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A Real Bathroom Bill.

The Bathroom Bill was supposed to be voted on today.

No, I’m not talking about the human rights bill that opponents have tried to tag with that nickname — C-279, which proposes to clarify and enunciate legal protections for most transsexual and transgender Canadians (although the removal of the class “gender expression” has opened some doubt). Although C-279 says nothing about washrooms, opponents have tried to fearmonger about bathrooms, conflate trans people with sexual predators, and/or claim that human rights inclusion would somehow grant legal cover to predators. Bill C-279 passed, today, on a vote of 149 to 137, after first having amendments made to it. It proceeds to the Senate for ratification.

No, what I’m referring to is in fact a bathroom bill.

The State of Arizona has proposed a bill that is eerily reminiscent of the notorious SB 1070 “papers please” law that the U.S. Supreme Court had to rule on in 2012. And this afternoon, the Arizona Senate Appropriations Committee was scheduled to discuss Senate Bill 1432 — a totally innocuous bill which would require the Arizona State Board of Massage Therapy to appoint an Executive Director and outline the Board’s purpose and funding. However, an emergency amendment to it (text) would make it possible for anyone to demand to see a person’s birth certificate, and have them charged with disorderly conduct if their gender marker doesn’t match the washroom’s gender designation.

The bill would make it a class 6 felony to use a public washroom while trans, a crime punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a fine of up to $2,500. In Arizona, a class 6 felony conviction remains on a person’s permanent record, their right to vote is rescinded, potential employers are made aware of the conviction and can require an explanation, various licenses can be refused by the State, federal and state aid and other social assistance can be refused, rent can be denied, and one is banned from ever holding public office.

And it actually has a chance of passing, although it’s dwindling given the sudden media attention.

Rep. John Kavanagh introduced the amendment yesterday, in response to the City of Phoenix’s passage of an ordinance which widened human rights protections to include trans people, among others:

“What about the woman that are waiting in line to use the women’s restroom? There is a long line. They go into the men’s restroom. That’s against this law, isn’t it?” asked CBS 5′s Greg Argos. “Technically it is, but look, police use discretion every day,” Kavanagh responded.

“This is designed to protect young children from being exposed to the other gender in their fullness in inappropriate situations. I’m just restoring sanity, because the Phoenix bill turned gender upside down,” he continued.

You see, during the “bathroom bill” panic dredged up in Phoenix (much like the potty fearmongering circulating in Canada around C-279), legislators discovered that there never has been any legislation in place to bar trans people from using restrooms. Consequently, trans people have been using gender-congruent bathrooms for decades. For that matter, over 180 jurisdictions provide protections, going as far back as 1975, without those human rights protections ever being used to legalize or enable an assault in a washroom. When washroom panic was raised in Baltimore, Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger released a public statement to attest that trans-inclusive legislation has not led to any such bathroom assaults, there.

On the contrary, Baltimore had been the scene of a brutal assault of a trans woman outside a public washroom. The incident garnered national attention, after amused staff at a McDonald’s cheered the fight on, recorded it and posted it on YouTube.

So with that kind of lengthy record of non-issues, Kavanagh just knew that Arizona is due for a potty incident. Naturally, trans peoples’ access to public washrooms had to be stopped right away.

Antonia D’orsay, Executive Director of This Is HOW points out some of the implications of the emergency amendment (plus more background):

“… The bill makes it a crime for a Transgender person to follow accepted and proven medical treatment protocols that have been employed for over 50 years and are demonstrated to be the only effective and ethical remedy.
The bill makes it legal to engage in the abuse and neglect of children who are gender variant, and stops them from being able to follow medical guidelines supported by every reputable pediatric organization in the nation.
The bill runs directly counter to Supreme Court decisions relating to the legality of using someone’s appearance for the purposes of discriminating against them
The bill is in opposition to the 5^th and 14^th Amendments to the United States Constitution by creating a burden of inequality on all Arizonans.
The bill is unnecessary and untested.
The bill requires that everyone in the state of Arizona be required to present their birth certificate, on demand, to anyone with authority at any time, or risk arrest – even if they have a birth certificate that is in accordance with such.”

Abby Jensen notes how this legislation would be likely applied subjectively:

“How would such a law be enforced? By every overzealous restroom patron, security guard, business owner or mere passerby who decides that someone they see entering a restroom doesn’t conform to their notions of how a “man” or “woman” should look and complains to police. In other words, trans men, women and children, butch lesbians, feminine gay men, and straight, cisgender people who violate societal gender norms in some way can be harassed to prove their right to do what every other citizen takes as a given – the right to use a restroom for its intended purpose without harassment…”

Here’s the good news (maybe): SB 1432 has been postponed until next Wednesday, due to a committee procedural conflict. Which might give some time for sanity to prevail.

And by then, Arizona’s state legislature may have found some other puppies to kick.

2013: 03/21
CATEGORY: Gender Diversity
International
Trans
Transsexual
3 comments

Offence as a Virtue

(Thanks to being sidelined with the flu several days, this is about a week late, but I thought I should archive it anyway)

A controversy has ricocheted across the comment pages of the daily newspapers across the U.K. which has raised questions about free speech, decorum and journalistic censorship.

It started with an otherwise excellent piece about female anger by The Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore in New Statesmen, in which she offhandedly commented, “We are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being loved properly and not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual.” Ms. Moore received complaints from trans people on Twitter, and fired back, which led to a larger uproar.

Her friend Julie Burchill, known for controversy and vitriol, responded with a tirade complaining that Moore was being persecuted by “a bunch of dicks in chick’s clothing” and “a bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs.” Burchill tossed out some insults (“they’re lucky I’m not calling them shemales. Or shims” — later, she did anyway), deliberately misgendered trans women, and scoffed at the thought that trans people experience any kind of struggle.

The Observer, a publication of The Guardian and where Burchill’s screed appeared, eventually apologized for publishing the article, and removed it from the paper’s website. This has led to outcries among several columnists and publications, and The Telegraph reposted it. A number of others have followed — including at least one Canadian columnist, in his blog.

As someone who is trans-identified, I actually don’t take much issue with the original article. Ms. Moore was attempting to be flippant about lookism. I understand that, although it’s never a good idea to turn an entire class of people into a punchline. When said people are targeted for this kind of thing regularly, doing so can be button-pushing.

But then, along came Ms. Burchill, as subtle as a grenade in a bowl of potato salad.

Frankly, I don’t like being angry. It takes too much energy. And if I had to get angry at everyone and everything that deliberately invalidated trans people, used them as a punchline or categorized them as freaks, I’d need to find another planet to live on. But shutting up and taking it consumes energy, too, by consuming spirit. When a person faces a constant barrage of these attitudes, then no matter how thick a person’s skin gets, sooner or later, some barbs get through and wound. This is why trans people react, and often with a lot of anger.

