Category: Trans Rights

This past month, the National Post published an article in opposition to Bill C-16, the legislation that would add gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act. It is the eighth such article by the newspaper opposing the anti-discrimination bill for trans, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals in the past year.

In this piece, the newspaper articulated the view that the anti-bullying “Day of Pink” is harmful and that the inclusion of gender identity and expression in the law that prohibits advocating for genocide would curtail freedom of speech. The paper did so despite acknowledging the high bar to charge someone for advocating genocide, recognizing that it “involves an intent to destroy or kill an identifiable group and requires the consent of the provincial attorney-general.” They stated:

With the criminal code, it means the section against hate propaganda — this is the one under which advocating genocide falls — is similarly enlarged to include the tiny percentage of people who don’t have the same gender identity as their biological sex.

That means, presumably, that if someone like Eric Brazau were to fixate on the gender-fluid and say negative things about them, he too could be charged with advocating genocide.

No wonder Peterson raised the alarm.

Defy the stultifying parameters around public discussion that exist in this suffocating country at your peril.

Such arguments blending free speech with violent overtones have not only been promulgated by the national newspaper but also in Parliament.

Senator Don Plett, perhaps the most vocal opponent of Bill C-16, invited Gad Saad to serve as a witness on the Senate committee for the legislation. The Concordia professor had no professional or personal experience with trans or non-binary individuals but regularly made disparaging remarks about them on Twitter and in his YouTube show, The Saad Truth. In the private event organized for him on Parliament Hill afterwards, Gad Saad suggested that including “gender identity” and “gender expression” in the Canadian Human Rights Act was not merely an impediment to free speech, but would lead to the “death of the West.” As he stated in Parliament earlier the same day, the “slippery slope of totalitarian lunacy awaits us.”

On Twitter, the Concordia professor continued to ridicule trans and non-binary people advocating for their rights.

He wasn’t the only witness to blend freedom of speech arguments with suggestions of calamity. University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, also invited by Plett, said in his testimony that these rights would infringe freedom of speech and were a “vanguard issue” in an “ideological war” with a “neo-Marxist base“. That these protections would lead to “re-education committees“. That trans advocates were “unforgivable and reprehensible“. That the request for these rights showed “how deeply a culture of victimization has sunk into our society“. Like Gad Saad, Peterson regularly admonished trans and non-binary people on Twitter and YouTube.

Terms like “genocide”, “war”, “murderous ideology”, “re-education”, “death of the West” were being used by Peterson and Saad when discussing the inclusion of “gender expression” and “gender identity” to federal anti-discrimination protections.

Peterson and Saad’s arguments in Parliament largely targeted the rights of non-binary individuals. They were joined by witnesses who took aim at transgender women. Here the rhetoric shifted from language around totalitarianism and atrocities to rape.

Paul Dirks, the pastor behind the “Woman Means Something” campaign, explained that trans women were predators and a threat to women:

But there is one piece of evidence that’s important in this, and that is that there exists amongst trans women certain criminal patterns that do not exist at all amongst women.

In the Okanagan in B.C. recently, in 2017, women were being kicked out of women’s shelters because they objected to having a [trans woman] in their space where they are unclothed. We have all sorts of examples where these predators are getting in.

Dirks stated on his website that being inclusive of trans women was an “erasure of women’s identity and idealogical rape“. Members from the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter asserted that transgender women did not exist but rather were men who took on sexist stereotypes and that “gender expression” included rape. Members from Pour les droits de femmes du Québec stated that transgender women had no place in women’s washrooms, change rooms, sports, prisons, and shelters under implied threats of sexual assault:

With regard to prisons, everyone remembers Colonel Russell Williams, who was found guilty on 92 charges, including murdering two women and numerous sexual assaults. Colonel Williams liked to take pictures of himself in his victims’ underwear after committing his crimes. Why might he not decide that he would be better off in a women’s prison?

The witnesses had deep misconceptions about trans women and non-binary people yet were treated as authorities on the matter in Parliament and given extensive time to air their views. Those misconceptions were then further distributed through outlets such as the CBC. Opponents largely had neither professional nor personal experience with trans people, which is why they spoke to hypotheticals in asserting their opposition whereas proponents spoke to the present and measurable discrimination that trans and gender variant individuals encounter.

