C-279 Passes Third Reading (Hansard)

C-279 passed Third Reading, on a vote of 149 – 137.  Aaron Wherry gives the early breakdown:

“Randall Garrison’s bill was supported by the New Democrats, the majority of Liberals (Judy Sgro and John McKay abstained), the Bloc Quebecois, Bruce Hyer, Elizabeth May and, by my unofficial count, 17 Conservative MPs: Erin O’Toole, Bernard Trottier, Terrence Young, David Wilks, Laurie Hawn, Michael Chong, Chris Alexander, Shelly Glover, Kellie Leitch, Cathy McLeod, Deepak Obhrai, Gerald Keddy, Jim Flaherty, John Baird, James Moore, Lisa Raitt and John Duncan.”

Before the Third Reading vote, there were three votes on clusters of amendments:

• Amendment cluster one, Division no. 642 (defining Gender Identity as per the first half of the Yogyakarta definition): 152 to 134.
• Amendment cluster two, Division no. 643 (dropping gender expression, and adding classes that have already been added to human rights legislation since the bill was originally drafted): 148 to 140.
• Report Stage, Division no. 644 (concur the bill in with the amendments): 150 to 137

If you’re wondering how your MP voted on the amendments, today’s Hansard is up.  No one paired in any of the votes (so in answer to one query, no, Justin Trudeau didn’t pair to make up for not being present), although there were some abstentions from the votes on amendments. Earlier in the day, Rob Anders tabled the notorious poll / petition which he actively solicited responses for through his website:

“Mr. Speaker, I stand today to present, on behalf of thousands of people who sent these to my office, petitions in opposition to Bill C-279, otherwise known as “the bathroom bill”, that would give transgendered men access to women’s public washroom facilities. These constituents feel that it is the duty of the House of Commons to protect and safeguard our children from any exposure and harm that would come from giving a man access to women’s public washroom facilities. I present thousands of signatures on behalf of the riding in Calgary West, and I know that there are many others that have gone to other members in this place.”

The votes at Third Reading are as follows:

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)

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.

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)