Whether the energy exists or not, there is reason for the outrage. Transsexual and transgender people routinely face invalidation, and arguments about their very existence. In Canada, for example, Parliament is again wrestling with whether trans people should be included in human rights legislation, and there’s a chance that Randall Garrison’s Private Member’s Bill may not pass. Last week, every sitting Member of Parliament was mailed a two-page diatribe by reparative therapy advocate Dr. Joseph Berger, who asserts about transsexuality that “Scientifically, there is no such a thing. Therefore anyone who actually truly believes that notion, is by definition deluded, psychotic.” In the process, Berger claims to be writing a scientific paper which nevertheless includes no citations, and reduces the motive trans people have for transitioning (at the risk of losing their spouses, children, family, friends, careers, homes and economic stability) to “just unhappiness.” For this reason, Berger claims, Canadians shouldn’t have to dignify trans people with the “special right” to have equal access to employment, housing and services. We reserve those things for real humans.

There is some of this invalidation in Julie Burchill’s piece as well, such as her protest of the use of the recently-coined prefix “cis” as an antonym to “trans” (but from the same Latin root) — much like “heterosexual” is to “homosexual.” To Ms. Burchill, it seems, we’re simply being whiny and overreacting when we’re upset about terminology that compares us to “normal,” “real,” or “natural-born” men and women, and feel the need to invent something characteristically neutral. And if you’re wondering why trans people should be upset about being compared to “normal,” it illustrates just how ingrained marginalizing attitudes are in the social dialogue.

Burchill’s article comes in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry, which delivered its report in November of 2012. Initiated to look into the ethicality of practices exposed by News International‘s phone hacking scandal, the Inquiry took notice of harassment and invasions of privacy experienced by a pregnant trans man and by a trans youth. Looking further, investigators learned that while “Sex Swap” and “Tran-o-saurus” headlines were mostly limited to tabloids (which still go there almost weekly in the U.K.), even mainstream papers were regularly guilty of ingrained sensationalistic, comedic, demeaning or ridiculing portrayals of trans lives. Additionally, this is not the first time that The Guardian has faced protests for commentaries of this kind, although it has also worked most earnestly thus far to provide the opportunity for counterpoints to be made. It’s probably for this reason that the controversy has stretched into its second week of commentaries and even a protest.

As someone who is also a writer and op-ed blogger, I have mixed feelings about whether the Burchill article should have been pulled from The Observer‘s website. Once the commentary was out there, it couldn’t be unsaid, so neither option was likely to make anyone very happy. The article’s removal is an acknowledgement that there was a “collective failure of editing” (as editors of The Observer put it), but also makes it more difficult to point to its failures and pick the attitudes within apart. But the best policy would have been to have considered the column carefully before it went into print.

Opinion columnists today do not usually turn in pieces riddled with the N-word or flippant jokes about disabled people. This isn’t because they fear the dreaded banhammer, but because we as a society have learned enough about many minorities to realize the need to show a little empathy and respect. And if a columnist did turn in an article of that nature, most editors would certainly raise questions, for the same reason. Journalistic freedom of speech is not simply a question of saying or publishing anything that one might wish to say, but instead comes with a responsibility to provide balance, and call out attitudes that need to change. Burchill’s column is a cause célèbre solely because society feels no need to extend the same balance, empathy and respect to transsexual and transgender people. And as long as the Burchills of today are given widespread attention while trans people are dismissed and ignored, this is the way it will remain.

For all their complaints that crying “transphobia” shuts down the conversation, Burchill and Moore have failed to realize that crass invalidation, ridicule and indifference are already attempts to end discussion, thus maintaining a status quo in which transsexuality remains the stuff of lurid sensationalism and cheap stand-up comedy. The usual responses of ”grow a spine” or “get a sense of humour” do the same, and defending it all by crying journalistic freedom of speech attempts to abdicate any responsibility for the consequences of that speech. It is also overlooks the imbalance that exists between the reach of noted opinion columnists, versus the almost non-existence of trans voices in mainstream media, to act as a counterbalance.

Or to put it simply, it’s a case of “a little free speech for me, and a little shut-up-and-take-it-like-a-man for you.”

But times change. Eventually, these social attitudes will be an anachronism. And maybe that assurance is why I’m not angry.

2013: 01/25
CATEGORY: Trans
Transsexual
International
Gender Diversity
1 comment

C-279 Committee Roundup: The Necessity of Inclusion

On Tuesday November 27th, the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights (JUST) met for a second of three meetings to examine the trans human rights bill, C-279. I’ll be discussing the filibuster that occurred in the third, shortly. However, it’s worth paying attention to the discussion on the bill’s necessity in the second meeting, as it was one of the Conservatives’ key arguments for opposing the bill.

In the first hour, it heard from representatives from the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), and a representative from R.E.A.L. Women of Canada, Diane Watts. Which, if you were listening to the webcast, was something like listening to Peter Mansbridge, Pamela Wallin, and then this person:

Watts made news because rather than speaking much about trans people and human rights issues, she mostly ranted at length about pedophiles. Then, when she was cut off and told her remarks were offensive, the floor was turned over to a member of the committee, Robert Goguen, who bade her to continue in the same vein for another five minutes.

A lot was said about Watts testimony, although the coverage glossed over some things. R.E.A.L.’s “lead researcher” tried to frighten the committee about inclusion leading to the correctional system having “to provide treatment for those inmates,” even though Canada already has a ruling on that in Kavanaugh v. Canada (2001). Committee members referred to it several times in that meeting, in fact. Watts also cited the American College of Pediatricians, which is an organization founded by reparative therapists and has been repudiated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is the actual recognized authority in ACP’s field.

But the overlooked testimony of the CHRC and CHRT representatives is far more significant.

The Conservative Party argument against Bill C-279 has long been that they believed the bill was not necessary, and that the terms were not defined. And yet, after the second meeting of the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights to discuss the bill, some of the opponents of trans human rights inclusion switched tactics by dropping the argument about necessity, and focused emphatically on defining the terms narrowly, such as by tying them to a diagnosis. The use of the “not necessary” argument came to an end. So what happened during the meeting?

The anti-gay spin machine LifeSiteNews has deliberately distorted the testimony of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal folks in order to validate the idea that clear human rights inclusion is unnecessary. But it only works if you cherry-pick little snippets from Canadian Human Rights Commission acting secretary general, Ian Fine, and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal acting chairperson and chief executive officer, Susheel Gupta, out of context:

Fine, responding to Goguen, admitted that “strictly speaking, I suppose the legislation isn’t necessary…”

Gupta was more adamant about not taking a position either way, but here are full quotes from Ian Fine from the transcript. See if you come to the same conclusion that LSN did:

“To answer your question, as I said at the outset, we currently accept complaints—and have forever—from transgendered individuals under the ground of sex, and sometimes under the ground of disability, and we will continue to do so. To answer your question, strictly speaking, I suppose the legislation isn’t necessary, but we see other reasons why it would be important to include these two grounds under our act, and we do support them.

