Transgender rights still unenshrined
Should gender identity and gender expression be prohibited grounds for discrimination?
Raigen D’Angelo
Chair, Trans Alliance Society
“Discrimination is not so overt”¦but we all have experienced”¦that look like, ”˜Yeah, like we’re going to rent to you; yeah, we’re going to give you the job; yeah, that’s not going to happen.’ It’s very subtle. It’s difficult to really put it in words unless you experienced that discrimination. It is very important that we educate people that there still is a section of the population that’s discriminated against.”
Laurie Geschke
President, REAL Women of Canada
“I would disagree with putting those two terms into any legislation, provincially or federally, because they are undefined. As human beings living in British Columbia”¦they all have the rights of every Canadian citizen. It’s not necessary for them to be trying to enshrine special privileges by using the human rights act. The last time I looked, there were 19 definitions of gender. Which of the 19 are they talking about?”
Spencer Herbert
Vancouver park board commissioner
“I think it’s about time. Transsexual, transgendered, gender-variant people face huge amounts of discrimination. It’s something many people know little about. The education hasn’t been done. I know some human-rights cases have been supportive of trans people but”¦if we want to make sure everybody understands who we want to support, this is necessary. It’s not a matter of moral values. It’s just a matter of looking at human dignity.”
Tim Stevenson
Vancouver city councillor
“Transgendered people are now the most oppressed group, and they do not have rights under the law. This is the big one last bastion of intolerance. I’m hopeful that the time has come now”¦to push ahead with transgender rights, but I think this will be a difficult and uphill battle for them. I’m not sanguine that they’ll be able to move this [B.C. Liberal] administration—they have not shown themselves to be particularly concerned about these issues.”
Raigen D’Angelo recalls playing a low-key role in the transgender-rights movement as a sex-trade worker during the 1990s.
“I did not want my clients to know about me, and if you look at the picture of me on the wall right there,” D’Angelo said in her East Vancouver home, pointing to a framed photo of a sultry-looking woman. “I would probably have been beaten royally by clients if they knew what I was, and I didn’t want my picture on every newspaper as a transwoman.”
More than a decade ago, advocates like Sandra LaFramboise waged a similar campaign to enshrine transgender rights. According to LaFramboise, a former nurse, they even came close to winning a landmark victory during the NDP government of then-premier Glen Clark.
LaFramboise told the Straight that while the B.C. Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation, it doesn’t protect transgender people.
According to the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the term transgender “refers to a person with a gender identity that is different from their birth sex or who expresses their gender in ways that contravene societal expectations of the range of possibilities for men and women”. Its Web site notes that this term may include cross-dressers, drag kings and queens, transsexuals, androgynous people, two-spirit people, those who are bigender or multigender, and those who do not identify with a particular label.
“I present myself as a female, but I like to wear pants, I like to wear short hair, I like to wear men’s shoes, men’s T-shirts,” LaFramboise said. “So the person says, ”˜You’re not feminine enough,’ and discriminates against me and doesn’t give me a job. Has he discriminated based on my sex? No. Has he discriminated against me based on my identity? Right!”
A founding member of the now-defunct transgender advocacy group High Risk Project Society, LaFramboise also noted that sexual orientation shouldn’t be confused with gender identity or gender expression. She said that sexual orientation simply indicates sexual preference—whether someone is heterosexual, gay, or lesbian, or a transgender person attracted to another transgender person.
LaFramboise is a two-spirit Métis woman and chief of the New Westminster–based Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society, which supports aboriginal as well as nonaboriginal transgender people. She recalled that a bill to protect gender identity and gender expression was introduced in the legislature in the late 1990s. But, according to LaFramboise, the legislation wasn’t successful and the issue was overtaken by controversies that hounded the Clark government and the provincial election that followed.
“If there’s something I regret, that was not being able to put it [the bill] through legislation,” former Vancouver-Burrard NDP MLA Tim Stevenson told the Straight. Now a two-term Vancouver city councillor, Stevenson worked closely with LaFramboise and other transgender-rights advocates on amending the Human Rights Code. “The government was distracted by other things,” he said.
Psychologist Christopher Shelley details the numerous challenges facing transgender people in his new book Transpeople: Repudiation, Trauma, Healing (University of Toronto Press, $29.95), ranging from accessing health care to “self oppression”.
