Free Speech, When The “Debate” is You (and You’re Not Invited)

There’s a duplicitous game of sleight-of-hand that is taking place in discussions about freedom of speech in academia and the public square.

Here’s how it works: at first, a person fishes for controversy by saying several things that they know will offend people.  If this garners enough attention, then the process recurs organically — say, whenever a politician wants to reference the controversy as a coded dog whistle to their base, or when a teaching assistant replays a recording in class because she thinks the discussion is interesting and challenging.

And the moment the people targeted by that discussion get angry and protest, they’re described not as being upset about the content of what is being said, but rather their protest is reframed as opposing freedom of speech itself.  Whether you see that as accidental or deliberate probably depends on how cynical you are about the whole issue.

Trans* Human Rights Bill C-16: A Look Back

Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its third incarnation (of five), Bill C-389.  To me, it’s a profound moment to look back on, and realize just how far we’ve come.

It took 12 years to pass this bill.  For the first six, it was completely ignored, as was the trans* rights movement. Shortly after this speech, the bill did pass at Third Reading, and the effort finally was taken seriously… but was then very hard fought.  This speech was the moment (if there was any single one) that things changed.

I hope that Mr. Siksay’s efforts are remembered now.  Trans* people have usually been told to wait their turn, that legislation is incremental, that we should work for gay rights, and then the LGBTQ movement would come back for us.  This was a rare exception in which someone actually did come back.

What the “Walk on the Wild Side” controversy says about trans* awareness and a changing social movement

A little over a week ago, a University of Guelph student union drew international ire for condemning Lou Reed’s 1972 song “Walk on the Wild Side” as transphobic.  This occurred after the Central Student Association apologized on social media for playing the song at a campus event.  Although this might seem like a minor thing to get upset about (especially in the outrage-saturated age of Donald Trump), and most of the reaction has focused on the historic roots and intent of the song, the controversy is actually a noteworthy reflection of the changes that take place as a social movement — in this case, trans* activism — matures.

This brings to the surface a lot of mixed feelings for me, as a former activist who chose to be visible and vocal at a time before trans* people were taken seriously, let alone had much in the way of public acceptance.  “Walk on the Wild Side” was an inclusive part of the subculture; one of the rebellious anthems we rallied around and took pride in.

It shows how profoundly things can change as a marginalized class of people becomes better understood and more enfranchised: even those things that had once been welcome and validating can become sour and invalidating.  It also says much about how social movements evolve, and how each generation inevitably repudiates the last, as they seek to distinguish themselves.

It’s a process I came face-to-face with several years ago, while trying to form a trans-specific support organization in Alberta.  One of the town hall participants took me aside and tried to impress upon me that in order for the trans* movement to advance, the “dinosaurs” (which included me, apparently) needed to “make way for the new age.”  As hurtful as the discussion was, they did have some points that resonated in the years that followed, and ultimately contributed to my decision from withdrawing from trans* activism and (mostly) from writing about trans* issues.  Some of the concerns they raised were painfully pragmatic (i.e. needing to have leaders who didn’t bring with them the baggage of bitterness and ill will of having fought the lesbian and gay establishment for inclusion in LGBTQ activism), some insulting (i.e. suggesting that one had to be younger, academic and/or trans-male in order to be an acceptable “face” of trans* activism), but other arguments were the byproduct of recognizing the changing language we use to communicate trans-ness… and the tide of acceptance that was coming with it.

After all, the activism I was accustomed to was a kind of triage, of coping with and trying to educate traditionally hostile medical, governmental and social institutions, while directing people in need to safe, welcoming inroads and pushing those institutions behind the scene to provide better options and opportunities.  I’ve often likened the experience to dashing ourselves against the rocks in the hopes of blunting them enough for the next people to come along.  But the activism that was quickly becoming needed was more direct — lobbying, legal challenges, public actions — and although I started making some of those changes in what I was doing, there was a danger that by trying to be an intrinsic part of that activism, I might inadvertently hold it back by defaulting to the triage-style efforts I’d been accustomed to.  In the end, I realized there was some important truth to this.

My point, of course, is that along with awareness about trans* people, the movement toward trans* human rights is undergoing a generational metamorphosis.

Part of that metamorphosis is in the language used to communicate “trans-ness,” if you will.

This is seen in the many diverse and sometimes seemingly-chaotic genders that are being investigated and embraced as peoples’ terms of self-identification.  Although many of the newly-embraced genders are relatively beyond my own experience (I’m personally comfortable in a gender binary, while still recognizing the problematic social constructions with that), there are almost always very deep and specific reasons those gender terms have been embraced.  I’ve learned to respect and support (while not trying to speak for, except when there is no one present to do so) gender diversity that is outside my limited range of experience.

I raise this as a point of language because before a movement can fully coalesce, the language it uses to communicate itself needs to be rethought.  Until trans* people had a language to communicate their own experiences, they had to cope — often with a lot of frustration and awkwardness — with the language that was imposed upon them.  In my lifetime, trans* women and trans-feminine persons were conflated with gay men (particularly effeminate ones); trans* men and trans-masculine persons were conflated with lesbians (particularly “butch” dykes); trans* people were defined and categorized by medical practitioners who constructed stigmatizing models of mental illness to explain them; pornography and second-wave feminists alike defined trans* women as “she-males” (usually with the implication that ‘she’s really male’); social conservatives wielded terms like “crossdresser” and “transvestite” to reduce peoples’ entire experience to a clothing fetish… and even those terms were imperfect and evolved unexpectedly.  For example, in the 1990s, a lot of trans* women actually did refer to themselves as “crossdressers” and used that as a label to rally under — it was the limitation of the language people had available to them at the time.

It wasn’t until trans* people were able to assert their right to define themselves and determine for themselves what their words meant that the old stigmas could be shed and better-fitting terms and their definitions could be settled upon.  Some of that is still taking place, and it may seem strange at times — but it is a necessary process (I, for one, welcome and embrace it — as long as no one tries to redefine my own self and experiences, in the process).  Even now, there are still disagreements about using words like “transgender” as umbrella terms (which I why I personally prefer “trans*” — it provides a much more open-ended acknowledgement of the diverse range of experiences being discussed).

But some of the earlier problematic use of language still remains in the things that were written about us — both by cis* (non-trans*) people, and by we trans* “dinosaurs.”

I won’t go into too much depth about the particulars of the song “Walk on the Wild Side,” since a lot of that is public record.  Reed wrote the song as an intended tribute to some of the trans* folks he knew as a part of Andy Warhol’s clique at The Factory, particularly Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling.  It’s also probably historically relevant that Reed had a lengthy and enigmatic relationship with a trans* woman (who has unfortunately faded into obscurity), which had a profound effect on him.This doesn’t change the fact, of course, that the song has some lyrics that now tread into potentially misgendering and transphobic tropes (“… Plucked her eyebrows on the way / shaved her legs and then he was a she….”) The content hasn’t changed — but the context given those lyrics certainly has.  And even if there is a consensus right now it that the University of Guelph Central Student Association is on the wrong side of the issue referring to the song as transphobic, the evolution of trans* activism and the lesson of histories of other social movements tell me that the student union’s statement is more in line with where that activism is headed.