“For one thing, it would provide the clarity that I think we believe is missing at this point, because as much as it’s true that the commission and tribunals and courts do accept transgender issues as falling under the ground of sex, parties still debate that issue before those very tribunals and courts and question whether or not transgender issues fall under sex. In one case I know of, an issue was raised as to whether or not you could even raise the issue under sex and instead should raise it under disability.

“There continue to be these debates, so for clarity reasons, we believe it would be a good thing to add these two grounds. Also, as I said at the outset, it would be a recognition of the discrimination that this group faces: the sometimes hostile and violent acts that this group faces in our society. So it would recognize the vulnerability of this group, of these individuals.

“…

“It is true that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal certainly has held that these matters fall within the existing prohibited grounds. There’s no doubt about that. Other courts and tribunals across the land have done so. As I have said, we receive complaints on transgender issues under the ground of sex and sometimes disability.

“But the reality is that even though the courts have accepted that and we accept that, parties still go before those tribunals and courts and raise arguments about whether or not they are included. So clearly there are some Canadians who aren’t in agreement with that notion, who are still fighting about it, who feel that the protection is not explicit or shouldn’t be covered by one of the other grounds.

“We’re simply suggesting to add these grounds to provide more clarity to all Canadians, to make it explicit, and then there’s no doubt.”

Spin attempts to the contrary, Conservatives can’t justifiably call clear trans human rights inclusion unnecessary, anymore.

2012: 12/12
CATEGORY: Trans
Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Transsexual
Gender Diversity
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Guest Post: Teacher plays scene from Disney Movie to Humiliate Student in Class

[This post comes to us courtesy of Michelle Boyce at the Alphabet Community Centre. -M]

Anna Saunders is a mature student who attended a summer school class at Saunders Secondary School and a teacher decided she was a “guy in a dress”, beginning to use male pronouns and “Sir” when addressing her. The students picked up on the teacher’s behaviour and started harassing Anna during class and following her after school. Anna was left vulnerable and scared. After school officials spoke to the teacher twice about his behaviour, the teacher decided to play the scene from the movie Madagascar for the class where King Julien jumps from the cake and screams, “I am a woman, look at me freaks, I know you are attracted to me”. Anna was devastated, felt threatened and the school board had no disciplinary action towards the teacher, nor did they provide any training on the issue. This was a horrible blatant attack on a student in his class!

Gender issues are a prevalent issue in Thames Valley Schools with students being bullied at atrocious rates when they don’t conform to a stereotypical male or female presentation. 7.1% or approximately 4,900 students didn’t identify as Male or Female on the 2011 Secondary Safe Schools Survey conducted by the TVDSB. Whereas Toronto District School Board just released a policy on Gender Non-conforming students and staff, Barb Sonier, Superintendent of the London Board says by email, “We are continuing to work through the development of the guidelines (which will be very similar to the TDSB guidelines) and endeavour to complete the first draft early in the new year.” No one specializing in Gender Non-conforming youth are being consulted on this policy development.

Michelle Boyce, who operates Trans Youth London which is a joint project of Alphabet Community Centre and the London Public Library, providing a safe space for Trans Youth in the City of London, says that bullying and violence by staff and students is a regular daily routine for Gender Non-conforming kids. Thursday Ms. Boyce was in a Saunders classroom where the teacher completely miss-gendered the student. When confronted the teacher said, “Oh I do it all the time, I’ve talked to the student about it”, with no regard to the harm she was causing. The student missed the next day of school in distress.

Kaylie Sorrenti went through school diagnosed with ADHD, Learning disability, and in grade 9 had a guidance counselor tell her that it was good she wouldn’t complete high school, the world needs more student labour. None of those diagnoses were accurate. Now Kaylie has transitioned from male to female and is a straight ‘A’ student, looking forward to University. But the staff still bully her, and the distress continues. At the height of it all she attempted suicide twice and spent months in a psychiatric hospital, where they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. They blamed the victim; Kaylie needed to get tougher and more able to deal with the bullies. Every one of Kaylie’s teachers at Saunders have bullied her in the past two weeks, violating the Human Rights Code. Kaylie is working hard at getting her education, she is already 2 years behind her peers and the systemic harassment and discrimination keeps tearing her apart.

Jamie Connoly is the head of Laurier’s GSA. A leader in his school and in grade 12. The school refused to put his male name on his student records, so for the past 2 years his report cards, class lists, and all school material were using the incorrect name. A direct violation of the Human Rights Code. Jamie writes, “On Thursday April 26th, 2012 I encountered a very uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. To start off, I will mention that it was the day midterm report cards were to be handed out to all the students. For the average student, this would not be an issue in any possible way (other than finding out their mark is lower than they wish it to be). For me, it’s a little more complicated, especially when there is a substitute teacher that doesn’t really know any of the students too well. I am a transgender female to male student. I have not had my name legally changed and therefore on the reports, it still says my birth name. When it came to the horrifying moment that the substitute teacher called for my birth name, it really created an unsafe feeling for myself.”

Despite repetitive offers to help train teachers and administration on this issue, for free, the London Board of Education has refused assistance on this matter. Students in most schools that gender non-conforming are forced to use staff washrooms or handicapped single stall washrooms regardless of how inconvenient their locations are for the student.

The Director of Education’s anti-bullying taskforce doesn’t contain any experts on LGBT youth and are seen by the community as NOT having a priority within the Thames Valley District School Board’s schools. The London School Board currently has no policy in place regarding Trans Youth in our schools and it is left up to individual principal’s to deal with each situation as it occurs. Without training and support the administration has completely left its employees out in sea without a paddle. Staff don’t understand the issues and repetitively put students in harm’s way as a result.

In EGALE’s school climate study they found:
74% of trans students;
55% of sexual minority students;
26% of non-LGBTQ students;
Reported having been verbally harassed about their gender expression.

37% of trans students;
21% of sexual minority students;
10% of non-LGBTQ students;
Reported being physically harassed or assaulted because of their gender expression.

Source: www.mygsa.ca

Trans PULSE is an Ontario survey conducted on Trans populations. Trans PULSE found, “Our results point strongly to the special vulnerabilities experienced by trans youth. Trans youth were nearly twice as likely to seriously consider suicide as those overage 25 , and almost three times as likely to have attempted suicide within the past year”. www.transpulseproject.ca

Immediate attention needs to be targeted to this vulnerable group of youth. The Thames Valley School Board needs to act quickly before more youth die. The London Board of Education MUST provide education in schools, put out fact sheets and finalize policy addressing these issues immediately.

Currently there are 6 applicants filing Human Rights cases against the TVDSB, the offending teachers and administration. We expect many more students past and present to sign on to the complaint as it develops. Gender Identity and Gender Expression were added as grounds to the Ontario Human Rights Code recently although Trans Youth have been protected under the ground of Sex previously.

Michelle Boyce
Executive Director Alphabet Community Centre
Facilitator Trans Youth London
www.acclondon.ca

Kaylie Sorrenti
Saunders Student

Anna Saunders
Mohawk College

Jamie Connoly
Laurier Student

[Phone numbers withheld from public posting.]