“Transpeople are among the most subjugated and marginalized of social groups,” Shelley, a clinical director of the Adlerian Psychology Association of B.C., writes in the book. What he found most surprising is that transgender people face rejection from across the political spectrum, from conservatives, liberals, and radical feminists to lesbians and gay men.
Shelley, a lecturer on gender relations at UBC, notes that “trans repudiation”¦requires the solidarity of others to eradicate it.”
“Transpeople have something profound to teach us, yet unless we take down our defences we may not hear them and hence miss something that would benefit our own self-understanding,” he writes.
Transgender people face daily challenges
> Many live in poverty and have difficulty paying for the daily costs of living and health care.
> A survey of transgender people and loved ones in B.C. found that 31 percent reported income from social assistance, a nongovernment pension, or long- term disability funds.
> Fifteen percent reported needing housing services, 22 percent having needed housing services in the past, and 25 percent anticipating they would need housing assistance in the future.
> Forty-nine percent reported needing employment services in the past, currently needing services, or anticipating a future need.
> Twenty-six percent reported needing antiviolence services at some point.
> The needs of transgender parents are often not recognized, as it is assumed that transgender people do not have children.
> Transgender people with cognitive or mental-health issues are highly vulnerable to social isolation, abuse, and violence.
Source: Social and Medical Advocacy With Transgender People and Loved Ones: Recommendations for B.C. Clinicians, by Catherine White Holman and Joshua Mira Goldberg, January 2006
Comments
9 Comments
stephanie t
Aug 2, 2008 at 11:23am
Laurie Geshke wrote:
"As human beings living in British Columbia”¦they all have the rights of every Canadian citizen. It’s not necessary for them to be trying to enshrine special privileges by using the human rights act."
So Ms. Geshke, if that's the way you feel maybe we transgendered people should lobby to have sex discrimination removed from the human rights code. Following your logic(?), REAL women shouldn't have any specially enshrined privileges either now should they? I find it incredibly disingenuous of you, who belongs to a group that fought long and hard to gain equal rights, to deny those same rights to others. And by the way, we don't want special rights, we only want equal rights. Why is it that opponents of equal rights for any particular group can't get that through their thick skulls and into their narrow minds?
Wilde
Aug 3, 2008 at 1:42pm
What section of the population are we talking about here? Maybe 0.0001%? What’s next, special rights for pedophiles or those who enjoy sex with farm animals? Why not? They have the inherent right to freedom of choice and sexual orientation as much as the next citizen. Just ask John Robin Sharpe, the convicted child sex abuser. The judge in his case deemed that his depictions of children being sexually violated actually had "artistic merit".
"One small step for man. One giant collapse for mankind".
Regarding the violence towards those who choose to alter their natural-born sexual identities, I think it's safe to say that most men would not take kindly to discovering that the girl they thought they were making out with was in fact a man. (and vice-versa) Naturally, those whose intent is to promote normality to all forms of sexuality will conveniently leave out minor details like this that would make their claims rather disingenuous.
In 2004, the Toronto Star reported that more than 1 million children or 1 in 6 kids in Canada, live in poverty. Nearly three times more aboriginal, immigrant and visible minority children are poorer than the national average.
A Southam news report published in 2001 stated that 2.5 million Canadians, including tens of thousands of middle class families, had problems putting food on the table. With the steep rise of all commodities of late, you can bet that this figure has doubled since then.
Why is it some people insist on protecting the rights of those who are only identified by their sexual appetites?
Advocates with personal agendas like Tim Stephenson, Christopher Shelly and other transgender supporters need to get a grip on reality and gain an honest perspective on who is truly deprived and impoverished in our society.
stephanie t
Aug 4, 2008 at 11:19am
wilde, thank you so much for proving my point so effortlessly. For your benefit I will state it one more time. Read it slowly now so you understand:
we don't want special rights, we only want equal rights.
Obviously you know nothing about being transgendered nor have you experienced discrimination because you seem to know nothing about either subject. Your ignorance of transgederism is especially highlighted by this statement....
" Why is it some people insist on protecting the rights of those who are only identified by their sexual appetites?"