This is true of a great many things that used to be a part of what used to be the trans* subculture.  Some of the things that we consider offensive now were embraceable or rallying anthems even ten or fifteen years ago, if only by the virtue that trans* people were so stigmatized and made to hide that anything that acknowledged our existence in even a mildly sympathetic way felt like progress.

Today, the film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is likely to bring up heated discussions about the differences between drag queens and trans* women — if not angry division about whether drag is a kind of trans* “blackface.” In 1995, it was a celebration of a culture that was often one of the few safe-havens and opportunities to come out of the closet that trans* women had (although how welcoming the drag community was varied by region), even if it meant being willing to be a bit of a self-caricature.

In 1987, Aerosmith’s “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” was sometimes taken as an affirmation, despite its misgendering — and in a twisted way, this may even have been in part due to the uncomfortably sexualized form of acceptance implied in the repeated refrain to “do me.”

In 1992, it was hard to know how to feel about the treatment of the character of Dil in The Crying Game, given Jody’s obvious love for her and the well-developed and nuanced relationship that she forms with Fergus… yet that is starkly contrasted with the jarring pivot of the movie, which has the latter vomiting upon the discovery of her trans* status.  Today, the movie is seen as the progenitor of the “vomit shot,” a recurring trope in an enormous amount of offensive material that portrays sex with trans* women as sickening.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch had a cult following that still largely adheres to the play and film, despite the fact that both [spoiler alert if it’s needed] end with the protagonist’s detransition — though to be fair, Hedwig has a second trans* character who doesn’t, so the decision is fairly painted as an individual one, rather than a morality tale that should apply to everybody.

Probably most notoriously, The Rocky Horror Picture Show periodically inflames division for centering around a character who was recently described as a “cannibalistic-murderer-mad-scientist obsessed with constructing the perfect Adonis to submit to Frank’s erotic pleasures,” while the original film (and theatre participation that went with it) is also paradoxically fondly remembered as peoples’ first opportunity to present themselves in public as their identified gender, and for its affirming themes like “Don’t Dream It, Be It.” Of all historic trans-related media, RHPS probably has the most chequered baggage, and isn’t helped any by being written by someone who somehow found a way to be both gender diverse and transphobic simultaneously.  In 2017, RHPS might be slightly rehabilitated by its campy intent and a remake starring Laverne Cox (which sadly makes it one of the few films about trans* people that the media industry saw fit to cast an actual trans* woman in), but I suspect that the future will not be as kind.

We’re even seeing this in the Twin Peaks reboot:

“When Denise first appeared on the ABC series in 1990, she was a trailblazer. Then (and today), trans people were practically nonexistent on network television. So to see a trans character like Denise who was smart, capable, and more than one-dimensional was a breakthrough moment for representation.

“… Jenny Boylan, a trans activist and cochair of the GLAAD board of directors, posted on social media that the scene “made me squirm.”

“25 years later the David Duchovny trans character in #twinpeaks ep 4 lands really differently, made me squirm. I’m not your dancing dwarf,” Boylan posted on Twitter…”

From perhaps 2006 to 2010 (my approximation, anyway), there has been a shift in language, and this has brought about a parallel shift in thinking. With the aftertaste of 2005’s Transamerica and the newfound ability of trans* people to tell their own narratives and define their meaning, it became no longer enough that a work of film, music or art simply be sympathetic for it to become anthemic or a point of communal pride. Since then, the language — and the context and depth of understanding that goes along with it — has been changing.

Inevitably, that means that some of the things we remember fondly do go the way of the “dinosaur,” fortunate or unfortunate as that may be.

(This post also appears at rabble.ca)

Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect

In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech.

That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T professor Jordan Peterson, who declares in a series of YouTube videos that he will not honour trans* peoples’ chosen pronouns, and opposes trans* human rights protections, all in the name of combating “political correctness.”

Of course, that would be an ideal world. In the real world, it’s still not that unusual for discussion of trans* issues to devolve into a “balanced” debate between pro- and anti-trans* academics over whether they exist at all, without any annoying context like actual trans* people being present to discuss their lived experience of, well, existing.  In the real world, there are real problems about who gets to speak, and how widely they can be heard… and the marginalized are often not given much voice to matters that affect — and are specifically about — them. In fact, the established and prolific voices in today’s media are more often quick to reject attempts to “inflict” change, or energetically create a lopsided portrait.

Speech is not a truly universal and equitable thing in the first place. Rather, it is something that is dependent upon access to favourable platforms, and is usually pre-emptively muddied by characteristic value judgments made about the speaker’s class, gender, race, etc.

Nevertheless, we strive for it as best we can. And in doing so, we arrive at the next irony: the very act of protesting ignorance with speech becomes itself heralded as evidence of censorship — as if the only way one’s speech can be truly free is for everyone else to remain silent.

The outcry and protest of ignorance [edit: example removed, was based on bad information – M] is speech, too — that of the protestors.  But in a disparate society, privileged speech is defended, while protest of it is often minimized, marginalized and dismissed as rowdiness, whinging, totalitarianism (!), censorship, and noise.  It becomes: “a little free speech for me, and a little shut-up-and-take-it for you.”

But let me back up for a moment.

Jordan Peterson is a University of Toronto (UofT) psychology professor who began his rants — especially about, but not limited to, trans* people and a “radical leftist ideology” — in late September, saying from the beginning that he felt he could face consequences, and even feared government or university reprisal because of existing human rights and hate speech laws.  He told Postmedia:

“I think (Bill C-16) risks criminalizing discussion about aspects of human sexual behaviour and identity that we need to discuss,” said Peterson, explaining that there are layers to C-16 — the biology of sex, gender identity and gender expression, for example — that could cause problems down the road.

One of his top stated concerns has been with the inclusion of trans* people in existing hate crimes legislation. The thing that people forget about this when it pertains to speech, though, is that the law has already been tested and shown to apply only exceedingly sparingly. If Bill Whatcott’s homemade but mass-distributed “anal warts” flyers equating LGBTQ people with pedophiles, and lyrical invitations to “kill the homosexual” skirt the edges of hate speech — some permissible and some not — then Peterson probably has nothing to worry about. Speech can indeed be hateful, and yet still not be legally actionable as hate speech.

But given that he seems only (or at least primarily) worried about human rights and hate crimes legislation when it pertains to LGBTQ people, one has to wonder if the concerns are cover for fears about the growing acceptance of trans* people in society.  He stated from the beginning that he will not use non-binary pronouns for other people, even if they request that.  He also said in his first video that he is “scared by the people behind the doctrines,” and attributes them to a radical Marxist ideology (reminiscent of the “cultural Marxism” panic making the rounds among social conservatives). He even compares the latter to Naziism, because of what he considers “murderous” and “Marxist” policies around the world.

Peterson frames his views in an academic and perhaps libertarian perspective, rather than a religious perspective, but he has been enjoying the support of religious conservatives.  This is probably because his views are quite compatible with the right-wing narrative that accepting and acknowledging trans* people as they need to live is (as enunciated regularly at LSN) a “disservice” and “false compassion because it’s not true.”