2012: 12/04
CATEGORY: Gender Diversity
Trans
Transsexual
Youth
1 comment

MP’s trans predator fearmongering escalates.

On Friday, Sun News commentator Brian Lilley interviewed Rob Anders, the Member of Parliament who has drawn condemnation for conflating transsexual and transgender people with sexual predators in a petition he has been circulating on his website, and to at least one church in his riding. In “Children’s bathroom bill reaches Parliament Hill,” both doubled down on conflating trans people with sexual predators, and suggested that granting human rights inclusion will somehow enable and legally absolve predatory acts. Anders claims there is “all sorts of examples of this going on.” Which is news to anybody else.

Lilley introduced the interview by once again calling for the defunding and privatization of CBC, the network which first broke the Anders story, and which Lilley has tried to portray as ludicrous for taking note of the petition. During this time, though, Lilley has also been taking note of a Toronto District School Board (TDSB) policy that accommodates trans kids. Like fellow Sun News Network commentators Michael Coren and Faith Goldy, he’s made that all about washrooms. While discussing the TDSB policy with Anders, they arrive at this exchange:

LILLEY: We are going and changing all kinds of things that… I agree with you, could put people at risk of being exposed to perverts to fix something that is, what, one percent of one percent of one percent of a subset of a subset?

ANDERS: Yeah. You know, why would we lower peoples’ natural defenses of a man going into a woman’s bathroom in order to “accommodate” [scare quotes added because at this, Anders appears to grin mockingly or suggestively] this very very small, you know, part of the population. In order to expose all sorts of women and girls to this…?

At that point, Rob Anders relates a phone call that told an anecdotal story of a crossdressed peeping tom who allegedly peered over stalls in the Canterra building in downtown Calgary four years ago. Searching various media online, there appears to be no corroboration that it even occurred, let alone that it happened as related. The network sensationalistically underscores this story with staged photos that are supposed to be representative of trans people in restrooms, including one featuring a urinal covered in police tape, and another showing someone with a long wig and a dress standing at a urinal. Or at least I’m assuming they’re staged, because it would be concerning if someone is snapping candids in washrooms.

At an earlier point in this interview, Brian Lilley also points to one of the men accused of chaining and abusing a Nova Scotia teen — the attacker was said to have occasionally dressed in womens’ clothing.

Most Canadians either don’t know someone who is transsexual or transgender, or else aren’t aware that an acquaintance is trans (and given my experience as a community advocate, I suspect it’s more often the latter). For this reason, Anders and Lilley float these examples as being representative of all trans people, and as justification for excluding those entire characteristic classes from basic human rights protections.

LILLEY: “Then he’s free and clear.”

Enter Bill C-279, An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (Gender Identity and Gender Expression), which is a human rights bill addressing employment, housing, access to services and discrimination.

The bill says nothing about washrooms, which Lilley briefly acknowledges before calling washrooms a side effect of the bill, and then continuing to focus on them at the expense of all else. C-279 also wouldn’t change the fact that trans people have already been using washrooms appropriate to their gender identity for decades. But it’s at this point that Lilley and Anders claim that the bill would somehow essentially absolve the people in their examples of any culpability for their actions.

ANDERS: “Then he’s free and clear, that’s right.”

Readers are invited to find any example in which rape, molestation and other illegal and inappropriate behaviours were suddenly excused because the perpetrator was a member of a class listed in human rights legislation. As equal human beings, we are all still responsible for behaving ethically and respectfully toward our fellow human beings, and to face the legal consequences if we don’t.

We also don’t exclude entire groups of people from public washrooms (let alone human rights) on the off-chance that one of them might be a sexual predator.

When I wrote about the history of the “Bathroom Bill” meme, one thing I didn’t mention is how opponents of trans rights initiatives tended to conflate trans people with predators, and then when called on it, would habitually backtrack to say it wasn’t trans people they were worried about, but that they thought trans-inclusive legislation could provide cover for actual predators to commit acts of sexual predation. And then they’d go on talking about “transgenders” with hairy legs and skirts stalking children and doing unmentionable things in washroom stalls, as a reason to block human rights legislation.

But with the way Lilley’s interview is presented, there’s visibly no effort at all to make any kind of distinction.

And all of this, of course, completely overlooks the dangers to safety of going the opposite direction and forcing transsexual women to use a men’s room. Or whether women would be happy having trans men in theirs.

Which brings us to Brian Lilley’s bottom line:

LILLEY: “Why do we have all these groups mentioned to get special treatment in the Human Rights Act, in the Criminal Code? I thought we believed in treat all people equally and fairly in this country. And why don’t we just get rid of all this nonsense and say all people are equal ~~above and beyond~~ [sic] before the law?”

Overlooking the fact that you just referred to equality as “special treatment,” Mr. Lilley, it is most likely because there is ample evidence that there are clearly bigoted attitudes and beliefs about entire groups of people, conflating them with abhorrent actions and behaviours — even to the point of circulating petitions, making comments on the floor of the House of Commons, and reporting them on television as fact — in ways that make discrimination against those groups likely or even inevitable.

Sun Media’s Brian Lilley interviews Rob Anders

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 10/08
CATEGORY: Alberta Politics
Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Gender Diversity
Trans
Transsexual
2 comments

The Mask of Gender

Normally, I’m not one to promote something if I’m in it. That kind of thing is horribly self-aggrandizing. So I’ll apologize right off for doing that here.

But given the recent focus on trans issues due to the comments made by Rob Anders, I thought it would be a good moment to give average Canadians a chance to get to know a little bit about trans people, and why clear human rights inclusion is necessary. This is a documentary that was put together last year, and features people in Calgary and the greater Calgary area. It’s called The Mask of Gender (link is to the producer’s website):

There’s only so much that can be covered in a short 16-minute documentary, of course. For example, from just my own experiences, the film understandably doesn’t go into the complicated details about why I accepted unreasonable conditions to return to the paint store job after my transition (hint: one of the big reasons had to do with the prospect of losing 19 years’ employment to a name change). So there are a lot of layers below the surface one could explore.

But it is an introduction, nevertheless, and of real Calgarians.

2012: 10/06
CATEGORY: Alberta Politics
Canadian Politics
Gender Diversity
Trans
Transsexual
1 comment

Rob Anders, the transsexual bogeyman, and the weird phenomenon of MPs petitioning their constituents.

Rob Anders is on a mission. Hot on the heels of having to halfway apologize for alleging that NDP leader Thomas Mulcair drove former NDP leader Jack Layton to his grave, Anders is now sending at least one church (possibly more) a letter asking them to petition MPs to oppose Bill C-279, which would (in its current form) extend human rights protections to transsexual and transgender people. You’d almost think he needs an easy deflection, and trans people are the punching bag du jour.

It must be important, too. For a Member of Parliament who has gained a reputation for falling asleep during Question Period in the House of Commons, allegedly napping through presentations about homeless veterans, and about whom fellow MPs have stated that “It’s a regular occurrence… I sit across from him when we meet in Ottawa and I’ve seen his neighbours poke him awake sometimes,” this must be pretty urgent, attention-getting stuff. After all, he’s staying focused on this one.

