The push for recognition of "Gender Identity and "Gender Expression" will open a Pandora's box
For years, gay activists in Canada and the U.S. have tried to create a spurious, new right to "gender identity" and "gender expression".
Bill C-279, passed third reading in the House of Commons and is now in the hands of the Senate to decide its fate. If it also passes the Senate, then Canada's laws will actually affirm and promote the dangerous philosophy that a biological male can actually be a woman, if he simply feels that way in his mind. The law will send the message to all in society that one's physical anatomy is irrelevant to whether you are a boy or a girl.
Here is the radical definition of Gender Identity from the preamble of Bill C-279: "Gender Identity means, in respect of an individual, the individual’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth". This is purely subjective. It is an ideological, and non-scientific definition that would abolish society's understanding of male and female, transforming it from an objective, physical reality, to a creation of our minds that can change from one day to the next.
Is C-279 an innocuous bill? Not at all. The unintended consequences are huge.
Its proponents have portrayed this legislation as "innocuous", and a mere tweaking of the Human Rights Code to ensure gender-confused persons are protected from "discrimination".
A close examination of what it means to grant special status to groups who self-define by "gender expression" and "gender identity" reveals implications that are far-reaching. Politicians, by passing Bill C-279, would unleash unintended consequences that are seriously damaging to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the personal security of women and even to the individuals who suffer with the psychological problem known as Gender Identity Disorder (GID). This article will explain some of the ways in which Bill C-279 is dangerous.
Case study: Evergreen College, Olympia, WA
The state of Washington has a "gender identity" law similar to that being proposed in Bill C-279. We recently saw an alarming example of how the state's "gender identity" law resulted in the violation of the privacy and security rights of young girls. Evergreen College decided it would not prevent a 45-year-old man who presents himself as a transgender “female” from lounging naked in a women’s locker room, in an area frequented by girls as young as six. Teenage girls on a high school swim team, and even younger girls, were using the facilities last September when they saw "Colleen" Francis exposing male genitalia through the glass window in a sauna.
Based on the man's claim that under the state's "gender identity" law, it would actually represent "discrimination" against him to bar him from the locker room, the police refused to prosecute for indecent exposure. Instead, the college's "solution" was to instruct the young girls to change behind some curtains. Read that news story here. Is this the future that those 150 MPs who voted in favour of C-279 want for Canada?
These transgender discrimination laws have been dubbed "bathroom bills" by critics and concerned lawmakers due to the obvious implication of giving men who claim to be transgendered the “right” to access female bathrooms and change rooms. That is how some confused men and cross-dressers will wish to "express" their 'inner gender'. Judges or human rights tribunals will eventually read in that very interpretation.
There is strong evidence that adding “gender identity” and/or “gender expression” to the Human Rights Act will give gender-confused men a basis for seeking the legal right to use female-only facilities. For example, in June 2006, Mr. John Fulton the owner of the Downtown Health Club for women in St. Catharines, ON received a phone call from a man demanding membership access. The man turned out to be a “transsexual” who had not yet undergone sex reassignment surgery. This gender-confused man wanted full access to the women's only gym which included 24 hour access to the showers, locker rooms and bathrooms.When Mr. Fulton refused, the man filed a challenge with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
The complainant lost the case in 2009. However, if Bill C-279 is passed by parliament, the very same human rights complaint today would likely succeed. The owner of the gym paid enormous legal costs to fight the challenge "out of concern for the privacy and dignity of his female clients". In contrast, the plaintiff had his legal bills paid by the public purse. [Source: Canadian Constitution Foundation, ‘News release - Women’s Gym won’t be bullied by Human Rights Commission’, April 20, 2009]
Pro-family groups such as Concerned Women of America have warned that these ‘gender identity’ laws will increase the already rising incidence of bathroom attacks on women by sexual predators, who will count on using the new law as an alibi if they get caught. The government ought not risk making it easier for sexual predators to escape justice and re-offend another day.
To be clear, we’re not saying that individuals who identify as “transgendered” are sexual predators. Rather, there will be an increased legal opportunity for sexual predators and peeping toms who pretend to be 'transgendered', to enter female bathrooms. These miscreants will count on being able to escape prosecution, if caught or suspected, by simply claiming that they’re “transgendered” and they are just exercising the right to “express their female gender”. How can a police officer possibly know otherwise?