Peterson’s remedy to all of this dreaded political correctness — and what he calls upon listeners to help him with — is to propagate a “No PC” sticker campaign across the campus, and beyond.

The response to his videos has been mixed, with fierce supporters and opponents.  It has reportedly spawned threats, and affected some students’ class attendance.  In recent days, personal information about trans* students was circulated in far right subreddits, and protesters were nearly overwhelmed by an angry mob that allegedly included neo-Nazis.  This puts the University of Toronto in a quandary, as calls for reprisal — including possibly firing Peterson — have arisen.

From my perspective, reprisals like firing are not really a preferable end goal. We do value freedom of speech in Canada, after all — especially in academic settings — so there is that kernel of validity, even if Peterson’s speech is disrespectful or hateful. He’s entitled to his opinion, and also to be a jerk about it, on his own time.  Restrictions on freedom of speech are too often used to oppress minorities rather than people of privilege, anyway — much like the “homosexual propaganda” ban in Russia, which conservatives are still trying to figure out how to lobby for in North America.  It’s that extra step that Peterson wants to take it with students and colleagues which makes the question particularly difficult.

When I say this, though, it’s also partly because I’m an avid reader of social conservative media, and understand the undercurrent of persecution narrative activism. It’s why I can recognize what likely motivates someone who — without anyone ever asking him to respect trans* people in the first place — took it upon himself to loudly and energetically pursue free speech martyrdom anyway.

And personally, I see no value in giving it to him. Peterson’s actions — whether deliberately or by coincidence — are destined to place him in a growing collection of social conservatives who self-immolate for a few moments of anti-LGBTQ fame. It’s become trendy to seek a place on the Kim Davis speaking circuit, alongside Fundie cake bakers, and the twice-suspended Alabama Chief Justice who tried to singlehandedly overturn marriage equality in the United States.  Free speech martyrdom is also Ezra Levant’s entire schtick (which he’s still trying to parlay into a media network), so it also has just as valid and active a presence in Canada outside of overtly religious circles.  Whining that someone’s “special right” to dignity and equality is trampling your perfectly ordinary right to discriminate seems to make you a far right folk hero, these days. One of the end objectives of this, of course, is to insert a special religious exemption in human rights laws, so that people can practice their faith by refusing to sell to, hire, or otherwise co-exist with heathens (I might have got the precise wording wrong on this, because I don’t remember the particular scripture where Jesus commanded his followers to willfully disrespect and refuse to do business with sinners — I keep getting hung up on the “love one another” and “give unto Caesar” parts, for some reason).

Anyway, free speech martyrdom will allow Peterson to play hero… or at least until some other dupe comes along. After all, the whole value of the Kim Davises and Melissa Kleins to conservative activists only lasts as long as they’re useful to the two legal groups (Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel) trying to etch anti-LGBTQ discrimination into American law, plus the allied think tanks, religious organizations and media outlets that are parasitically fundraising off both their successes and their failures. The Kleins, for example, recently closed their bakery, ruined because they thought that refusing to do business with a lesbian couple was a noble idea — and now they’re almost forgotten, except by the vaguely-phrased legend of the cake bakers. In that circuit, the fate of someone like Jordan Peterson is irrelevant.  The point of beatifying the speech martyrs is to entice more dupes into creating more situations that help build a narrative which frames LGBTQ peoples’ rights to live, work and do business as automatically and inherently persecuting to people of faith… something that Peterson’s firing would fit into just as beautifully as any technical victory he might (though it’s a longshot) find some way to score.

Either way, giving Peterson the glory he seems to seek really only feeds an ongoing anti-LGBTQ political tactic — even if deceptive — and gives it power.

Yet, there does have to be some form of limit. There’s no denying the destructive effect of cumulative aggressions and microaggressions. It’s one thing to be told by someone that they think you’re deluded and that they refuse to respect you. It’s quite another to be told that in billionuplicate, at every turn, by several people you don’t know (and even worse: some you do), without you ever having done anything to warrant the hostility. If you pay attention to news related to trans* people, you know that stories of suicides due to bullying and harassment arrive on a weekly basis… and that’s only the reported instances.

Because as valid as the need to protect free speech is, it is also very often weaponized, and used to gaslight entire communities that just want to be able to participate in society and be accorded the same dignity and respect as anyone else. It’s used to minimize them, tell them they ask too much, and shame them into going away — back into their closets would be just fine, for example. Remember what I said about free speech in the real world being often a one-sided or lopsided thing.

But where to draw the line on hateful speech is almost impossible to determine. It’s easy to limit speech in cases of libel and direct harassment or incitement. Cumulative hatefulness, though, is difficult to realistically pin on an individual, especially given that an individual doesn’t always intend the hostile fallout generated by their supporters or the like-minded. I don’t know that it can be done legislatively, except in extreme and / or intended instances.

What has to happen is a mass awakening, and a mass rejection of ignorance — and unfortunately, the pace of that kind of change is glacial. Of course, mass backlash will still be framed as persecution and censorship, but it will be better recognized widely as a reasoned response to bigotry.  And that takes time and awareness… and continual revisitation.

And if there is no clear legislative solution, then there’s not a lot of guidance outside the court system, either. So I understand the position this puts the University of Toronto (and potentially the Ontario Human Rights Commission, if it came to that) in… particularly with the issue of pronouns.

The thing to keep in mind about pronouns is that deliberately misgendering someone is itself an act of hostility — an act of asserting that you know better than someone else who they are, what they need and what their life experiences mean. It’s putting your inconvenience of having to adapt ahead of the reality of their entire lives. It’s not just about invalidating one’s choice of pronoun — it’s about claiming the right to authoritatively invalidate everything that they know about themself(/ves)*.

[* And if you paused for less than five seconds to look at that, understood it — however awkward that pronoun might have looked — shrugged and moved on, then congratulations: you’re far better able to cope with gender neutral and / or singular “they” pronouns than a UofT prof!]

Allowing Peterson to speak his opinions about “gender ideology” is one thing. Having him publicly vow to deliberately antagonize and disrespect students and other faculty members is quite another.  And as the increasing tensions and threats over the course of his campaign have shown, sustained, hateful free speech can have serious consequences.

So what is to be done?  The best scenario would be if Peterson would recognize where he has stepped beyond speech into deliberate antagonism and borderline incitement, maybe apologize, or at least leave things be, but that’s obviously not going to happen.  Probably, the only result that both he and trans* advocates and supporters will be satisfied with is some form of free speech martyrdom, in the form of firing or some lesser kind of censure.

And this will inevitably once more feed the conservative persecution complex, and the dreams of a Trump-like saviour to free them — in the words of the inimitable Samantha Bee — “from that prison, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect.”

(Crossposted to rabble.ca)

Canada’s forthcoming “drop your pants” trans* blood donation policy

In addition to reducing the required wait time between having sex and donating blood to one year for gay men, Canadian Blood Services is poised to release its first-ever guidance on how CBS personnel should respond to potential trans* donors: if it’s in you to give, then drop your pants.  While the policy has not yet been released officially, it was leaked to Buzzfeed, and is being corroborated by the health organization’s representatives on Twitter.