As I write this, it’s the day after Peterson’s testimony and Bill C-16 just passed the senate committee. This is the furthest this legislation has gone in the 12 years since former NPD MP Bill Siksay introduced the first such bill and in the 7 years I’ve been following its various incarnations. Every previous iteration – Bill C-392 (2005), Bill C-326/C-494 (2006), Bill C-389 (2009), Bill C-276/C-279 (2011) – was killed. C-16 is now likely to become law by the end of June. A conclusion to this legislative process will hopefully mark the end of these committees, and thus of inviting transphobic bigots from across Canada to spread their harmful misconceptions through Parliament and the media coverage that ensues.

Opponents have used rhetoric around rape, murder, war and genocide when describing their fears of what would happen in a world where trans women such as myself could change after working out at the gym. This isn’t a fringe view: it’s advertised in Parliament and in our national newspapers.That so many influential people equate the simple things I do with such violence is scary. I ground myself in the knowledge that things are the safest they’ve ever been.

Here are some experiences I’ve had:

• I go on a date. While saying goodbye to the date, a man comes up to me, inquires about my gender, and gropes my breasts to find out if I am a man or a woman.
• I go to the gym. After my work out, a patron tells me to get out of the change room.
• I eat in a food court. The table next to me has five older men talking about trans people derisively, with straw-men arguments.
• I go to an outdoor music festival. A woman pulls at my sports bra. A man follows me to inquire why I’m wearing feminine attire.
• I watch a new movie. There’s a tranny joke.
• I go buy clothes. A sales associate follows me around the store after I try on leggings, stops by me, and eyes me up and down giving me a look of disgust.
• I go get my brows done. The aesthetician laughs in my face when I ask for thinner more feminine eyebrows.
• I’m at work. A coworker tries to bond by deriding their ex for being trans. He doesn’t know I’m trans.
• I go to a laser hair removal clinic. The receptionist looks at my file, sees the medications I’m on, and berates me for being on hormone replacement therapy.
• I walk to a coffee shop downtown. On the way a pedestrian yells that I’m a man.
• I walk to the grocery store. A guy at a pub patio along the way mocks me over my breasts to his friends.
• I walk up to a bus stop. A lady waiting for the bus ogles so hard that she nearly falls over when she bends forward to get a better view.
• I take the bus home. A man points at me repeatedly and laughs.
• I buy a coat. The sales associate tells me I’m in the wrong section, the men’s is over there.
• I take a walk. A man passing me mutters that I’m wearing a women’s coat.
• I walk to work. A man loudly asks his friend if I’m a guy or girl. I turn around to see if he’s talking about me, then he promptly yells that I’m a dude.
• I take a cab. The driver solicits me for sex.
• I go to a bar and use the facilities. I overhear a man say that a guy went into the ladies washroom. Leaving the bar, a patron yells at me that I’m a guy.
• I read a national newspaper. There’s an op ed portraying trans rights as a threat to children.
• I update my insurance info. They won’t let me change my gender marker until I have surgery that renders me sterile.

The views that led people to act in the above fashion are widespread. They are so widespread that I’m still afraid when accessing gendered public spaces like change rooms.

It irks me when people claim that these views are silenced because some university declined to give this transphobia a platform or because some trans people protest it.

No. This view is all around us. Trans students at that university are immersed in that view, whether the administration hosts a transphobic speaker or that speaker finds another venue. I don’t buy for one second that free speech is under threat; not when this view is literally shouted from the streets of Ottawa. Not when this view is voiced in change rooms, in washrooms, in clothing stores, in food courts, outside bars, in clinics. Not when it’s advertised on Parliament Hill and in this country’s national and local newspapers, in recital halls, and television programs. That free speech is being exercised all the time with very significant displays.

Don’t conflate particular venues declining to lend their name to these views with being silenced. Don’t mistake trans people protesting this prejudice for a loss of free speech. To the contrary, that’s adding a voice to the mix that wasn’t heard before. But to those whose views monopolized the public sphere, having these new voices gain prominence can feel like a loss. It may be a loss of comfort from having to share space with trans voices, but it is not a loss of free speech.

A little while ago, I spoke about how professor Jordan Peterson acted as a lightning rod for Canadians to express their opposition with acceptance of trans people. This opposition has reached a point where it is threatening the passage of Bill C-16, also known as the trans rights bill. In this article, I’m going to cover the opposition.

