and how it has been working.  They reminded that women-only spaces are not completely safe, as violence can occur between women, and attributing menace specifically to transwomen is a straw argument.

Due to vacations, further discussion is slated to happen in the second or third week of September.

Corrections

I also need to issue a clarification: in the original article, I’d interpreted the “woman born as a woman and living as a woman” clause in their “Political Agreements” page as meaning that transmen would also be refused service.  Vancouver Women’s Health Collective, which operates Lu’s has said that this would not be the case, and that they would help transmen, specific to areas of reproductive health, on a case-by-case basis.  According to the VWHC, while the policy was being drafted, one of their members began to transition to male, although later stopping.  This period of time had caused the VWHC to reassess the policy with regard to transmen.

It has also been brought forward that although the storefront reads “Lu’s: A Pharmacy for Women,” “Lu’s…” is not a legal entity.  The VWHC, which operates the pharmacy, considers it a brand, a service that the VWHC offers.  To this end, there is no business licensing required as it’s operated by a charity, and on a legal standpoint, is viewed differently from a business denying goods and services to a group of people.

As It Stands

The long and short of it is that while things have remained civil thus far and people wish to continue discussion, there appears to have been little movement on VWHC’s part to question the policy, aside from a promise to discuss possible pharmacist training.  There has been some speculation that the womyn-born-womyn policy may even have been a condition in making Lu’s financially possible somewhere along the line, but that has to be taken as speculation at this time.

The code of ethics set by the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia states that “A pharmacist’s commitment to the patient’s care must be sensitive to, but not prejudiced by, factors such as the patient’s race, religion, ethnic origin, social or marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, or health status.” So while the Nixon v. Rape Relief case may have enabled charitable organizations to discriminate against transsexuals, there is another authority concerned about the issue.  Complaints have not been made to the College however, partly due to the desire in the community to impress a change in policy (and not to obliterate the clinic), and partly due to the new screening policy which ensures that transwomen cannot access the pharmacist.

In the meantime, the feeling has been growing that the VWHC has been stalling and simply hoping for the controversy to dwindle, although the people involved in the discussions are remaining optimistic.  But supporters continue to voice their support for an inclusive policy while commending the rest of the VWHC’s vision, and have been contacting local trans-inclusive womens’ charities and support resources, asking them to consider doing the same.

vwhc@vcn.bc.ca

Vancouver Women’s Health Collective
29 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC, V6B 1G4

Crossposted to The Bilerico Project

Before being deposed by the current minority Conservative government, the federal Liberals began work on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, to be built in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As the building is underway and the Advisory Committee is being developed to oversee what is to be included, an organization called REAL Women of Canada has rushed to conservamedia to complain that 11 of the 16 advisors chosen have been linked to feminism and may also not be homophobic. We wouldn’t want womens’ rights and LGBT rights to be considered human rights, after all.

To this end, they’re pushing far right organizations to flood the museum administration and Conservative Government with letters and emails, “to take part in the consultations to ensure that a wider diversity of human rights concerns are included,” such as:

1. the rights of the unborn,
2. the rights of non-conformist family-oriented women and girls who don’t adhere to radical feminist ideologies,
3. the rights of men who have been marginalized while feminist special interest groups have taken center stage in Canadian policy.

REAL (Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life) Women of Canada is a non-governmental, non-denominational Canadian organization that claims special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. They don’t discourage women from working (that’s not an economic possibility for many families nowadays anyway), but have a mandate that still favours homemaking and idealizes domesticity where possible. Their mission statement says, “We come from all walks of life, occupations, social and economic backgrounds. Some members work full or part time outside the home, while some mainly work in the home. We represent a broad spectrum of Canadian women who, until our formation, did not have a public forum in which to express their views.”