Oh, you don’t have to literally drop your pants. Canadian Blood Services doesn’t actually want to see your junk — they just want to know what’s there. Because that’s not invasive at all.

That is, I assume that no one is checking your junk. But it depends on whether voluntary information is sought by CBS, or some other proof. Identification doesn’t help verify genital status, because most provinces allow ID changes prior to surgery.  Requiring surgery proved to be discriminatory, prohibitive and created significant hardships for lengthy stretches of trans* peoples’ lives, if not indefinitely. [There is an interesting historical fact about that: surgery-based ID policies followed a precedent set by Sweden, where lawmakers in the early 1970s deliberately chose that benchmark, because it would ensure that sterilization occurred.]

The reasoning to the new CBS policy is that if your partner is male and you’re a pre- or non-operative trans* woman, post-operative trans* man, or a not-medically-inclined-at-all gender diverse person who has a penis, then CBS considers you to be a man who has sex with men (MSM). Besides seeming very reminiscent of ultra-conservative judgments about what constitutes a “real” woman or man, it also makes presumptions about one’s partners — i.e. insisting that a straight male who dates a trans* women is actually gay — and other judgments that are potentially shaming in nature.

It does raise some questions, though. For example, why would it take a year following genital surgery to become safe enough for trans* women with male partners to donate blood (by contrast, genital surgery would be immediately disqualifying for trans* men with male partners)? And if a potential trans* donor has slept with trans* partners, does the surgical status of everyone need to be disclosed?

The change follows a similar policy enacted for gay men in the U.S. last year, although that policy honoured trans* peoples’ own self-identification and considered their self-disclosed sexual history, rather than demanding intimate medical information.

Incredibly enough, this is actually an improvement over the previous situation with Canadian Blood Services, in which the ability to donate blood was mostly dependent on the subjective decision of clinic staff, and often saw trans* people of either and / or neither gender automatically classified as “MSM” — and sometimes, the sex of their partner(s) or whether they’d been sexually active at all were considered altogether irrelevant details.

Probably nothing better illustrates just how arbitrary and regressive abstinence-before-donating policies and adherence to narrow-sighted MSM classification are.  The change is also very poorly-timed, following the shocking massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which saw the community hardest hit by the violence — predominantly Latinx LGBT people — unable to donate blood to help their loved ones and siblings-in-spirit (despite some misinformation circulating at the time).

Now, to be entirely fair to the Canadian health agency, this mode of thought didn’t originate with Canadian Blood Services.

For example, “Men who have Sex with Men (MSM)” terminology originated with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other early public health organizations. It was ironically intended to be more inclusive than only focusing on gay men, but had the (theoretically unintended) result of invalidating trans* peoples’ gender identification. For the longest time, though, international health NGOs resisted acknowledging the existence of trans* people, and stubbornly insisted the classification was adequate… which only reinforced the impression that the invalidation was deliberate.

In fact, “MSM” language, thinking and subsequent HIV activism and education (aside from whatever mitigation occurred at the grassroots level) has a history of alienating trans* people, and confounding safe sex initiatives, outreach and data-gathering among trans* populations — a tragic situation for a community in which infection rates remain significantly high.  Even LGB(t) organizations perpetuated the problem, although this gradually improved around the start of this decade. [I first wrote about this (albeit with imperfect terminology, too) back in 2010, after being excoriated by an LGB(t) organization representative collecting data, who launched into a tirade saying that by declining to push a horribly-phrased survey on trans* people, I’d be “‘guilty of the murder of’ every transsexual woman who perished from HIV who might have benefited from the study.”  Yes, things have not always been amiable.]

Canadian Blood Services came into being specifically because of the scandal raised in the 1980s and 1990s resulting from screening failures of NGOs like the Red Cross during the AIDS crisis.  Its policies are directed by Health Canada.

Being fair to CBS also requires one to acknowledge a few further facts:

1. There is a short window of time (roughly a couple of weeks in most cases, but sometimes up to a few months) in which HIV still evades detection, and
2. Penile-anal intercourse (PAI) remains a high-risk mode of transmission.

Of these, penile-anal intercourse — the premise on which the “MSM” policy is premised — notably also occurs with some frequency among heterosexual partners, while not all gay men engage in it.  On the other hand, targeting specific communities instead of activities has created an inherent bias, and allows homophobic and transphobic organizations and figureheads to perpetuate stigma.

The number of sexual partners one has had in the previous year is also a crucial factor, which “MSM” screening on its own fails to account for.

Before forming government, the Liberal Party had petitioned to end the blood donor deferral policy altogether. When the one-year deferral policy for men was released, Health Minister Jane Philpott was quoted as saying:

“The desire is to be able to have those deferrals based on behaviour as opposed to sexual orientation.” 

This statement, of course, is the right direction.

The new practice, on the other hand, is destined to be an embarrassing anachronism.

As incremental as it may be, the policy that has been issued for (non-trans*) gay men fails, exactly because it continues to fixate on who is donating, rather than what their specific sexual history and risk factors are.  And when the attempt is made to extend that same policy to trans* people, its shaky logic disintegrates altogether.

(Crossposted to rabble.ca)

Canada’s Trans* Rights Bill Now Endorses Bans in Washroom and Gendered Spaces

Canada’s trans* human rights bill C-279 was amended by a Senate committee, in a way that makes it legal to ban trans* people from washrooms and gendered spaces appropriate to their gender identity.

Sen. Donald Plett, Conservative member of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, added a legal exemption for “any service, facility, accommodation or premises that is restricted to one sex only, such as a correctional facility, crisis counseling facility, shelter for victims of abuse, washroom facility, shower facility or clothing changing room.”  The amendment passed with six of the committee members supporting it, four opposed, and one abstention.

There were two other unanimous amendments made.  One added the category of “sex” to the protections in the Criminal Code (which has long been a bizarre and serious omission from hate crimes legislation).  The other removed the definition of “gender identity” which had been added in the House of Commons as a condition of passing the bill, back in 2013.  Because the bill has been amended, it would need to return to the House for a final vote before being enacted.  It is thought unlikely that the bill would be brought forward before an election call — and now, if it did, the bill’s original proponents would oppose it — meaning that C-279 is almost certainly dead.

“The very act that is designed to prohibit discrimination is being amended to allow discrimination,” the bill’s Senate sponsor, Grant Mitchell, pointed out.  “It holds people who are law-abiding, full-fledged and equal members of our society accountable for the potential — the very, very long-shot potential — that someone would misuse this to justify a criminal act.” (The transcript has not been posted yet, but the videocast is still available)

Sen. Plett has long claimed that the bill would be exploited by pedophiles and rapists to attack women and children in washrooms, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by law enforcement officials and other experts:

“Minneapolis Police Department: Fears About Sexual Assault “Not Even Remotely” A Problem. Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder told Media Matters in an interview that sexual assaults stemming from Minnesota’s 1993 transgender non-discrimination law have been “not even remotely” a problem. Based on his experience, the notion of men posing as transgender women to enter women’s restrooms to commit sex crimes “sounds a little silly,” Elder said. According to Elder, a police department inquiry found “nothing” in the way of such crimes in the city… [Phone interview, 3/11/14]”

Additionally, criminal activity in a washroom or gendered space would continue to remain criminal regardless of the gender of the perpetrator.  On the other hand, trans* women face very real dangers when institutionally housed with men or made to use segregated facilities according to their birth sex.