Jordan Peterson

A few months ago, professor Jordan Peterson published an incoherent rant against non-binary people and Bill C-16, invoking the Soviet Union, calling the Ontario Human Rights Commission a “particularly pathological organization”, stating that using gender-neutral pronouns would make him a “mouthpiece of some murderous ideology person’s gender identity definitions.”

In response, trans people attending the University of Toronto where the professor taught spoke out about this vitriol and demanded that trans students at the university be treated with respect. They organized a teach-in.

An immense backlash followed, not against the professor, but against the trans students. Canadians perceived the opposition to Peterson’s assertions as an affront to their freedom of speech. As I documented in that blog entry, major media outlets in Canada indicated their support for the professor, with seemingly only small queer outlets sympathizing with those on the receiving end of his words. As best as I can tell, the only acceptable response that Canadian public would have tolerated was silence on the part of trans people and no demands for the professor to treat them with respect.

Peterson spoke against Bill C-16 in his rant, stating that it would infringe on freedom of speech. The backlash picked up that narrative, making its way through the media and Parliament. What was initially about a transphobic professor and students objecting to his bigotry at one university became much much bigger.

What Bill C-16 Does

As a refresher, Bill C-16 adds “gender identity and gender expression” to the Human Rights Act and to the criminal code. You can see the full text of the bill here.

The modification to the Canadian Human Rights Act, Section 2. This is the section that explains the purpose of the Act:

2 The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

The modification to the Canadian Human Rights Act, Subsection 3(1). This is the subsection that identifies the eligible grounds for discrimination:

3 (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

The modification to the Criminal Code, Subsection 318(4). This is in the subsection that makes it illegal to advocate or promote genocide:

(4) In this section, identifiable group means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.

The modification to the Criminal Code, Subparagraph 718.‍2(a)‍(i). This is in the section for sentencing after an individual has been found guilty of a crime:

(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or on any other similar factor,

The Opposition

Bill C-16 is currently in the Senate. The Senate is where the previous incarnation of this bill, Bill C-279, was killed. There is much more opposition now as a result of the lightning rod effect. According to Amnesty International, who have been involved in the effort to advance C-16, “Senators are being flooded with messages opposing” Bill C-16.

Current public exposure to Bill C-16, through Google search results, Twitter, newspapers and the media is being framed through the lens of the opposition. The focus of the opposition is around free speech and the claim that misgendering an individual would now be a hate crime.

Examples of Public Exposure to Bill C-16

Google Trends Data on Bill C-16

The chart above shows the popularity of particular Google searches over time. Two things to note. First, there’s much more interest in “Jordan Peterson” than there is in “Bill C-16”. Second, that the attention to Bill C-16, in particular it’s much publicized introduction on May 17th, 2016, is insignificant as compared to the attention it got following the Peterson affair. In other words, attention on Bill C-16 is shaped by interest in Jordan Peterson and his negative take on the legislation.

The chart above shows the popularity of Google searches by region, as well as showing related searches. A few things to note. First, there is interest in “Jordan Peterson” coming from the United States. Second, far more people are interested in Jordan Peterson than Bill C-16. Third, when they search for “Bill C-16” it’s in association with an interest in “Jordan Peterson”. Fourth, those with an interest in Jordan Peterson also demonstrate interest in “SJW”, which is an acronym for “social justice warrior”, a pejorative often reserved for individuals advocating for the rights of trans people and other marginalized communities.

Observations about the Opposition to Bill C-16

There’s a few things to note about the opposition.

• Opposition is far exceeding support. The opposition is dominating Google, Twitter, newspaper editorials, and television. It is flooding Senators offices.
• The opposition is almost entirely associated with Jordan Peterson.
• Americans are getting involved in the opposition.
• There is a fundamental misrepresentation of what Bill C-16 does that echoes Peterson’s alarmist and misguided take on the legislation.
• As a result of its dominance in the media and online, the opposition is getting to frame the bill for the public. In doing so, the content and effects of the bill are being misrepresented and reduced to fear mongering around pronouns, much like previous opposition had reduced the discourse around trans rights to fear mongering about washrooms.
• There is little interest by major media outlets in listening to trans people and presenting a more sensible review of the legislation, much less doing so without invoking Jordan Peterson. Non-binary trans people are being regularly lambasted for their pronouns in the media and the suggestion is made that Bill C-16 will restrict freedom of speech.
• Freedom of speech appears to be the main argument made in opposition of the bill. Freedom of speech seems to be the successor to the freedom of religion argument, presenting anti-discrimination legislation as infringing on the rights of perpetrators.
• The opposition would have been unlikely to exist in this amount had the bill proceeded through Parliament before the events surrounding Jordan Peterson. It could also die out in a year, as other lightning rod issues have. This is perhaps the most inopportune time for the bill to make its way through Parliament.