It has as little to do with a "sexual appetite" as does identifying yourself as heterosexual. It is so much more complicated than that, too complicated to try to explain here. Comparing it to pedophilia and beastiality is not only disgusting, it is extremely disrespectful as well. Being transgenderd is not a crime. This is the same specious argument many used against same sex marriage. It didn't fly then and it won't fly now.
In the future, if you are inclined to comment on a subject you know nothing about, I would suggest you first do some research on said subject. That way you won't come across as being so ignorant.
BTW, what exactly does any of this have to do with middle class Canadians not being able to afford food?
femme
Aug 5, 2008 at 8:39am
Adding the grounds "gender identity" only makes sense since then it allows for the education of various organisations as well as spelling everyone's rights out clearly.
Even though it's true people that are transexual are now covered under the section of "sex", this is confusing to organisations and people alike.
People that are transexual have a medical condition that once corrected allows that person to live and participate in life as others.
True also people who are transgender should also not be left out and also need protection and can be included under the grounds of "gender expression". This allows those who might cross dress or preform in drag to be treated with respect.
Course the other good reason for the "gender expression" inclusion is it helps the every day person who might find themselves facing forms of discrimination because of how they express themselves and gender.
For instance a woman who for what ever reason has a shaved head won't have to worry about losing her job. That man who seems effeminate won't have to worry about his job. There is also that fact that without human rights people like Wilde would not have the right to his misinformed opinion.
But that's the beauty of human rights. It's either for everyone without exception, or no one. It's not about liking another person but rather understanding that that person also has rights.
Kat
Jul 30, 2009 at 12:33pm
REAL Women of Canada is a socially conservative lobby group in Canada. The organization was founded in 1983.
REAL stands for "Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life". The group believes that the family is the most important unit in Canadian society, and that the fragmentation of the Canadian family is a primary cause of social disorder. It lobbies the Government of Canada in favour of legislation to promote the Judeo-Christian belief of proper family life, and to support homemaking. It also opposes many of the traditional goals of feminism, and is actively opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage in Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_Women_of_Canada
Holly
Aug 30, 2009 at 11:45pm
Transexuals are like wind turbines or landfills in the minds of most people. That is to say most people agree with the need for landfills or the eco friendly power of wind turbines however the NIMBY factor (Not In My Back Yard) stalls progress. The same thing goes for transgender rights, unless a religious extremist poeple are accepting of trans people. So long as it's not in my back yard, family or workplace.
While laws protecting the transgender from discrimination would be a positive step and official sanction of an important segment of society the real solution is in education. That's were the emphasis has to be put.
There are many times more closeted, depressed, under achieving, gender confused persons than "out" trans. The real cost to society and government is the wasted contributions trangender people can offer.
Bal
Oct 13, 2009 at 4:39am
It seems as though no one has any understanding of what being TransGender and/or Transexual is.I see that we are often compared to those who are commiting lewd and disguting acts against other human beings and even other species,this is not the case and a very,very weak argument.It is truly disrespectful.
Contrary to what most people think,most TransGender/Transexual persons are living lives just as many of whom oppose us.You have more than likely had some sort of contact with someone TransGender/Transexual and not even have realized it.
Many of us are NOT sex-trade workers nor are we addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.Most are married,have children and have jobs but the lucky few that have,are living day to day worrying about where our families and we will be tomorrow because of the simple fact that we do not have rights protecting us.
I do however would like to add that same-sex marriage is now legal and protected in Canada,so TransGender rights cannot be too far behind if we just hold on and fight a little longer.
Sasha
Mar 22, 2011 at 10:14pm
REAL women didn't fight long and hard to gain equal rights. They're a Conservative, women-in-the-home, family values type of "feminist" organization. They formed as a reaction to other women's groups fighting for equal rights.
Amanda hunter
Aug 9, 2012 at 3:46pm
why are there people that always bring up pedophiles and sex with animals it has nothing to do with transsexuals. we are human beings just trying to survive all we want is equal rights the same that women have and affro canadians. we are under employed with many skills that are needed in canada. do you know what the suicide rate for transsexuals is around 40 percent the national rate for canada is so low when compaired. maybe one of those poor souls could have cured cancer or done some great for canada but they are dead.