Views that once you dig further are actively anti-abortion, anti-LGBT and anti-feminism. Though non-denominational, they’ve cited biblical doctrines on occasion and networked closely with Catholic and Evangelical organizations (such as lifesite.ca, a Catholic-influenced media arm of Campaign Life Coalition). Of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, they warn:

“Clearly, it is to serve as a propaganda device to promote and affirm feminist/homosexual ideology and a left-wing interpretation of human rights as “progress” in Canada. Such “progress” would include abortion on demand, lesbian/homosexual rights and benefits, pay equity, affirmative action and the denigration of men whom feminists regard as dangerous because of the “patriarchal” society. Feminist “human rights” breakthroughs in family law, in regard to custody and access and in sexual assault, pursuant to which men have been severely undermined, will also undoubtedly be included in the museum displays.”

Maybe it’s just me, but women who oppose pay equity and legal victories for women relating to custody and access in sexual assault completely boggle my mind. Even Affirmative Action gets dissected and criticized by REAL as “reverse discrimination against qualified males as well as minority groups such as ethnics and native people.” Indeed, the “rights of men who have been marginalized” by feminism ranks high in the mandate. One can’t help but think of the conservative joy at being able to prop up women like Sarah Palin to advance patriarchal and anti-woman agendas.

If you are Canadian and this isn’t your idea of what’s best for real women, keep in mind that the activist machine is being mobilized to colour the complexion of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. You’re well within your right to contact them too, and commend them for acknowledging ALL human rights struggles, rather than selectively deleting women and gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans persons for not aligning with certain ideologies.

Members of Parliament contact info: http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

To contact the Museum:

Canadian Museum for Human Rights
269 Main Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3C 1B3

Telephone
(204) 289-2000
Outside of Winnipeg region
1-877-877-6037
Fax (204)289-2001

Web page contact form
http://www.humanrightsmuseum.ca/contact-us

Crossposted to The Bilerico Project

(I have to apologize for mostly having to cover everything in a recap, rather than being able to cover everything as it happened.   It’s possible that as a consequence some of the links may have become invalid as media phases out old news pages or moves them to members-only sections.)

10,000 people turned out for the Edmonton Pride Week parade and festival on the square on June 13th.  This doubled last year’s attendance and proved so remarkable that almost no media outlets reported on the event.  This is how bittersweet in turmoil Alberta is these days: two months of introduction of obvious anti-LGBT policy (delisting of health care coverage of gender reassignment surgery, refusal to include gender identity / expression in human rights legislation,  Bill 44’s evacuate-children-from-school-if-queer-people-are-discussed provision,  making conservative religious leaders the consultants of choice on things like Aboriginal communities or oil sands development) turned people out in droves, and was about as remarkable as any other business as usual.  That’s the enigma of “community,” I suppose, and the way it comes together, vanishes and comes together again, all under the radar.

I’d been talking very negatively about the word “community” at the start of this year.  Very negatively.  The details aren’t necessary at the moment, other than to say I’d been very shaken by some threats I’d received from within said community.  I’d shut down my blog for all intents and purposes, removed myself from trans and activist networks, and nearly left advocacy altogether.

Then, on April 7th, ironically a day that many regions set aside as the Trans Day of Empowerment, the Alberta Government delisted Health Care funding for Gender Reassignment Surgery.   And Albertans (trans and cis) taught me a thing or two about “community.”

[First, a little backgrounder for some of the non-Canadians who will be reading this blog.  Canada boasts universal health care.  The Canada Health Act is designed to ensure that medically-necessary procedures are covered and that Health boards conduct themselves with empathy, understanding and respect for Canadian citizens of all backgrounds.  GRS has historically cost the Province up to a maximum (in fact, it is only the past two years in which the quota has been reached) of $700,000 per year from a budget of over $13.4 Billion -- an amount that works out to about 19 cents per taxpayer (a fraction of a percentage point of the health care budget).  Gender Reassignment Surgery is considered by all major medical bodies, American and Canadian, to be a medically-necessary procedure, and it is not unreasonable to hold the Provinces to that.  GRS is also something that other health providers make a specific exemption for, so in this case, there are few to no other options for funding, unlike other health issues.  The move was purely political, done without consulting the two specialists who deal with GID patients (or any other medical authority), and done without consideration for the community that would be impacted by its decision.]