Nevertheless, bathroom-related fearmongering has been the cause of several petitions and campaigns to kill trans* human rights legislation in North America.  It has also started to spawn draconian bathroom-policing bills (some of which ignore the actual genital status of the person, even though genitals are allegedly the rationale for the law):

“Building managers who “repeatedly allow” trans people to use the bathroom that accords with their gender identity would, however, face up to two years in jail and a maximum $10,000 fine under the proposed law.

“… If passed, the law could tighten how Texas defines gender, not only singling out transgender people, but those who have chromosomes that don’t fit the strict definition laid out in the bill, like intersex individuals. The bill reads:

” For the purpose of this section, the gender of an individual is the gender established at the individual’s birth or the gender established by the individual’s chromosomes. A male is an individual with at least one X chromosome and at least one Y chromosome, and a female is an individual with at least one X chromosome and no Y chromosomes. If the individual’s gender established at the individual’s birth is not the same as the individual’s gender established by the individual’s chromosomes, the individual’s gender established by the individual’s chromosomes controls under this section…”

Plett’s reasoning essentializes trans* women as being “biological males” (“… and I will use ‘men’ because I believe they are biological men — ‘transgender,’ but biologically, they are men”), and asserts that they are inherently a threat to cis* (non-trans*) women.  When it was pointed out that his amendment would require trans* men to use womens’ facilities, Plett appeared indifferent, and he later referred to a young trans* man as “she.”  Plett added that he believed his amendment would allow “separate but equal treatment.”

Bill C-279 would affect only areas under federal jurisdiction, such as federal facilities, the Armed Forces, federal agencies, and First Nations reserves.  But it had been seen as a potentially important symbol of human rights protection to have specific federal inclusion.  Canadian human rights commissions consider trans* people written into legislation, but without explicit inclusion, there remains a possibility of an overturn in court precedent (where application is not as certain).  Meanwhile, companies that take direction from federal legislation continue to not see a need to develop policies for trans* employees.

The Northwest Territories was the first Canadian jurisdiction to pass trans-inclusive legislation, in 2002.  Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and Saskatchewan all have provincial protections.  In British Columbia, a similar bill, M-211, has been blocked by B.C. Liberals, who refuse to allow it to face a vote or discussion.

Former Member of Parliament Bill Siksay first introduced a trans* human rights bill in 2005, and continued to reintroduce it in every Parliamentary session, until it eventually passed in the House of Commons. However, it was awaiting ratification in the Senate when a federal election was called, which killed the bill.  In 2011, Siksay left federal politics, and Randall Garrison reintroduced it as C-279.  In 2012, many trans* people stopped campaigning for the bill when the characteristic of gender expression was deleted from the bill, and a definition of gender identity was added.

(A version of this article also appears at Rabble.ca and The Bilerico Project)

Our destinies are bound together (even if our needs are diverse and sometimes at odds)

Monica Roberts at TransGriot is exploring the future of the trans* movement:

“One of the things I was pondering recently was triggered by me seeing a pic of a five year old trans girl.  I began to ponder what her Trans World that we 2K10’s activists are fighting tooth and nail to shape, would be like 10 to 20 years from now…”

Blogger apparently won’t accept a comment this long, so I’ll post my thoughts here instead:

Any time we try to wax prescient about a social issue and its future, we have to be careful not to forget the pendulum effect of social progress.  We have a period of great strides, then a stage of regression, then more advances.  I believe Dr. King understood this before anyone in human rights movements, when he spoke of the arc of the moral universe being long but bending toward justice: it is glacial, and fraught with forward-then-backward strides, but it eventually inches forward.  The trans* movement is definitely in a forward swing, no doubt about it, but eventually we’ll hit another backward slide before advancing once again.

But it’s also crucial to see our own social movement as part of a much larger picture.  More on that in a moment.

Trans* communities still have a few more years of forward motion, no doubt.  The far-right religious persecution complex is unconvincing, and the longer washroom panic is touted but fails to manifest in actual harm, the faster that tactic evaporates.  If Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERFism) manages to change some of the thinking within feminism, that contraction could come sooner, but I don’t believe it will, unless we play too eagerly into TERF persecution games.  More likely, that contraction will happen because of changing priorities.  Something more urgent will come to the fore, and we’ll once again be seen as a 0.01% -sized minority… and that will trigger the next stagnation or regression.

We also have to keep in mind that social movements have a horrible track record of turning on their own, as the difficulties of earlier generations becomes forgotten.  I see a time coming when youth (not this particular generation of youth, who are fighting pioneering battles of their own, but perhaps the generation that comes after them) start being unable to understand how it could have been so difficult to come out or why people would have waited until their late 30s, 40s, 50s or older to begin transition.  And with we older folks being more ravaged by incongruent hormones (especially for trans women, since testosterone is such a vicious chemical), lookism will become a serious issue, as well as greater inter-movement criticism about socialization (sometimes deserved, sometimes overstated).  There will inevitably be a new quest for the “appropriate face” of the movement, as if such a thing could exist, and increasingly those who pioneered progress for trans* people will become seen as a liability to that.

There is a bright side, though, which is found by looking at the larger picture.  Social progressives have reached a wall.  The corporate, religious and political worlds have merged into an oligarchic monolith that we cannot face any other way.  In order for *any* social movements to progress in the larger scheme of things, there has to be a coming together, and getting away from colonial / umbrella-style thinking so that we can all rediscover what it means to be an alliance: that it’s not an assimilationist melting pot, the borders of which need to be rigidly policed and people either belong or they don’t (we keep trying that and failing), but rather a critical mass of varied and unique individuals who all deserve a voice and (the harder part) who all also need to listen… and who stand together for mutual advancement, equitably.  Feminism, racial justice, environmentalism, labour rights, sexual minority equality (LGBTTIQQA2S, as well as poly people, sex workers and other emerging groups), issues of global climate change, reproductive rights, classism, privacy rights and personal liberties (as opposed to neoliberalism), the rights of the disabled, the rights of youth (as opposed to parental ownership), economic justice… in the near-term, all of our destinies are bound together, even if our objectives differ and sometimes even conflict.  The political left is going to have to decolonize if it is to survive.  It will take time, but the need will be for everyone to have a seat at the table.  We no longer have the luxury of infighting… it’s time to either work this stuff out, or else to put the differences aside.

Those lessons will be hard.  The lesbian and gay establishment is still learning that it cannot speak for trans* people, but rather need to empower them.  Some pockets of feminism, likewise, remain too blinded by dubious data and an ideology that says that all sex work is inherently victimizing to actually listen to sex workers when they speak out about what will either harm or empower them.  It’s seductively easy to slip into patronizing condescension and predisposed belief than to listen to and learn from profound lived experience.