What You Can Do

Contact Senators

Here’s a list of priority Senators, provided by Amnesty International. Contact them. Let them know you support Bill C-16 and oppose the discrimination trans people face.

Opponents are reducing discourse of the bill to fear mongering around freedom of speech and washrooms. Discussions about the discrimination faced by trans people and what the bill actually does is getting sidelined. I’ve provided talking points below to assist in redirecting the discourse back to discrimination and the need for such simple anti-discrimination measures.

Talking Points – Supporting Bill

• Canadians support Bill C-16.
  • Angus Reid found that 84% of Canadians support expanding non-discrimination laws to include gender identity.
• Trans people represent a significant number of Canadians.
  • Angus Reid found that roughly 0.6% of Canadians are trans. That’s about 210,000 Canadians.
  • 24% of trans Ontarians are parents.
• Trans people face discrimination in Canada.
  • Discrimination acts as a barrier to employment, health care, education, travel, and full participation in society.
  • 96% of trans Ontarians have heard trans people are not normal.
  • 73% of trans Ontarians have been mocked for being trans.
  • 20% of trans Ontarians have been physically or sexually assaulted for being trans.
  • 34% of trans Ontarians had been verbally threatened or harassed but not assaulted.
  • 13% of trans Ontarians have been fired for being trans, and another 15% of trans Ontarians were fired, and believed it might be because they were trans.
  • 18% of trans Ontarians were turned down for a job; another 32% suspected this was why they were turned down.
  • 17% of trans Ontarians were declined a job they had applied for and were actually offered, because of the lack of a trans-positive and safe work environment.
  • 57% of trans Ontarians avoided washrooms over fear of their safety.
  • 32% of trans Ontarians had to move away because they were trans, either for their safety or to access services.
  • 40% of trans Ontarians had experienced discriminatory behaviour from a family doctor at least once.
  • 24% of trans Ontarians reported having been harassed by police.
• Discrimination costs lives.
  • 43% of trans Ontarians had a history of attempting suicide, including 10% within the past year.
  • The numbers are higher for trans people of colour, trans youth, trans seropositive individuals, trans individuals with lower educational attainment, and trans individuals with lower household income.
  • 57% of trans youth 16-24 in Ontario with unsupportive parents attempted suicide in the past year.
  • Research published in the Lancet Journal shows that the distress is not as a result of being trans, but as a result of the experiences of social rejection and violence.

Talking Points – Addressing “Freedom of Speech” Narrative

• There is no hate speech provision in the Criminal Code pertaining to pronoun use or where pronoun use would be applicable.
  • The Criminal Code changes has to do with advocating for genocide and considering gender identity or expression when someone is being sentenced for a criminal act, for instance, after having been found guilty of assault or murder.
  • While not using someone’s pronouns on purpose isn’t legally hate speech, it does create a toxic environment. In the same way that a cisgender purposefully misgendering another cisgender person would be bullying.
• There is no civil process to deal with hate speech in Canada. Police cannot charge anyone with criminal hate speech without the express approval of the provincial attorney general. Even once this approval is obtained, the process is time-consuming and expensive. 
  • This high bar was partially due to the repeal of Section 13 in 2012.
  • Mark Steyn is brought up as an example by opponents of supposed abuse of hate speech legislation. Mark Steyn wrote anti-Muslim articles and had a human rights complaint against him as a result. The case was dismissed, but opponents cite punishment by process (cost, time.) That case occurred previous to the repeal of Section 13.
• Clauses for gender identity and gender expression already exists provincial human rights legislation.
  • Clauses for gender identity and gender expression already exist in the human rights legislation of Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island.
  • Clauses for gender identity already exists in the human rights legislation of Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.
  • The cases that have come before the tribunals have to do with the discrimination that trans people face: being fired for being trans, facing sterilization as a requirement to update a gender marker on documents, etc.
  • Any other application of the law, such as to use “gender identity and gender expression” to restrict free speech, is simply not grounded in the reality of how these laws have been applied.
• These clauses already exist in the federal Human Rights Act for other grounds.
  • The other grounds are: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.
  • The tribunal has set a precedence of permissiveness with freedom of speech, including when it decided in favour of Mark Steyn for his outspoken anti-Muslim rhetoric. This would not change.
  • The “freedom of speech” argument appears only to be applied to gender identity and gender expression, in the same way that “freedom of religion” was seemingly only applied to sexual orientation. The arguments could be made of every other clause, but they aren’t.
• Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence.
  • Just as a professor spouting an incoherent sexist rant against women at university could face repercussions, so too a professor rallying the same against transgender individuals.
  • Trans people have a right to exercise their own freedom of speech and advocate for themselves. This is not a right that is only reserved to cisgender individuals. It is not an infringement of that right for trans people to affirm that they must be treated with respect.