Several women have been killed in the United States in bathroom attacks, and there have been numerous reports of attacks in Canada as well. Do we really want to make it easier for sexual predators to get in close quarters with vulnerable women by pretending to be transgendered? The NDP sponsors of this bill have met these concerns with a response that bathroom attacks never occur in Canada, and this is merely fear-mongering. Really? Below are just three examples of bathroom attacks on women which are already far too common in Canada:
- City News Toronto, ‘Woman sexually assaulted in pizza store bathroom’, Nov. 20, 2012
- Ottawa Sun, ‘Girl assaulted in high school bathroom’, Mar. 31, 2010
- The Province, ‘Peeping Tom spotted lurking in BCIT women’s washroom’, Sep. 29, 2012
If you had a 9-year old daughter, how would you feel about a man going into the bathroom after her? How is that child supposed to discern whether the man in the bathroom with her is a rapist, a peeping tom, or merely an innocent “transsexual” who thinks he's a woman trapped in a man's body?
It is unconscionable for legislators to put vulnerable, female children in such a compromised position.
Legislators will also be removing that red-flag that all young girls naturally have when a man walks into the bathroom after them, or is already there when she walks in. If C-279 passes, it will make the presence of so-called 'transgendered men' in girls' bathrooms commonplace, and thus, greatly diminish that protective, red-flag warning that currently exists in our children.
If C-279 becomes law, it will become impossible to prevent the theory of 'gender fluidity' from being introduced in school curriculum, even as early as Kindergarten. C-279 will enshrine in law the idea that there is more than one gender (i.e. male or female), and that gender can change back and forth, or be somewhere in between, depending on how a person "feels" at any given time. The government will in essence, have placed its seal of approval on this idea. Having acquired legal and moral legitimacy this bizarre philosophy will then creep into school curriculum and elementary school textbooks.
Militant gay activists are already pushing to get books and lessons such as these into schools. For example, the image on the right pictures an elementary school curriculum guide about transgenderism launched by the Toronto District School Board, which encourages children to cross dress. If Bill C-279 is passed, this radical curriculum will make its way right across the country.
Is this what legislators want? To confuse little children about whether they're really a boy or a girl? It is pernicious to plant in the mind of five year-olds the idea that their gender may actually be different than their bodily reality.
The redefinition of marriage in 2005 had this precise contagion effect on the educational system, despite promises by the same gay-activists now pushing Bill C-279, that no such thing would occur. During the marriage battle, pro-family groups and religious leaders warned that equating homosexual unions with heterosexual marriage would result in the education system coming under pressure to normalize and indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality, even against the wishes of parents. At the time, promoters of gay 'marriage' denied that any such thing would occur. They claimed the same-sex marriage bill was merely about granting them access to the institution of marriage for the purpose of inheritance, etc. Yet, just (7) years later Canadian schools are overrun with lessons, curriculum and campaigns to normalize homosexuality in the minds of kids. On June 6th 2012, the Ontario Liberal government passed Bill 13 (The Accepting Schools Act), a law which imposes homosexual-activist clubs on all publicly-funded schools (including Catholic schools), and which injects homosexual themes into the curriculum.
The same thing will transpire if "gender identity" and/or "gender expression" are added to the Canadian Human Rights Code. The educational system will come under pressure to teach these ideas to all children, as young as possible, in order to "eliminate discriminatory biases". Parents who object will be labeled "transphobic". Teachers who object will have to choose between violating their own conscience or being fired.
Unwittingly, federal MPs would be abetting classroom indoctrination of a controversial ideology, if they vote in favour of Bill C-279.
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Adding the terms "gender identity" and gender expression to the Act will lead to trampling of religious freedom and conscience rights. The militant activists pushing this bill are not interested in using it as a protective “shield”. Instead, they will use it as a “sword” to target Christian and other faith-based businesses, religious institutions and charities for holding biblical beliefs on human sexuality.
This will also invite trouble for private businesses and even religious institutions which will be compelled by the law to permit their employees to dress up in the opposite sex. Is it beyond the pale to imagine a male employee at a Christian charity filing a human rights complaint for not being allowed to dress up as a woman while at work?
Just witness how adding sexual orientation to the Canadian Human Rights Code in 1996 was subsequently used as a weapon by the same gay activists now pushing C-279. They used that HRC amendment to drag Calgary’s Bishop Fred Henry to a human rights tribunal for writing a pastoral letter to his own congregation, in which he had simply reaffirmed his Catholic faith teaching on human sexuality and marriage. Christian business owners and a teacher were also persecuted with ruinous legal fees by gay activists who brought them before the Human Rights Tribunals.