It’s also difficult to get others to care about an issue without ceding “ownership” of the issue.  One can’t say labour rights “is an LGBT issue” in a way that means that LGBT people should be dictating what labour needs — but one must still recognize how the systematic dismantling of labour harms the economically vulnerable (including many LGBT people), and amplifies inequality in a deep and systemic way.  Social movements usually see things as an all-or-nothing endeavor: either we own it, or we don’t have an obligation to care about it.  That has to change.  Incrementalism is a lie and steals fire from true, substantial change.  Individual movements must let go of the “us first” impulse and start seeing “everyone together” as the goal.

In these ways, social movements might almost ever be stumbling recklessly toward unity.

So as much as things like lookism will surface in later generations for the trans* movement, it will be mitigated by the larger evolution of social movements.  And as much as TERFism might seek to alienate trans* people from the feminist movement and the greater conversation about gender, it will similarly be mitigated by this.  Exclusion will be a lesser factor (eventually).  Learning to look inward and deal with our own biases and challenge ourselves to rise above them will be the next (and probably much harder) step.  And it will be absolutely necessary.

It also won’t be complete or perfect.  Social movements have a horrible record of backlash and subterfuge, mixed with self-sabotage.  So it all might fail.  Oligarchism might siphon off individual movements one at a time and absorb them.  The lesbian and gay establishment are already vulnerable to this, for example, given the classism that infects the hierarchied LGB(T) establishment.  It is here that the lateness of trans* empowerment and the emergence of poly folks, sex workers, asexuals, et al could prove a saving grace, and in which the LGB community’s gradual (stumbling) learning of how to support trans* people without trying to speak for them could provide lessons for changes to come.

But other assimilations could still be on the horizon.  If the energy industry did a public about-face (for whatever motive), for example, it could possibly absorb the movement against global climate change.  If that resulted in substantial reduction to the harm humans do to the planet, that would be great, yet I could see this sort of a time coming: environmentally-conscious alternatives become available and harnessed by the corporate sector, but the change will require wealth, and those who can’t afford to adapt are seen as the real / new menace.  In this way, people who once lobbied against oil and gas become suddenly not able to afford the progress they fought for… one more way to keep the masses turned upon each other.

Each time the co-option of a movement happens, it steals progressives’ fire, and a movement toward critical mass to address oppression on a grander scale could fail.  Society is at a pivotal time.

And as the political world polarizes, militarizes and veers into mass espionage, that could bode badly overall for social movements, which have historically been viewed as radical and threatening.  So the political pressures will be very much against a coming together of progressives.

And the greatest fear of all is that the general public is remarkably and tragically apathetic.  Just getting people to vote is a difficult task (and that’s if they’re allowed to under growing suppression).  If progress is to happen, it needs something to motivate people in a grand way: not just to scare people about how bad things are getting (which there’s already plenty of, and can be demotivating of itself), but to inspire people with a new vision of how things can be.  That vision is still being formulated.

So that’s the lens I look through.

Returning to trans* communities, the science will improve, certainly.  As Monica says, we’ll see advances in surgical options, probably the biggest leaps deriving from cloning.  Surgical advances on genital-specific health care are more challenging for trans* people, though, because it’s not just about a penis or vagina: the surface stuff can almost be done now (not quite for the guys, but the technology is almost there), but a lot of the inner biological infrastructure will take longer.

Additionally, we might discover the biological triggers (I suspect there’s more than one) that contribute to (as opposed to exclusively cause) someone being trans* — and that could be a mixed blessing of its own, depending on what that future generation decides to do with that new information.

The human rights advances will continue in the west, although Asia and Africa will take longer.  If the social-left decolonizing of activism I wrote of earlier happens, this will significantly help in those regions, as much of the anti-LGBT sentiment there has gained traction because the political right figured out how to hijack the language of decolonialism and mask their own colonial aims.  If the left comes together, the deceptive spin will eventually fail, and LGBT people will become properly recognized as the oppressed class rather than as a potential oppressor to fear.

The backlash to that will be that the political, corporate and social right will seek to dismantle the human rights mechanisms themselves: human rights commissions, rights laws, diversity policies… all of that will be framed as no longer relevant (i.e. “racism is over” / “feminists are the real oppressors,” etc.) and an impediment to the nation’s best interests (a slier way of saying corporate and religious interests).  That’s a looming fight we’re just seeing emerge right now.  We’re winning a lot of the battles, but the war is shifting to a new and larger front.

I apologize for that sounding preachy, something that is certainly not helped by referring to the royal “we.”  I know we have our own individual limitations.  We can’t do everything.  Living in rural Alberta now, I’m very conscious about how much less I do and can do than before, so I don’t say any of the above with judgment.  It’s simply my limited, fallible observation.

Push, pull, forward, backward.  And gradually, we’ll get somewhere.  But it will be rocky.

Google Trends on “Transgender”

Posted for discussion and interest value.

Out of curiosity, I plunked the word “transgender” into Google Trends.  It’s not my terminology of choice, but it’s what most people use and what the general public is most likely to search for.  Here’s what I got:

The numbers aren’t an exact value of something, but a comparative value versus the highest peak on record, which is apparently right now.  Or as Google Trends puts it:

Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart. If at most 10% of searches for the given region and time frame were for “pizza,” we’d consider this 100. This doesn’t convey absolute search volume. Learn more

I don’t know if there were other stories that occurred during the same months of those peaks and contributing to the results — it’s possible, I’ve only noted what Google flagged as the top search item.

A few more charts:

and

Presented without commentary, in case anyone is curious.

On the Detention of Trans People

(This article has been updated with information newly disclosed in a report by Global News — Mercedes, 24April14)

“… in a way that is not inconsistent with one’s gender identity.”

Remember that phrase.  It’s going to simplify something that might otherwise seem like a complicated issue.

So this British comedian walks into Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

Some of you have heard this one before…

The treatment of trans people (particularly trans women) in detention facilities, in the correctional system and in border security has come under re-examination recently, following the story of 25-year old Avery Edison.  The British comedian had overstayed her student visa during a previous visit to Canada, and so upon her return, she was detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).  That would all be unremarkable, if not for the fact that she is trans… which means that CBSA did not feel they had a space to accommodate her, and instead sent her to spend the night in a mens’ prison.

This led to a backlash against CBSA (and to a degree also Correctional Services Canada, which has a similar policy to CBSA and which provided the prison facility).  By evening, it was being reported that Avery was being moved to the Vanier Centre for Women.  She has since returned to the U.K. (and has talked about the experience on a few occasions).

But although Edison’s situation has been resolved, her experience leaves unanswered questions about how trans people are handled in correctional and detention systems.  And since her situation, two other incidents have brought the issue back to media attention.