In his original letter, he raises the alarm:

“That Bill C-279, also known as the “Bathroom Bill”, is a Private Members Bill sponsored by B.C. NDP MP Randall Garrison and its goal is to give transgendered men access to women’s public washroom facilities.

“And that it is the duty of the House of Commons to protect and safeguard our children from any exposure and harm that will come from giving a man access to women’s public washroom facilities.”

Ah, he wants to protect women. Hence his vote in support of M-312, which hoped to make government an arbiter of what reproductive health decisions women are allowed to make. How chivalrous.

The Calgary West MP has stirred up controversy before, sending Canadian troops a Christmas message which read, “when in doubt, pull the trigger.” He also made international news when he called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. In 2010, 19 members of Anders’ riding association quit citing interference from the Conservative Party, with another 5 of the 32-member board following in the days afterward.

I’ve written before about washroom panic, and the historic use of this non-existent epidemic (considering that we’ve used public restrooms for as long as we’ve existed, and not seen any statistically notable number of instances of predation) to oppose all basic human rights inclusion for trans people, and have to admit that Anders’ comments pale in comparison (probably only because of brevity) to the rant that Niagara West-Glanbrook MP Dean Allison delivered right on the floor of the House of Commons this past April:

“I find this potentially legitimized access for men in girls’ bathrooms to be very disconcerting. As sexual predators are statistically almost always men, imagine the trauma that a young girl would face, going into a washroom or a change room at a public pool and finding a man there. It is unconscionable for any legislator, purposefully or just neglectfully, to place her in such a compromising position.“

Still, Anders is careful to make his talking points look original, although they are really not that different from Allison’s, the panic letters previously sent from LifeSiteNews, rants by Charles McVety, or the letter sent by MP Maurice Vellacott to his fellow MPs when the predecessor of this bill, Bill C-389, trekked through the previous session of Parliament, forwarding comments from a “constituent” who turned out to be Jim Hughes of the Campaign Life Coalition. Or the editorial written by MP Blake Richards in the Rocky View Weekly as C-389 proceeded to Third Reading. That bill passed, but died awaiting ratification by the Senate, when the election was called.

Rise and shine, SunTV

Anders’ comments also come as Sun News Network commentators Michael Coren and Faith Goldy are reacting negatively to the Toronto District School Board’s introduction of a policy that will allow trans students to use washrooms that are appropriate to their gender identity — even the Toronto Sun implies that trans identity is whim by phrasing it as using “whichever washroom they wish.” The TDSB ruling is in response to a 2011 ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and addresses accommodating trans kids (something badly needed), but like Anders, Coren and Goldy fixate on potty panic. Transcribed by the Huffington Post:

“Goldy was quick to make the issue personal. ‘I cannot but help but bring this story back to my 5-year-old god-daughter and the fact that when she goes to the bathroom by herself who knows what kind of creepo is now fully permitted, he has the right now, to be standing in that bathroom and doing God knows what,’ the reporter said.”

“Who knows what” is probably peeing, and trans people value their privacy during that as much as any other Canadian, thank you very much.

Goldy, like Anders, deliberately misgenders female-identified trans people. We know that Anders isn’t referring to anyone else when he is petitioning about “transgendered [sic] men” because the trans men I know would generally not be wanting to use the womens’ room anyway. Granted, womens’ restrooms tend to be cleaner, but those beards might raise questions.

I’ve seen that kind of deliberate misgendering a lot, and typically the objective is to portray trans people as being deluded at best or else outright fraudulent. But when this kind of intentional disrespect comes from politicians and media figures, it especially needs to be challenged.

“I’m petitioning you to petition me…”

Although Anders’ comments are obviously not new, it signals a growing trend when Conservative MPs start actively lobbying their constituents to lobby them for petition signatures. This is reminiscent of Jason Kenney’s recent letter to congratulate himself on his efforts as a champion of LGBT human rights, and his previous petition to petition his constituents to petition him to thank him for petitioning them to thank him (or something) on his valiant initiative to deny health care to immigrants. With Anders, Vellacott, Allison et al actively stirring up fears of an imaginary transsexual bogeymonster in order to defeat human rights legislation, it signals a disturbing trend among legislators — in these cases, Conservatives — by attempting to manipulate the public conversation and skew public input in a way that would appear to support their personal agendas.

Which brings me back to a point I’ve made before, and made often:

Human rights protections are necessary exactly because this irrational fear persists. It’s necessary exactly because trans people still get conflated with sex predators and child predators, or labeled as “sick,” “perverse,” and “freaks.” It’s necessary exactly because people become so clouded with assumptions and myths that they argue for our deliberate exclusion from human rights under the pretext that granting them would be “dangerous” or “scary.” It’s necessary exactly because this bias is so entrenched that people think nothing about broadcasting it openly as though fact. It’s necessary exactly because this “ick factor” response is seen as justification for not allowing an entire group of people to share the same space, to terminate their employment or to evict them. It’s necessary exactly because it is so pervasive that discrimination becomes not only likely but inevitable — especially if there is no explicit direction in law to the contrary on the matter.

And especially if that irrational meme is so prevalent that it’s being loudly and embarrassingly parroted by legislators.

The sponsor of Bill C-279, Randall Garrison, has responded to Anders’ petition, saying that “what’s most offensive about his petition is that he equates transgendered people with sex offenders and pedophiles. This petition is obviously based on ignorance, misinformation and fear, but that’s unfortunately what we’ve come to expect from Mr. Anders.”

Rob Anders, however, has been not responding to requests for comment. Maybe he’s nodding off, after all.

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 10/05
CATEGORY: Alberta Politics
Canadian Politics
Gender Diversity
LGBT
Trans
Transsexual
4 comments

Montreal LGBT couple beaten in Paris

I’ve heard via Michelle Blanc that on the afternoon of Wednesday August 1st, a Montreal trans advocate (who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting) was assaulted with her partner in Paris, in view of the couple’s children. Marie-Ève is with l’association Fierté Montréal Pride and has been active within Montreal’s transgender community. Claire, who has French citizenship, is a member of the board of la chambre de commerce gai du Québec and is actively involved in LGBT activism. [Trigger warning: discussion of violence follows.]

Two people in an old model Renault Clio with a Rottweiler and a pitbull cut the family off in traffic and began shouting insults. “Marie-Ève heard the driver tell his passenger: ‘they are Canadian…. It’s two girls but this is a guy who removed his balls, and we’re going to get into it.” [i.e. the colloquial "we're going to teach them a lesson"] Although attempting to change lanes to avoid a confrontation, a traffic jam allowed the Clio to block them, and Marie-Ève exited the vehicle.

At first, one of the attackers opened a window to encourage their two dogs to attack, but fortunately, both animals showed no sign of aggression. One then kicked Marie-Ève in the head and knocked her to the ground, stunned by the blow. She then received several more punches and kicks to the head. Claire tried to intervene but was in turn violently grabbed and received several blows to the head. At one point, an attacker tried to strangle Marie-Ève with her necklace. Their children knew well enough to stay in the car, but watched in horror as the attack took place.