Communities exist only so long as people are willing to contribute constructively to them.  Too often, they descend into political ambitions, cliques, sabotage, tokenism, irreconcilable differences of opinion and the selective cutting off of people from being “in the loop.”  All of this ends up dwarfing the intent of contributing to the community in the first place, and inevitably results in schism, people leaving in disgust, further solidifying of cliques, ill will and the splitting of cultures into communities of ones, at which point some might make achievements, but can still never match the effectiveness of a whole.  And yet, when the Government delisted funding for GRS on April 7th, the complexion of the trans community across the Province changed.

Some of that started with Facebook.  And I really hate Facebook.  Nevertheless, on April 7th, I accepted an invitation to join the “Reinstate Gender Reassignment Surgery Funding in Alberta” Facebook group,  and there I was, the 4th member.  “Huh,” I figured. “This isn’t going to go anywhere” (although I still forwarded the invite to friends).  In two hours, there were over 350 members.  By evening, it was closing on 700.  Two days later, it seemed to plateau at 1200.  But then the media and allies started becoming aware of the situation.  At this time of writing, it’s closing in on 2200 members.

I really hate Facebook.  And yet, I can’t deny how effective it can be at mobilizing people at a distance.  On Tuesday April 14th, we staged a sit-in, some of us attending Question Period at the Legislature and others holding a demonstration outside, papering MLAs and visitors alike with brochures and information.  The following day, we filed Human Rights complaints en-masse, between Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer — an estimated 42 in total, ten of which were being filed either before or shortly after the event (to avoid the media frenzy).  On May 4th, we held a rally on the Legislature steps.  We joined Friends of Medicare in solidarity on a few occasions.  All of these were mobilized by Facebook.

But the real story came from transfolk.  We never had a shortage of people to refer media to.  Edmonton,  Calgary,  Lethbridge,  Red Deer… everywhere,  there were people willing to put their faces forward and tell their stories.  In each of the big cities, we had easily between 20 and 30 people who came out consistently to rallies.  We became real people to Albertans, and organizations like FoM and the Alberta Federation of Labour threw their support behind us in kind.  And the media listened.  The Calgary Sun, which once sensationalized a debate about a discussion to change the title “alderman” to the gender-neutral “councillor” with a headline of “Council Nixes Sex Changes,” had turned toward empathy.  A friend who was transitioning in the small-town of Nanton, Alberta found herself the focus of a groundswell of support from partner businesses that got together and pledged money to fund her surgery.  Even radio personality Yukon Jack, “redneck” and opinionated by reputation, boldly declared:

“OK, Johnny Hetero, roll with me on this one. You wake up tomorrow morning and all of a sudden you’re a woman.  Everything about you mentally, emotionally is male. You like to fight, spit, swear, drive truck, crush beers and belch. You are a man … man.

But physically you are a woman. Well, after a week of playing with your boobs, it would be terrible. Your life would be ruined. There would be no getting used to it. You would suffer depression, anxiety and stress about everything you ever do, and would have difficulty keeping a job.

…This isn’t cosmetic. A nose job, boob job, lipo, botox or collagen. This isn’t something they’ve done to themselves, like lung-cancer-smoker guy, or severe-head-wound-quad-riding guy, liver-disease-alchoholic guy, or tanning-salon-skin-cancer girl….”

Community.  We found it amongst ourselves, and amongst the larger population of everyday Albertans — both from that defeatist 63% that feels like there’s no use in voting, and many from that 37% that did and will be choosing differently next time.

On April 7th, we were vulnerable.  We had no community organizations officially formed for advocacy, no definitive voices, just an information website that sounded kind of official-ish and a few people here and there that some local agencies knew of and pointed inquires to.  We had no cohesive way of organizing a Province-wide petition, we had two major cities (two of Canada’s five largest) with only a couple people who really knew more than one or two advocates in both, we had no formal face to network with ally organizations.

The community at large had resisted organizing previously, for fear that rocking the boat would cause GRS to be delisted, organizers were shouted down and shunned into exile, and there had been overwhelming distrust and sabotage of any attempt to unify people.  I’d tried it myself two years prior, in a Town Hall that triggered two months of endscene from Julius Caesar — two months before leaving Edmonton of wondering who would be next to stick the knife in (and ever since, whenever the knives come out, I have to fight to avoid succumbing to paranoia).