Talking Points – Addressing “Bathroom Predator” Narrative

• Recognizing gender identity does not open the door for male sexual predators to use the women’s washroom.
  • Clauses for gender identity and gender expression already exist in the human rights legislation of Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island.
  • Clauses for gender identity already exists in the human rights legislation of Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.
  • Protections at the provincial level have not been accompanied by a rise in sexual assault.
  • These protections already exist in 16 states in the US. As Media Matters found, following the introduction of such protections, there wasn’t a documented rise in sexual assaults.
  • The bathroom predator threat is a myth.
• The predator argument is logically inconsistent.
  • Sexual assault is illegal. Using the incorrect washroom is not. The idea that predators are waiting for a non-discrimination clause to enter a washroom and commit an illegal act doesn’t hold water.
  • Subscription to this myth implies that male predators who are waiting to assault young girls are are already in the men’s washroom with young boys, and the discourse is to keep them in the washroom with boys. Letting trans people use washrooms doesn’t figure in this.
• There are many trans Canadians, and they deserve to use the right washroom.
  • Transgender Canadians make up roughly 0.6% of the population, or approximately 210,000 Canadians. 57% of trans Ontarians reported avoiding washrooms over fears of their safety.
  • Looking to the US, which largely mirrors Canadian data, 32% of trans people limited the amount they ate or drank to avoid restroom use. 24% had their washroom use questioned/challenged in the past year. 12% had been verbally harassed for using the washroom in the past year. 9% were denied restroom access in the past year. 8% had a kidney or urinary tract infection, or another kidney-related medical issue, because they avoided restrooms.
  • Isolated incidents is not reason enough to deny 210,000 Canadians the right to use the correct washroom.

 

I was in Parliament on November 18th, to attend the vote on the third reading of Bill C-16 in the House of Commons. Three years ago, I was here watching the same for the failed precursor of C-16, Bill C-279.

I was there with activists from Gender Mosaic, who deserve much credit for their work in advancing this bill and its precursors. While waiting to enter the House of Commons we were greeted by MP Randy Boissonault, the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on LGBTQ2 Issues.

There was almost no one sitting in the House of Commons. At one point, I counted only five MPs visible from the gallery. At another point, when an MP was speaking on the bill, the speaker of the house was on his phone, and only a single other MP was actually listening. Whatever was said that day was for the benefit of posterity or the public record, but not for the people in attendance.

There were long speeches. Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin and NDP MP Randall Garrison came to visit us in the gallery. Randall Garrison is the one who introduced the previous incarnations to Bill C-16, Bill C-279. This parliamentary session, previous to Bill C-16 being introduced, he worked on another private member’s bill that would have done the same thing, adding pressure to the Liberals to introduce their version as a government bill. The result was Bill C-16.

I listened to the speeches. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel gave a speech that ended with this bit, which had me in tears:

I especially want to thank the trans activists who have lived through this discrimination, through the upheaval of transition, through the upheaval of guilt or confusion over knowing their truth is something different than what society pressures them to be. While they have lived through that, they have had to sit through years of committee meetings, while their sexual behaviours have been questioned. They have stood up against intolerance and in doing so, they have sustained Canada’s pluralism.

They deserve our thanks, and they also deserve an apology for when we have failed them in the past.

There was some opposition, and the name of Jordan Peterson came up with the suggestion that recognizing trans rights would undermine free speech. Opposition though was really insignificant, a welcome reprieve from previous debates around Bill C-279 or Bill C-389.

Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall proposed a motion so that the bill would not pass third reading, but be send back to committee. Then came the vote for the motion. It was done by whichever side could yell “yay” or “nay” the loudest. The motion to send the bill back to committee did not pass. Then the Conservative MPs tried to force a vote where each MP would stand up and individually say “yay” or “nay”, which would have pushed the rest of the deliberations to next week. They needed 5 people to stand up. They had 4. Then with no fanfare and no pause the vote for third reading came. The “yay” side had it, it passed.