It is also clear (based on the words of activists in blogs and gay media) that they intend to come after Christian and other faith-based questioners of a harmful lifestyle. Within hours of Ontario’s gender identity legislation (Bill 33) being passed on June 13, a trans-activist threatened LifeSiteNews, a pro-family news service, with legal action for its previous coverage of the bill, asserting that criticism of the bill would now constitute a “hate crime” under the new law.
Businesses will eventually be forced to hire gender-confused individuals, and even forced to allow men to deal with clients while dressed as a woman, and vice versa. This could cause the company to lose clients and revenue, especially where Canadian businesses may have to send representatives to the USA , or other countries to meet clients. This truly is an undue burden to place on Canadian business.
The government also - including military and RCMP - will eventually be forced to hire gender-confused individuals and cross-dressers, perhaps even to actively seek them out to meet 'employment diversity' criteria. Will officers on police forces or in the military have the privilege of cross dressing and using bathrooms of the opposite sex? What about our prison population - where do gender confused inmates end up? Will separate prisons or separate quarters have to be provided? The same problems will arise within the educational settings, from grade school through to universities and colleges (with all the potential cost of renovating or adding new bathrooms).
Single-sex service or social groups, such as the Lion’s Club or Catholic Women’s League, Scouts, Girl Guides or sports teams of all ages could also be required to allow cross-dressers of the opposite sex. This is a brave new world that most Canadians do not want, but will one day wake up to, if MPs vote to pass Bill C-279 at 3rd reading.
This bill will actually harm individuals who struggle with gender identity disorder, a condition that is listed in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual of the American Psychological Association as a mental illness.
Instead of being encouraged to seek psychological treatment for their confused mental state, the new law will tell them to celebrate their mental illness. Instead of healing a disturbed mind to have a proper understanding of his or her body, the Canadian government would indirectly be encouraging people to change their bodies in order to match a disturbed mind. That is not compassion. That is playing politics with vulnerable people’s lives. Statistics show that those who choose Sex Change Surgery are no happier after the surgery, and in fact, have a high rate of suicide. As compassionate, loving people, we cannot become enablers of mental illness. That is abandonment, not love. If we truly want to protect gender-confused individuals, we need to vote down this harmful bill C-279.
To study more research about the devastating, often fatal, harm caused by Sex Reassignment Surgery, and to read testimonials from people who've made that decision and now regret it, visit this support ministry website.
Affirming GID in the Human Rights Code will further harm children and others who struggle with gender identity disorder (GID) because they will find it even more difficult to obtain treatment from psychologists who dare to go against political correctness. The psychological profession has largely turned its back on science in this area, and now plays sexual politics by telling kids to embrace the idea that they're really 'born in the wrong body', and need hormone therapy and mutilative surgery to change their bodies. The principled psychologists and therapists who remain, will feel under pressure to refrain from giving legitimate therapy to help heal the disturbed mind, for fear of being labeled 'transphobic', or even losing their professional license.
There is absolutely no doubt that after the Canadian Human Rights Code is changed to give special rights to "transgendered" and "transsexual" people, that the activists will demand taxpayer-funded sex change surgery as a "right" owed them by the health care system. Politicians will cave, and taxpayers will find themselves shelling out $15,000 to $50,000 at a time, to cooperate with mental illness. This inappropriate use of taxpayer money will result despite the fact that our health care system is already unsustainable, has severe doctor shortages, excessive hospital wait times, denies treatment to autistic children, has a shortage of potentially life-saving MRI machines, and poor access to palliative care.
Unfortunately it appears to be a repeat of the abortion battle. After Pierre Trudeau introduced his government bill in 1967 to legalize abortion, there were debates that occurred leading up to its passage in 1969. During a debate on July 6, 1968 Trudeau's Justice Minister at the time, John Turner, was asked if legalizing abortion would ever lead to forcing taxpayers to fund it. He insisted that would never happen. Today, almost all abortions in Canada are funded by taxpayers.
Conclusion
There are many other ramifications, legal, economic, social, educational and cultural to the passage of a flawed and largely unnecessary piece of legislation, called Bill C-279. It would prove costly, harmful, counterproductive and confusing. It would also threaten basic freedoms while bringing Canada into sad disrepute. Canadians deserve better. The individuals saddled with sexual identity problems deserve better. The women and children of Canada deserve a safe environment free from unsavory threats made possible by a misguided effort to "enhance equality measures" within the Human Rights Code.
To read the full text of private members Bill C-279, click here.