A Human Rights Law Point of Note

Human rights law with regard to trans people is still in a state of flux.  In the discussion about Avery’s situation, people pointed to Toby’s Act, a trans human rights law that had been passed in the Province of Ontario, and claimed that the detention was a violation of that law.  But even though Edison’s detention happened in Toronto, Toby’s Act does not apply.  The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) — like Correctional Services Canada (CSC) and the RCMP — is a federal agency, and therefore subject to federal legislation.

On the other hand, Randall Garrison’s federal trans human rights bill, C-279 — which passed in Parliament and is awaiting approval by the Senate — would apply… but it hasn’t received Royal Assent as of yet.  A similar but more comprehensive bill (Bill Siksay’s C-389) passed in the previous Parliament, but died before receiving Senate approval, when an election was called.  C-279 would apply to federal institutions, while most peoples’ employment, housing and access-to-service situations remain provincial in jurisdiction.  And to be fair, even if Bill C-279 had been given Royal Assent, it would still likely take CBSA, CSC and other federal agencies some time to bring their policies in line to be consistent with it.

However, they have had since at least 2011 to realize that there would eventually need to be a policy change, and have not done anything (including other previous issues at the border alone, in 2013).  A trans human rights law will inevitably pass, whether in this session or in the next Parliament.  The time to plan for and begin that change is now.

Housing of Trans Inmates and Detainees

Correctional and detention facilities currently house trans people (and people who were born with intersex medical conditions) according to the configuration of their genitalia — if you have a penis, you’re housed with males, and if you have a vagina, you’re housed with females.   This policy is also accompanied by a lot of gender essentialism, invalidation, misgendering and antagonism, both from hostile staff and from other detainees or inmates.  And although some will minimize this as inconsequential or as mere expressions of free speech, the lived experience of it is in fact one of deliberate and sustained hostility and dehumanization.

This housing policy can create a cyclical problem in which trans people are housed contrary to their gender identities because of their genitalia, but are also then denied access to medical care like genital reassignment surgery (GRS), which would (by extension) be a crucial step toward obtaining more appropriate housing.  In the U.S., a 14-year-long series of lawsuits pertaining to access to medical services continues, following the appeal of the most recent verdict in Michelle Kosilek’s favour.

In Canada, a human rights complaint had resolved the issue in trans peoples’ favour in 2001, but a 2010 directive from the Harper government instructed CSC to stop funding GRS surgeries, anyway.  The post-2001 policy is still on CSC’s website, but the actual practice under the Harper government has been to ignore the policy and deny GRS, which the government insists is not essential (contrary to the medical consensus).  The Conservative government does so via a distortion of the “real life test” (RLE, better known as “real life experience”) recommended by the WPATH Standards of Care (SoC).  The SoC requires living as ones identified gender for one year in the community, and the government considers that RLE suspended when a person is incarcerated (contrary to WPATH’s intent).  This “suspension” of the RLE also opens up the possibility of ignoring an inmate’s attempt to transition, or denying things like hormone therapy, although it’s not certain if this is occurring.  Prisoners’ Legal Services, based in B.C., is fighting to change CSC’s interpretation of the RLE.

Of course, there are two larger issues outside of this vicious circle.  The first is that “trans” covers a diversity of people.  Trans can signify a biological transition from one’s birth sex to their identified sex (which treads into medical territory, and refers to the people most commonly thought of), or a need to live between genders or independent of gender somehow (mostly through various modes of gender expression, but also sometimes involving some medical transition) — or some combination of those two characteristics.  [NB: the reason I use “trans” terminology, in fact, is to demonstrate that I’m referring to a diversity of people who are not easily defined under a single label]  For trans people who need surgery, there is often an anxiety and dysphoria that can make it a substantial and urgent need — but not all trans people experience that dysphoria or require surgery.

That leads to the second larger issue — that a person shouldn’t have to undergo major surgery/ies in order to be entitled to the same human rights and dignity as their peers.

And everyday practice does not always align with policy, for that matter. In American prisons, there have been cases where housing was sometimes not even determined by genitalia or identification documents — even though those are the policies — but by a subjective visual assessment of a person’s gender.  And sometimes, they have been completely wrong.  It has certainly led to trans women being housed with men even if they have had genital reassignment surgery.  Canadian prisons may have a better track record in this regard (although Avery Edison had a female gender marker on her ID), but it really depends on the employees empowered to make judgment calls.  We’ll return to that point.

Identity Documents

Part of what discourages institutions like CBSA and CSC from addressing trans accommodations is the fact that identity documents further confuse the issue.

Most provinces have policies requiring surgery and a doctor’s examination of genitals before gender markers can be updated — something that brings up human rights issues, especially when one considers that a genital reassignment surgery requirement is also a form of sterilization, essentially barring trans people from future procreation.  If that sounds like stretching to you, it’s worth remembering that at one time, some countries consciously codified this into their laws.

This surgery requirement creates hardships, however.  As not everyone medically transitions and/or proceeds to surgery, this results in incongruent identification.  For those who do transition medically, the process is at minimum a year (recommended by the current medical standards of care set by WPATH), but more often takes several, especially when there are barriers in accessing medical care, financial issues and other challenges.  During this time, incongruent identification opens people up to disenfranchisement, discrimination and even violence.

For this reason, some provinces have been revising their policies.  This is an important step to allowing trans people to participate in society, but in the interim, it also creates a situation in which identity documents are inconsistent from province to province.

In terms of border security, they’re even less consistent from country to country.  Some provinces (and some U.S. states) do not allow trans people to change the gender marker on their identification ever (regardless of surgical status).  A few nations are now starting to include the option of third gender markers (such as “X” for “not specified”).

And even when policies of accommodation exist, sometimes the steps to get there are amazingly inscrutable — witness this handy flow chart spanning three pages, outlining the steps a trans person needs to go through to obtain a gender-congruent passport, in Canada.

Consequently, identification documents can’t — at this point in time, at least — provide any definitive guidance on how trans people should be housed in correctional or detention situations.

(Trigger warning: there is some general discussion about rape and the fear of potential rape situations below)

“… in a way that is not inconsistent with one’s gender identity.”

Entities like CBSA and CSC are often afraid to look at changing their policies on trans people because it seems too daunting a task — and the complexities of identification certainly reinforce this impression.  Often, the idea of housing a woman who has a penis with other women also brings up the spectre of rape in womens’ institutions, and so correctional systems can be loath to considering change.

It is unreasonable to assume that women who have penises are automatically potential sex predators.  On the other hand, it is also unreasonable to require that all women with penises be accommodated in general female populations.  What’s missing is context, and a reasonable assessment of the risk that any individual (because predators exist in any characteristic population, even among cis women) poses to others.  A woman with a history of violence is justifiably going to be viewed differently from one who overstayed her visa.  An individual’s history must absolutely be taken into account.  Accommodation as one’s identified gender is an ideal situation, but violence, predation and other factors in detained individuals’ histories certainly has to be considered.