It was so quick, I wasn’t even sure that this was the vote for third reading. I had to keep listening to see that they had moved onto something else. Here’s a clip of the vote:

An hour later, MP Jody Wilson-Raybould, who held a press release for C-16’s introduction but was absent on this third reading, released the following statement:

Today, I am very proud that Bill C-16 has passed the House of Commons. This Bill would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. It also proposes to amend the Criminal Code to add gender identity or expression to the definition of “identifiable group” for the purpose of the hate propaganda offences and to the list of aggravating circumstances for hate-crime sentencing.

All Canadians should feel safe to be themselves. Our strength as a nation lies in our diversity and our inclusiveness. It is our responsibility to recognize and reduce the vulnerability of trans and other gender-diverse persons to discrimination, hate propaganda, and hate crimes, and to affirm their equal status in Canadian society.

I am pleased that so many Members of Parliament supported this important piece of legislation and I look forward to working with the Senate as it continues through Parliament.

After the bill passed, we exited the gallery. MP Randal Garrison came by to congratulate us and briefly chat, before he went off on a flight home. Then the lot of us went to D’Arcy McGee’s for a late lunch.

She looked straight at me.

I had just finished a work out and was back in the change room to shower. I don’t really remember what she said; I forget exact words when I’m extremely anxious. I just remember her look. I remember that she told me where the exit to the women’s change room and to use it. I remember freaking out because it was lunch time, the busiest time for the gym, and it felt like all these other patrons were looking at me.

She had perceived me as a man intruding into the women’s change room. I was terrified to explain myself, because of the low pitch of my voice would only deepen the perception that I was a pervert. All these people would henceforth see me as the pervert.

All I had wanted to do was to shower, change, and go about my day. This was my worse fear about going to the gym realized.

If this had been a few years ago, I think I would have been too scared to return to the gym at all. These days, it’s easier to cope with incidents like these. I have a process to deal with the emotional aftermath that’s well worn.

I don’t blame her for her ignorance nor do I blame myself for being fearful. I see these actions as not really hers, but the inevitable outcome of being in a society where norms around gender are narrow and deviation from that norm is still largely met with derision, mockery, and/or fear.

For instance, look what politicians had to say last week on the issue of people like me using the change room. This was in the context of the second reading for Bill C-16. Conservative MP Harold Albrecht had this to say:

Another concern is the potential harm to innocent children. As I stated earlier, I am in total support of equal rights. Therefore the question needs to be asked: Where are the equal rights? Is it equal rights of the boys or girls and of the young men or women who expect to find only those of their same gender in their change rooms? Is it fair to have their rights trampled upon by this imposition of extra rights for some?

MP Cathay Wagantall echoed this opposition:

Women’s rest rooms and locker rooms are traditionally family changing rooms. By passing the bill, are we then be saying that a person’s need to express his or her gender or identity foreshadows the mother’s need to also protect her child from seeing a naked [woman] at, let us say, a YMCA children’s swim class? Have we really gone this far in our society? Is this really where the majority of Canadians want to evolve or aspire to?

The implication of such comments is that allowing people like myself to use the change room constitutes a threat to children. Hearing comments like that over and over have fed into the fears I have.

But it’s not where the majority of my fears comes from. For that there’s my lived experience. But then there are also news stories around gender nonconformity that explode in popularity and become a lightning rod for Canadians to express their views.

A few years ago, it was around a family that didn’t disclose the sex of their child to strangers. There, the family endured a “strong, lighting-fast, vitriolic response“. This past year, it was around a Canadian psychologist who practised conversion therapy at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Canadians came to the defence of the clinic in droves, ignoring the voices of the trans people who were subjected to the abuse and had advocated for its closure.

These days, the lightning rod issue is around professor Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto who released lectures online opposing the acceptance of trans, non-binary and intersex people.