When GRS was delisted, we were unorganized, and paid the price for it in terms of missed opportunities and lack of a go-to organization to rally and direct allies while they were freshly interested and eager to help.  We needed a cohesive voice, and we needed it on April 8th.  A month later, we still didn’t have that together.  Three months later, well… we’re just about there.  Which is frustrating, but also apparently typical.

So what we did those first two months, we did together, voluntarily, a community that acted like a community.  Communities exist only so long as people are willing to contribute constructively to them.  And contribute people did.  Unfortunately, that level of commitment is incredibly difficult to sustain.

Two months later, we arrive at Pride.  Edmonton and Lethbridge started their events on the same weekend (Calgary’s is scheduled for early September).  Although they’re six hours apart (and double that, considering that we started and ended in Calgary), my partner and I attended both.

Lethbridge is an enigma.  Close to the U.S. border and Alberta’s Mormon belt, the city is divided along racial lines, especially with regards to the large Native population.  LGBT people in that city are very much closeted, occasionally slipping out to meeting places hidden on the edges of town.  There is much fear and homophobia in Lethbridge.  On Friday, June 12th, the City of Lethbridge hoisted a Pride flag that stayed aloft all weekend, during an evening ceremony.  200 people came out, a startling number in a closeted city.  There were only a few who were trans, but that number included people I’d never met nor heard from (to my knowledge) before.

Edmonton’s parade was much larger, but then GLBT folks have largely been “out” for a little longer.  Over 400 people turned out to participate in the parade.  Watchers lined over 12 blocks, and were thick along the sidewalks.  Attendees flooded onto the boulevard down the centre of Jasper Avenue when the sidewalk space ran out.  10,000 people attended in all, which has to be a new attendance record.

Our group held signs that read “Reinstate Funding for Gender Reassignment Surgery.”  These signs were the larger versions of the 8 1/2″ x 11″ ones we’d handed out to other willingly supporting floats and personalities throughout the parade, in an effort to ensure that recent events weren’t forgotten.  And there we were, marching — all 4 of us.

Community confounds me.  Don’t get me wrong: I respect stealth.  I get that most of us don’t want to be on the evening news (although as it turned out, that was never a risk at Pride this year), but I had seen large numbers of us who considered funding to be more important.  And yet the groundswell of a little over a month ago evaporated on Saturday, leaving my partner and I, and a couple of dear friends who choose to join us over other invitations to participate in the parade that they’d received.  As much as I appreciate the couple that came with us and about 4 others I know of who couldn’t get out of other commitments, I have to scratch my head and wonder what happened to community.  Did I become “the enemy” to everyone again, or did news that members of a group named “TESA” would be marching lull everyone into complacency, thinking “oh good, it’s looked after?”

For every disappointment, though, there was also a moment to take heart.  We followed a van along the route.  As the parade lurched forward, we’d appear from behind it to a new group of watchers — it would take them a minute or two to read the signs (“Reinstate Funding for Gender Reassignment Surgery” is such an eyeful), and then the spark of recognition would light up their faces and the crowd would start cheering.  Wildly.  Emphatically.  Almost to a person.  10,000 people let us know that they appreciated us and supported us, this tiny community with persistent stragglers that won’t go away.

It’s been a rollercoaster few months.  At times, it looked like the momentum was with us and we’d overturn things; we’d take that momentum beyond.  Other times, the picture looked dark, dark as it gets, and moving seemed the only reasonable solution (although I have to admit, there are certainly worse places to be). I don’t know yet how the rest of this is going to play out.  Certainly, with the leap to the extreme right that this government has taken in the past couple months,  we can expect more of the same in legal and health care changes when the Alberta Legislature reconvenes in October.  How we respond is up to the community.