Despite the mid-afternoon activity, the many passersby and the couples’ calls for help, no one intervened until an attacker began goading passersby and one responded that a call to police had been made. Finally, a rider on a scooter stopped and encouraged the assailants to leave, which they did. No one tried to assist the couple.

The family is now at home in Québec.

L’association Lesbian & Gay Pride Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon has put out a call for any witnesses to please step forward:

“La Lesbian & Gay Pride Montpellier LR demands that perpetrators are identified, arraigned and brought to justice without delay. We ask the public prosecutor in Paris to investigate the matter as a hate crime motivated by xenophobic, transphobic and lesbophobic bias, so that the guilty are punished and the seriousness of their actions is not erased. We also demand effective identification of persons who assisted in the attack and who chose not to provide assistance to victims. We can not accept that such acts can take place with impunity, for all to see, and without a sense of duty, solidarity, citizenship and assistance.”

“… At a time when France seemed on the road to equality, it is high time that the government implement an ambitious plan to fight against all discrimination, educates law enforcement personnel and hospital treatment and support for victims, and calls on judges to exercise zero tolerance.”

“Discrimination = Crime de la différence !”

I’ve included their statement here (in the original French). It is my failing that I have not learned fluent French, and would not be able to translate it all well. I apologize for any errors in anything that I have translated or related.

Communiqué de presse – 02 août 2012

Deux québécoises sauvagement agressées en plein jour devant leurs enfants !

APPEL A TEMOIN

L’association Lesbian & Gay Pride Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon vient d’être saisie par deux victimes d’une agression xénophobe, transphobe et lesbophobe qui s’est déroulée en plein cœur de Paris (18ème arrondissement) en plein après-midi le 1er août 2012, sur deux ressortissantes canadiennes venues faire du tourisme avec leurs enfants de 6 et 7 ans.

Les deux jeunes femmes, sont originaires du Canada, Marie-Eve est Québécoise et transgenre, sa compagne Claire d’origine française. Marie-Eve occupe des responsabilités au sein de l’association Fierté Montréal Pride, structure avec laquelle la LGP Montpellier LR a noué des liens d’amitiés au travers des mandats internationaux qu’exercent les deux associations. Quant à elle, Claire est membre du conseil d’administration de la chambre de commerce gai du Québec et est activement impliquée dans la communauté.

Cette agression odieuse, sauvage, révoltante et scandaleuse s’est déroulée sous les yeux de leurs jeunes enfants. Les auteurs de l’agression, s’en sont pris aux deux jeunes femmes au prétexte de leur origine canadienne, de l’identité de genre de Marie-Eve, et de leur orientation sexuelle.

Marie-Eve et Claire allaient faire le plein avant de rendre la voiture de location par le boulevard de Clignancourt. Une voiture de type Clio blanche (ancien model) avec une conductrice à son bord, accompagnée d’un homme et de deux chiens, un Pitbull et un Rottweiler, coupe la route aux deux jeunes femmes. Marie-Eve au volant, klaxonne la Clio et se voit insultée. Celle-ci répond en français et québécois. Les deux individus répliquent par un doigt d’honneur et le jet de cigarette sur leur voiture de location. Marie-Eve entend la conductrice indiquer à son passager : « elles sont canadiennes ». Les insultes reprennent de plus belle et se font de plus en plus violentes : « C’est deux nanas mais elle c’est un gars a qui ont a enlevé les couilles et on va vous rentrer dedans. ».

Le feux passant au vert, Marie-Eve change de file afin de mettre fin à cette situation. Pris dans les embouteillage, les agresseurs positionnent volontairement leur véhicule à hauteur des deux jeunes femmes. Marie-Eve fait constater au passager de la Clio l’imprudence de sa conductrice et se voit en réponse cracher au visage. Dans l’incompréhension face au comportement de cet homme, Marie-Eve sort de son véhicule. Aussitôt ils ouvrent une fenêtre pour menacer Marie-Eve avec les 2 chiens. Celle-ci constant que les deux animaux ne montrent pas de signe d’agressivité, s’adresse à l’homme. L’agresseur saisit alors les montant de la portière du véhicule dans lequel il se trouvait, prend son élan et assène un violent coup de pied en plein visage à sa victime. Marie-Eve se retrouve projeter au sol complètement sonnée par la violence du coup. L’homme continuera de s’acharner sur Marie-Eve, toujours étendue sur le sol, en lui portant plusieurs coups de pieds au visage. Malgré la peur, Claire sort du véhicule et tente de s’interposer mais se retrouve à son tour attrapée violemment par l’homme et par la femme qui la tire agressivement par les cheveux, la mord à la main, le griffe au dos et la roue de violemment coups poings à la tête. Elle est ensuite jeté par terre et fini ainsi par se dégager pour porter secours à sa conjointe qui, toujours au sol, recevait des coups de pieds au visage.

Malgré la douleur, Marie-Eve parvient à reprendre ses esprits et remarque sa compagne ensanglantée se fait à son tour servir des coups de poings et des coups pieds par les deux agresseurs en même temps. Elle décide à son tour d’intervenir et tente d’immobiliser l’agresseur. C’est alors que la conductrice de la Clio saisit violemment Marie-Eve par les cheveux et tente de l’étrangler à l’aide de la chaîne autour du coup de la victime. Claire intervient à son tour et permet à Marie-Eve de se dégager qui en profite pour immobiliser l’homme au sol. La fatigue et la douleur conduise la victime à relâcher son étreinte. L’homme en profite à son tour pour se dégager avant de porter un coup violent au visage de Marie-Eve, puis lui mettre plusieurs doigts dans la bouche et de la traîner sur le sol.

Malgré une agression proférée en plein après-midi et la violence de la scène qui s’est déroulée devant de nombreux passants, personne n’a trouvé bon d’intervenir pour secourir les victimes ! Les deux jeunes femmes se sont senties démunies, livrées en pâture devant une foule qui leurs disait de rentrer dans leur pays, et terriblement angoissées à l’idée de ne pas pouvoir ce sortir du lynchage en règle qu’elles subissaient sous les yeux de leurs jeunes enfants traumatisés par la scène et hurlant de terreurs !

Les agresseurs continuent de s’acharner sur les victimes qui doivent leur salue au hurlement poussé par les victimes demandant aux passants d’appeler la police. L’un deux fini par répondre que l’appel est passé. Un scooter conduit par un autre individu surgit alors de nulle part, s’arrête à la hauteur d’un des agresseurs et l’enjoint de monté à l’arrière avant de s’adresser à la conductrice de la Clio pour l’inviter à prendre la fuite « go, go, go ! ». Les auteurs parviennent donc à prend la fuite avant l’arrivée de la police appelée sur les lieux.

À cause de leur état physique, le traumatisme et la peur extrême des victimes, Marie-Eve et Claire sont conduites en ambulance par les pompiers à l’hôpital Bichat de Paris qui délivrera un premier certificat initiale des blessures !