And yet, the solution is far easier than one might expect.  Housing trans people “in a way that is not inconsistent with their gender identity” allows for situation-relative options, while still providing dignity for trans people and safety for all concerned.  Accommodations for a trans woman might be a female facility, a trans- or LGBT-focused facility, short-term isolation or semi-isolation, or some other alternative.  No one solution fits all — for example, a trans-focused wing might still deny people access to programs that are available to other inmates and which they would otherwise qualify for — so a final decision is inevitably context-dependent.  Individual histories and risk assessments can be taken into account.  Individuals can be moved according to the varying levels of risk they both pose and are potentially subject to from other inmates (the latter seems to often be forgotten when discussing housing of trans people).  And yet a trans woman’s identity as a woman can still be respected.

One’s gender identity can be determined through a combination of factors, starting with a person’s own self-identification, and verified through supporting information, such as the individual’s gender expression, their identification (if updated), the name that they are currently using (i.e. if found on a piece of mail or correspondence on their cell phone), a letter from their doctor, or other supporting information.  There should be some flexibility, because hard-specifying particular forms of verification can be problematic: for example, not everyone can afford to update their legal identity information; also, requiring a letter from a doctor can create an institutional barrier to being accorded one’s human rights.

An individual’s own wishes should also be taken into account.   For example, some trans men are uncomfortable with the idea of being housed with males in detention and correctional systems.  And some trans people do not identify as either gender.

Although there may not be a hard-and-fast rule for every situation, housing trans people “in a way that is not inconsistent with their gender identity” provides a respectable base from which to start, within the context of nearly any given situation.

It’s More Than Housing

It’s absolutely crucial that staff receive training on professional communication with and treatment of transgender and gender nonconforming inmates.  They also need to be aware of intersex conditions enough to respect individuals who may not identify as trans, but still not neatly fit into binary housing defined by physical sex.

Police forces have begun to revise their policies surrounding strip searches of trans people, so that they’re searched by a person of their identified gender, or else they can opt for a “split search,” with one male and one female officer.  This is because strip searches of trans women by male officers has historically resulted in abuse, and resulted in a 2006 ruling asserting trans peoples’ right to dignity.

Correctional and border security institutions need to adopt similar policies, and to also ban gratuitous searches or physical examinations of transgender inmates and those with intersex conditions solely for determining their genital status.  If the need for a genital examination arises outside of a necessary strip search scenario, it should be conducted by medical professionals, with the understanding that the option to be examined by a medical professional of ones identified gender should still apply.

Rape and Torture Were Not the Penalty

People who are incarcerated in the correctional system are usually not given a lot of sympathy, and people detained by border and immigration services have been increasingly seen with the same kind of negativity (or at best, ambivalence).  It’s important to remember that regardless of what a person has done, they’re still entitled to due process and the same rights and dignity of others in the correctional system.  We certainly don’t sentence people to prison rape, for example.  As soon as a person is targeted for specifically additional treatment because of who they are, that quickly becomes cruel and unusual punishment.  And it’s important for social movements to care about all of those within their constituencies — even those who make mistakes.

In the case of trans people in detention situations or worse, that cruel and unusual punishment starts with constant hostility and antagonism pertaining to their gender identities.  Pronouns and names become weapons, and that is simply the start.  Trans women housed in male facilities also become very obvious targets for potential rape.  This is significant, and it can be argued that by consciously and deliberately housing trans women with men, the Canadian government may in fact be institutionally sanctioning that rape.

Institutions usually try to reduce this risk of rape by keeping trans people in administrative segregation — a nicer way of saying “solitary confinement.”  This removes social interaction almost entirely, it is psychologically devastating, and the United Nations asserts that over 15 consecutive days of solitary confinement classifies as torture.  For trans women, solitary confinement is sometimes the full length of their incarceration.

Avery Edison’s story and those that have followed reveal not only a problem with housing by CBSA and CSC, but also a severe education issue among staff in both the border and correctional systems. Both can be remedied… it’s just a question of whether institutions want to do so.

The Difficulties in Remembering Rosa

In the early morning hours of November 24th, the body of a possibly trans person was found in Edmonton, Alberta.

I say “possibly trans” because it’s unclear how this person identified, and to my knowledge, no one in the trans community has met them or would be able to shed light on who they were.  And unfortunately, for this reason, I need to open with the following preamble:

The victim has been identified by the Edmonton Police Service as Jon Syah Ribut.  However, she also used the names Rose, Rosa and Dido. In the Edmonton Journal, Paula Simons noted that  “… it’s not clear whether Ribut saw himself as transgender — or as a gay man who sometimes liked to cross-dress — or as something else altogether….” Although Simons (a journalist who is is trans-aware and trans-positive) uses male names and pronouns, it’s clear that she’s conflicted about it and knows that more information is needed.  I will be using a female name and pronouns instead, but want to stress that both Simons and I are making a guess, and either of us could just as easily be wrong.

Rosa Ribut died of blunt force trauma, and 20-year-old Marcel Cristian Niculae has been charged in her death.  There is no further information being given yet as to what happened or what the motive might have been.

Ribut, 35, was an Indonesian citizen who came to Canada in 2012 under the Temporary Foreign Worker program.  She had been working at a 7-Eleven in that capacity (presenting as male), but had also taken up working evenings as a female-presenting escort.

Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program allows employers to bring in foreign workers and employ them for below minimum wage, with fewer regulations governing employer obligations to staff.  Temporary foreign workers are not eligible for public health care coverage or other social programs, and lose their residency if they quit their jobs, the net result of which is a more vulnerable and dependent workforce.  While there is no indication that the TFW program was used to bring her to Canada for sex work, a temporary worker employed at a 7-Eleven convenience store wouldn’t have had it very easy making ends meet on that income alone.

Ribut was from Indonesia, where “warias” (often characterized as males born with female souls — it’s not known if Ribut identified in this way) had once been traditionally respected.  However, trans people in Indonesia have been increasingly ostracized and have also faced challenges to their legal status over the years.  More recently, trans women have been targeted by vice raids that conflate trans people with sex workers, regardless of whether they are or not. In some parts of the country, the Muslim group Islam Defenders Front (FPI) have waged a cultural campaign against trans people, intimidating advocates and forcing the closure of trans and LGBT functions, while the National Police have been reluctant to intervene.

While it’s possible that Rosa Ribut was targeted for violence because of her gender, certainly the marginalization that sex workers experience made her vulnerable to the attack, and her escorting work is thought to be a contributing factor to the events of her murder.  December 17th is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, and the murder of Rosa Ribut is a tragic reminder of the brutality that sex workers sometimes face.  Trans people have a similar memorial in November of every year, but it should also be recognized how people of intersecting minority characteristics (trans status, sex work, race and / or the poverty-classed) can experience a disproportionately high amount of hatred, violence and risk.

Little about Rosa is known, other than details culled from her Facebook page (now offline).  According to the Edmonton Journal:

“His friends called him Rosa or Rose or Dido. For them, he posted pictures of himself enjoying the Edmonton winter — frolicking in the snow at the legislature grounds, shopping on trendy 104th Street. People tend to curate their Facebook pages to put the happiest gloss on our lives. But certainly, nothing in Ribut’s Facebook timeline suggests he was in Edmonton under duress. He joked online that he was a snow princess, who’d come here to find his snow prince…”

More details will likely follow in the coming months.