The original lectures were a mess, invoking Marxism, political correctness, “social justice warriors”, trans women who use women’s shelters, the Soviet Union, conspiracies against free speech, racism, etc. Here are some excerpts to give you a feel for the talk:

Trans or transgender is an umbrella term referring to people with diverse gender identities and expressions that differ from stereotypical gender norms. Now here’s what I think about these terms: you see the people who use these terms want everyone to believe that there for all the good things that they say therefore but I don’t believe any of that. I don’t think that there for good things at all, I think that they use the pretense that therefore good things you know that they stand for good thing to continue their nefarious activity and one of the most nefarious elements of their activity is the use of these ideological clubs…

I think that those gender-neutral pronouns are politically motivated. I think they’re connected to it an entire underground apparatus of political motivations radical left political motivations and I think uttering those words makes me a tool of those motivations and I’m going to try to be a tool of my own motivations as clearly as I can articulate them and not the mouthpiece of some murderous ideology person’s gender identity definitions.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission which is a particularly pathological organization in my estimation and perhaps the biggest enemy of freedom currently existing in Canada…

The whole idea of having needs accommodated is a very very it’s a very very slippery idea and it sounds good but it’s very very dangerous…

I think the Ontario Human Rights Commission is is an emblematic institution in this regard is partly because i think that the that social justice warrior type activists are over-represented in the current provincial government said are the current liberal provincial government and I can’t help but shake this i can’t help but manifest the suspicion that that’s partly because our current Premier is lesbian in her sexual preference…

Following the release of the lectures, students organized a teach-in to help their peers and staff learn about trans, non-binary and intersex people. Students were also successful in pressuring the university to finally send a letter to the professor affirming the rights of students.

From there the story spread and things got ugly.

A reporter from Rebel Media disrupted the teach-in. A student who attended the event said of the reporter:

She very clearly showed no desire to learn about, or even acknowledge the humanity of the people she’d come to criticize. All of her rhetoric was based on gross misinformation and hyperbolic assumptions about our lives, identities, and priorities, which was hugely discouraging given that the intent of the event was to create an experience of human interaction and sharing between the trans, non-binary and intersex communities and the public.

Transgender students on campus subsequently received online threats calling for their blood. The day after the teach-in, Rebel Media had another reporter don a wig, proclaim themselves to be transgender, and harass Muslim women at a pool. Back on campus, two rallies were held in support of the professor. Meanwhile, virtually every comment on Reddit’s r/canada about Peterson or Bill C-16 was deriding trans people. Then newspapers across Canada started to express their support for the professor.

Rex Murphy wrote in the National Post:

Here be the new axioms of our day: we own your pronouns, use no others. “He” and “she” are assault words. Freedom of speech is the life-raft flotsam of gurgling obscurantists and bigots going down for the last time.

Prof. Jordan Peterson is a brave man. Better, he is an actual, a real, university professor. May his stamina and courage hold. Parents, send your children to his classes.

It wasn’t the only such article to appear in the National Post, another was titled “Are zee ready for the dictatorship of the gender warriors?” and yet another was titled “Embattled U of T professor a warrior for common sense and plain speech“. The Globe & Mail joined in with the article “The professor vs. the pronoun warriors“. Meanwhile, the Sun offered the headline “Once they’re done with Jordan Peterson, they’ll come for you“. The Sun then posted the editorial “We stand with Jordan Peterson“, in which they conclude:

We all need to stand with Peterson to make sure this rot doesn’t spread further.

The well-being of trans students didn’t figure anywhere in this response, only the perceived imposition of having to show them basic respect. In the end, an incoherent conspiratorial rant against trans people drew up incredible widespread support from Canadians. And that support manifested itself in ways completely devoid of empathy, with leading newspapers using inflammatory and conspiratorial language, with trans people receiving death threats, with individuals getting paid for targeting and harassing trans people.

It’s surreal the way in which the reaction has been disproportional to the original events. My heart goes out to trans, non-binary and intersex students in Toronto, especially those who have yet to develop strategies to cope with such harm.

This lightning rod issue, like the others, showed me where Canadians really stand with people like me.

That’s why I felt scared when that gym member told me to get out and all those eyes were upon me. I responded by carrying myself as if I was cisgender woman perplexed at her statement.

The lady realized her mistake, apologized to me, and I went to take a shower. I entered the shower stall, turned on the water and cried.

Update, November 18th 2016: The events at the University of Toronto continued to galvanize Canadians, reaching the House of Commons. Jordan Peterson was cited by two Conservative MPs opposing Bill C-16 in Parliament, MP Bradley Trost and MP Cathay Wagantall. The MPs claimed that Peterson’s rights to free speech were being stifled and that Bill C-16 would have a chilling effect on free speech.