Jeudi 2 août, les victimes ont déposé plainte au commissariat du Vème arrondissement de Paris et ont transmis aux forces de l’ordre le numéro de plaque minéralogique des auteurs de l’agression. Elles seront examinées par la médecine légale vendredi 3 août.

La Lesbian & Gay Pride Montpellier LR exige que les auteurs soient identifiés, interpelés et traduits en justice sans délai. Nous demandons au Parquet de Paris de se saisir de cette affaire d’une violence haineuse, xénophobe, transphobe et lesbophobe afin que les coupables ne restent pas impunis et soient sanctionnés à la hauteur de la gravité de leurs actes. Nous attendons également que soient identifiées les personnes ayant assistées à cette agression et qui n’ont pas trouvé utile d’apporter assistance aux victimes. Nous ne pouvons accepter que de tels actes puissent se dérouler en toute impunité, aux yeux de tous, et au détriment d’un devoir de solidarité, de civisme et d’assistance.

De telles agressions barbares n’ont pas de place dans une société civilisée. La Lesbian & Gay Pride Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon suivra avec beaucoup d’attention les avancées de cette affaire révoltante et met en garde contre toute tentative de classement sans suite de ce dossier, et ce au-delà du retour au Canada des deux victimes.

Marie-Eve et Claire souffrent de nombreuses blessures et hématomes, sont terriblement affectées d’avoir été victimes d’une telle sauvagerie, devant leurs enfants, sans intervention extérieure, sont blessées dans leur identité, et en état de choc. Les enfants sont traumatisés, apeurés, et ont passé la nuit à pleurer. La famille attend désormais avec impatience de rentrer chez elle, au Québec.

La Lesbian & Gay Pride Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon salue le courage de Marie-Eve, Claire et leurs enfants. Nous leur renouvelons notre profonde amitié, et notre soutien. L’association restera plus que jamais à leurs côtés. Nous poursuivrons notre collaboration avec notre homologue Fierté Montréal Pride avec laquelle nous assurerons le suivi de cette affaire. A l’heure où la France semble sur la voie de l’égalité, il est grand temps que le gouvernement mettent en œuvre un plan ambitieux de lutte contre toutes les discriminations, sensibilise les forces de l’ordre et personnels hospitalier au traitement et à l’accueil des victimes, et demande aux juges de faire preuve de tolérance zéro.

Discrimination = Crime de la différence !

APPEL A TEMOIN : nous demandons que toute personne ayant assistée à cette agression ou disposant d’éléments, de contacter l’association au 06 76 31 36 31 ou le commissariat de police du Vème arrondissement afin d’aider la police à identifier les auteurs de cet agression.

L’équipe de la LGP Montpellier LR

2012: 08/06
CATEGORY: International
Social Justice
Trans
Transsexual
3 comments

On Persecution Complexes and Rage

The interplay of rage and persecution complexes works to shape trans, LGB — and in fact all — struggles against oppression. It can become an eternal feedback loop that can stymie any attempt to move progressive causes forward, if it succeeds in establishing its circuitous pattern.

This translates to many struggles, so I’m going to speak generally and with varied examples — but I’m reminded of this most recently by the claims of persecution over a confrontation that happened at the New York dyke march, by Cathy Brennan, so will probably focus there most frequently.

(Oh dear god, I invoked the name. Now here come the bajillion bloody emails and the character assassination — it’s like goddamn Beetlejuice.)

Because I’ll be talking in generalities, I’ll be using terms like “oppressor / oppressed.” And because privilege is relative, and we all have some form of it or another relative to someone else, there are times when just about any group takes on the role of the oppressor — ourselves included. So if I jump around a bit, you’ll need to bear with me. The principle is what I’m focusing on, moreso than the many players. Rather than participate in the game, I’d rather dismantle it. Break the cycle, not perpetuate it. Read more

2012: 07/02
CATEGORY: Sex and Gender Minorities
Trans
LGBT
Social Justice
Decolonialism
Dissecting Spin
Transsexual
Theocracy Watch
Women's Issues
Gender Diversity
6 comments

Hypocrisy on Free Speech and “Protecting Freedom.”

On June 6th (the same night that the trans human rights Bill C-279 advanced to committee) Conservative MP for Westlock – St. Paul, Brian Storseth’s Private Member’s Bill C-304, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom), passed Third Reading in the House of Commons, and advanced to the Senate for ratification. Bill C-304 abolishes Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which pertains to electronic communication of hate speech.

Sun Media commentator Ezra Levant barely got through taking credit for the bill’s passage before taking advantage of a recent censure of comments he made on his television show to change focus and declare his intent to destroy the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) within the coming year, in the name of freedom of speech.

Both are the culmination of roughly ten years of media campaigning against speech-related laws and standards, and while the principle of freedom of speech is admirable, the application being upheld and idealized by speechies is already showing its proponents’ hypocrisy.

Bill C304 is one of several Private Members’ Bills that pundits have been watching, concerned that the procedure may be used by Conservatives to pass legislation that the party wants to maintain some plausible deniability about (another bill which has provoked concern is Blake Richards’ C-309, which proposes to ban masks at protests). And given the questionable Reform Party -era ties to hate groups, plausible deniability was probably a politically prudent approach for the Conservatives to take. Liberal and NDP Members of Parliament have previously spoken out against Storseth’s bill, but often expressed that they felt it was too contentious to pass.

Section 13 was one of the approaches used to defuse the inciting of racial hatred in Canada, and had been thought of as a way to keep neo-Nazis in check, although it’s historical use has been mixed and controversial. Ernst Zundel was the focus of several different actions against hate speech that he published in print and on his website, before he was finally deported to Germany, where they had no qualms about convicting him of 14 counts of inciting racial hatred. In December 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada also finally upheld a conviction against Jim Keegstra for a 1984 arrest after teaching Social Studies students that the Holocaust never happened.

But hate speech legislation began to lose popular support when it was used to target Macleans magazine and writer Mark Steyn for articles promoting what evolved into “Demographic Winter” lore (i.e. fears that Islamic Fundamentalists were outpopulating Western nations and would “win” by sheer numbers). It was also used against former Western Standard publisher turned Spin News Network commentator and entertainer Ezra Levant for publishing cartoons that portrayed the prophet Mohammad as a terrorist. Proceedings were later thrown out or dropped, but not without some personal cost to each, highlighting some concerns that call for some legitimate reform.

Personally, I’m not all that partial to speech legislation. I do agree that there needs to be something there to address the extremes of Zundel and Whatcott, but also that there has to be restraint on its use and the way it’s prosecuted. But at the same time, for as much as there are accusations of “fascist” motives from both left and right-wing pundits in our increasingly polarized political climate, the abolition of speech law does disarm a tool that could have provided a means to bring something of that nature about.