Or organization.  I alluded to a community organization in progress (TESA).  It would be inappropriate right now to say much more than that it is experiencing some growing pains that I hope we can get past (as organizations typically go through).  But the experience of developing organization against the backdrop of a community coming together as it did in Alberta has opened my eyes about how the very principles of organization can run counter to community if we’re not careful and diligent.

(I’d likewise commented on EgaleCanada in the context of my skepticism of top-down organizations in general, and how they empower (or not) their committees.  I owe it to Egale now to say that they have risen to the occasion in the situation in Alberta, and certainly their Trans Issues Committee Chair Mickey Wilson has represented them well.  Credit when it’s due.)

I like to think of myself as somewhat altruistic, advocate for everybody, everything now, no one left behind, nothing forgotten.  There is no room for personal differences in communal advocacy — they have to be set aside in order to not poison everything.  That’s the lesson of community:  the deconstruction of borders, the coming together for mutual benefit, regardless of differences.  Organization’s a little different, though, where suddenly you have to prioritize, allocate limited resources, get past the absolutes we’ve come to believe in for our own lives, in order to compromise. Decisions that exclude or postpone don’t sit well with me, even if I understand the necessity.  I’m not talking about TESA specifically — this is the nature of organizations in general.

Which tells me that we need to do a little thinking on how we form and operate our organizations.

So there has been a lot of learning happening.  I’ll be forever grateful to the trans and ally communities in Alberta for showing me the heights that community can reach.  I hope that regardless of organizational status, we’ll remember that we need to keep doing acting as a community, because it is these moments — the personal efforts and stories that change hearts and minds — in which we can accomplish true and lasting change.

(Crossposted to Pam’s House Blend)

Canada’s Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, Diane Ablonczy, recently saw the Marquee Tourism Events Program (an economic stimulus package designed to encourage major tourism events such as the Calgary Stampede and the Montreal International Jazz Festival) taken from her portfolio and turned over to Industry Minister, Tony Clement.

The spin from the reigning Conservative government, of course, says that this is because Ablonczy is just too busy, while Clement, who is looking at forecasts of a serious surge in unemployment in an economic crisis, has nothing better to do than administer the program.

This all happened silently, a few weeks ago, without fanfare… shortly after Ablonczy announced a nearly $400,000 grant to the Toronto Gay Pride festival.

If that sounds fishy to you, you probably won’t be too surprised that word of the change in administering the program only leaked out after BigCity Lib noticed that Conservative backbencher Brad Trost ran over to the right-wing website Lifesite.ca to brag that Ablonczy was being demoted for making the grant.

“The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by – I think it’s safe to say by a large majority – of the MPs. This was a very isolated decision.”

But it was still a fair decision to fund the event. Pride Toronto in fact met all of the requirements, and being that it has estimated over 250,000 in annual attendance, it is a noteworthy tourist festival — not to mention a huge photo-op for rival party leaders. Says organizers:

“Pride Toronto went through the same stringent application process as all other recipients and Industry Canada was extremely thorough in checking details before approval was granted. We are proud of the fact that we were successful when judged objectively against the criteria for the grant. The $397,500 that was awarded to Pride was allocated for specific items such as improved access for disabled people, infrastructure spending and top calibre entertainment.”

Naturally, everyone from bloggers to the MSM are decrying the decision as politically based and catering to the far right wing base that the Conservative Party re-emerged from, while flying the Reform banner. What’s more is that there are two more Pride events with applications for funding in, and not decided upon yet. What are the chances…? The Conservatives, after all, are making like the decision to remove the file from Ablonczy’s oversight had nothing to do with the decision to grant money to Toronto Pride.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star is reporting that the grant “sparked a crisis at the highest levels of the Harper government” and that Ablonczy’s attendance of the event only inflamed matters.

“It was seen as a poke in the eye” to social conservatives, said one senior insider, noting the Prime Minister is wary of alienating a key part of his base.”

And Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy, who was reportedly pulled into a private meeting and raked over the coals by several MPs for the decision, has learned what moderates in the Alberta Conservative Party have already found out: governance is slowly being turned over to the churchies and exceptions will not be tolerated.

(Crossposted to The Bilerico Project)