Free Speech and the Responsibility That Comes With It

I wrote about the subject earlier, when discussing Bill Whatcott’s Supreme Court trial, a proceeding which concerns a Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruling:

Hateful speech is never free. While an individual comment, or poster, or ad, or flier may be free speech, the weight of cumulative aggressions and microaggressions serve to demonize communities, alienate them, and discourage them from participating in society. As it becomes more common, accumulated hatefulness makes it seem acceptable or (to some) even necessary to act on that, and by knowing this, entire communities are terrorized in a way by each new onslaught.

And yet there is a danger in criminalizing speech. The same groups that hate is already designed to silence and intimidate into hiding could very easily become the same groups that society seeks to silence first, when given the tool of speech legislation.

Ideally, hateful speech should be answered, and called out. Hateful speech must be answered. It must be responded to. Freedom of speech is not simply a question of saying or publishing anything and everything that one might wish to say. It comes with a responsibility to answer to these things, and call them out as attitudes that need to change. The problem is that it typically isn’t answered to by the majority, and if sufficient inequality or disparate antipathy exists, the minority may either feel too disenfranchised to respond, or the channels that they need to respond in aren’t interested in giving them the opportunity.

Spin News Network personalities get particularly poor marks for positioning themselves as apparent free speech champions by promoting Islamophobes like Geert Wilders and trying to provoke hate speech complaints of their own, while at the same time making a point to run Charles McVety’s transphobic / homophobic ads without criticism or contrary opinion, calling to ban Islamic speakers, and justifying the barring of entry to people like Bill Ayers. If freedom of speech comes with a responsibility to counter those things that are hateful, then Sun Media has repeatedly shed that responsibility whenever it has been politically inconvenient to their editorial viewpoint, like skin of an embarrassing colour.

In addition to facilitating dialogue instead of squelching it, freedom of speech also comes with a responsibility to maintain some civility and decorum. Canada’s speechies often fail on that count as well. In the most recent example, Levant was condemned by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council for an uncivil tirade last December, and his response was to flip CBSC the bird. Civility too, it seems, is no longer in fashion.

Broadcast Standards Under Fire

Levant took the opportunity to take up a campaign to destroy the CBSC:

“According to the Canadian Broadcast Stan- uh, Censors Council, that’s not actually what got me in trouble. What got me in trouble was my point of view. I wasn’t -quote- ‘balanced.’ Now, I have an opinion, that’s my job actually, to have an opinion. I don’t pretend to be a ‘neutral’ reporter here, my job is to put out my opinion forcefully….”

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council was set up at the initiative of Canadian television networks, for the purpose of establishing limits that would help immunize the industry against the kinds of complaints that could potentially result in a drive toward real censorship. It has allowed the actual government body in play — the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) — to refer complaints back to a body that champions the idea of media policing itself, rather than taking any binding action of its own. Spin News Network has been upset with the CRTC ever since the latter twice refused to make special exceptions for the station so that it could have preferred carrier status, which would put it near the top of the dial and make it mandatory for cable networks to provide it prominently. It’s not hard to guess who ~~foxnewsnorth~~‘s Sun TV’s endgame target will be, but for now, the buffer of the CBSC is in the way.

To that end, Ezra Levant has promised a 5-point campaign to destroy the Council within the coming year, by:

1. Systematically violating the CBSC’s standards on a daily basis, and inviting other censured people on his program for the purpose of reoffending;
2. Picking out what Levant describes as inconsistencies and phrasing the CBSC’s function as being outside the law — of course, the CBSC wasn’t set up as a legal body (and consequently, its rulings are non-binding), but as a voluntary code of practices that televised media in Canada decided to set for itself and abide by;
3. Mobilizing right-wingers to comment and blog incessantly on the subject;
4. Getting a bill started in Parliament — this could be interesting, since the CBSC is not a government body nor a legal body, but a voluntary media board (though to be fair, for a station to get a better placement on the dial, there is a CRTC requirement to abide by the code); and
5. Mobilizing viewers to flood MPs, the PM and the Heritage Minister with emails and letters

So, far from accepting the responsibilities that go with freedom of speech, Sun News Network and at least one commentator are dedicated to actively working against anything that encourages these responsibilities, however symbolic and voluntary it might be.

The Overton Window and Harper’s Stake

To be fair, Spin News Network and Sun Media are private corporations, and not under any obligation to provide air time or column space to dissenting voices, although arguing this point says something interesting about fair and unbiased media in Canada. For the Harper Conservatives, reaping the accolades from right-wing supporters over the passage of C-304 and acting as a government that is supposed to work on behalf of all Canadians, the same can’t be said.

The Harper Government has played both sides of the “free speech” equation by happily positioning themselves as free speech champions, while waging an economic stifling of speech through the defunding of environmental science, status of women groups, Aboriginal advocacy and human rights organizations and yet maintaining charitable status and even financial subsidies for partisan political supporters and think tanks that consistently produce convenient reports. At times, the government’s imbalanced treatment has led to intimidation tactics and accusations of terrorism in order to marginalize political opponents. The end result is a faux free speech environment in which state sanctioned speech is signal-boosted to the tune of millions of dollars, and dissent is economically marginalized to the point of having little to no avenue through which to counter spin.

Here’s why these responsibilities matter. Before his death in 2003, Joseph Overton, vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (a think tank devoted to free market ideology), proposed a political concept that has since become known as “The Overton Window.” At any given moment, the window of popular sentiment and political viability is in flux, and the key to achieving policy is to expand or shift the window to encompass it. This is done by changing the conversation through several means — including repetition, erasure and ridicule of opposition, manipulation and spin — until an idea shifts from being previously unthinkable and then radical to becoming acceptable, seemingly sensible and then popular… until it is inevitably established as policy.

If this resonates with the dramatic polarization that has been taking place in the past few years on political topics like environmentalism, abortion and birth control, government budgeting and austerity, LGBT rights, police powers, public health care, bullying, and social programs like EI and welfare, then you’ve obviously noticed the explosion of concerted campaigns to shift that window. And move, it clearly has. I’m betting that most of us in our lifetime never would have thought we’d be fighting for the availability of the Pill, watching neo-conservatives fight for the right to deny medical care, or expecting CNN to run a semi-sympathetic profile of a “kinder, gentler” Ku Klux Klan.

This happens not from free speech, but from abdicating the responsibilities that come with it — or, in the case of defunding and silencing unfavorable speech, making concerted efforts to control the conversation.

The free speech advocates in media and government are less interested in promoting diversity of speech, and more interested in shifting the window of where and how that speech occurs.

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 06/19
CATEGORY: Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Social Justice
Theocracy Watch
1 comment

DBM is collection of theory, politics and advocacy for trans, LGBT, sex and gender minorities, and their place in a decolonial world. From Alberta-based writer Mercedes Allen and guests.

C-279 Committee Roundup: The Necessity of Inclusion

Guest Post: Teacher plays scene from Disney Movie to Humiliate Student in Class

MP’s trans predator fearmongering escalates.

The Mask of Gender

Rob Anders, the transsexual bogeyman, and the weird phenomenon of MPs petitioning their constituents.

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