This site, though American, has many useful workplace resources for trans people:
http://transworkplace.ning.com/?showAddContent=1&xg_source=msg_wel_network
http://transworkplace.ning.com/?showAddContent=1&xg_source=msg_wel_network
 Sheila Gilhooly has published a fabulous new book, "Mistaken Identity" , stories about her life being (mis)taken for a man. Though cisgendered Sheila is read as male about 70% of the time.
The stories are chilling, hilarious, triumphant. There will be a launch at Little Sisters - we'll keep you posted. And the book is available for preview - go to Sheila's website http://sheilagilhooly.wordpress.com, and click at the bottom of the page. Full disclosure: I am Sheila's partner and wrote the afterword.  Immigration Canada believes that there are "thousands" of fraudulent marriages between Canadian citizens or permanent residents and non-Canadians, and so they are tightening the rules.
Effective immediately, you are allowed to "sponsor" your spouse - defined to include your married partner, someone you have been living with for two years (a common law partner), or someone you are unable to live with because of the laws or social context in your respective countries (for example, consider a Muslim from Iran who is in a relationship with a Canadian: the two cannot live together as spouses in Iran; and Canada may deny a visitor visa). But now, says Canada, there are two new requirements. According to Jason Kenney, these new requirements are designed to stem fraud arsing out of fraudulent relationships in which a couple marries solely for the purpose of bringing the non-Canadian to Canada, sometimes for a fee. The first requirement relates to you only if when you made your application for spousal sponsorship, you had NOT been living together for two years AND you have no children. In that situation, the law now requires that you live together for two years after you come to Canada. The rule makes an exception if you are in an abusive relationship. In that case, you should go immediately to your doctor, and report the abuse so it is on record. Then you should go to a lawyer, or call Immigration Canada, and explain why you have moved out. The second requirement is that once you are yourself sponsored as a spouse, you cannot sponsor anyone else as your spouse till five years have passed from the date you acquired permanent residency.  According to Julia A. MacMillan, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for graduate medical education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, every study ever done over the last 30 years confirms that children are healthiest if raised by two loving parents, regardless of gender.
In an article in today's Baltimore Sun, MacMillan notes "Every major children's health and welfare organization, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, confirms that gay parents make good parents. The American Medical Association, the nation's largest and most well respected association of physicians, with a membership of more than 200,000, agrees". Studies purporting to show that LBG parents are flawed have been completely debunked for their pseudo-scientific methodologies. There is currently no research specifically about trans parents. Bill C-279, which passed second reading in June 2012, would amend human rights legislation to add 'gender identity' to the list of protected grounds. (While trans people have been consistently successful with human rights complaints on the ground of 'sex', adding 'gender identity' makes it clear to the public that transpeople are protected by human rights laws).
Christine Molloy reports that Calgary MP Rob Anders (Calgary West) has told his constituents and his church pastor that passage of the bill would allow 'transgender men' (he means transwomen) to have access to women's washrooms. Jan Buterman, a trans advocate, and Christine Molloy both argue correctly that an objection to trans people using the washroom appropriate to their gender identity is based on the assumption that trans people are likely to act inappropriately in the washroom: a quintessentially transphobic argument. Write your MP and dissociate yourself from these transphobic arguments; and tell your MP to support Bill C-279. Congresswoman Mary Gonzalez was elected in May as the state's first lesbian member of the House of Representatives. At the time she was dubbed the 'Latina lesbian lawmaker'.
In a thought-provoking interview with the Dallas Voice, she now explains that her identity is pansexual. Not bisexual, as in attracted to both men and women, but pansexual - attracted to people whatever their gender identity. It is an odd feature of the English language that our sexual orientation is defined by the gender of the person we are attracted to. And it moves from odd to unworkable as soon as you take into account trans people. What is the correct term for a person attracted to trans people, or to both trans and cisgendered people? There are in the world people attracted only to trans people. How would you describe their sexual orientation? If your partner is transsexual and transitions from one gender to the other, does that mean your sexual orientation has changed? For me, 'queer' solves a multitude of problems of that kind. I think that it is conceptually weird to say that if my partner changes gender, my sexual orientation has changed if I stay with my partner. First of all, if s/he is transsexual, maybe it was her/his transsexuality (rather than her ascribed gender) that I was, even unknowingly, attracted to in the first place. Second, even if her/his genitals have changed, her/his gender identity has not: s/he had the 'wrong' genitals in the first place. So if my sexual attraction was to someone who transitioned from male to female, she was always female. Though the world would have 'seen' me as being involved with a man, and after her transition, with a woman, and the world would have described my sexual orientation as "changing" if we stayed together after her transition, I think that way of describing what is going on is simply inadequate. What do you think? Angela Dawson is a transsexual woman who lived at. Atira Women's Resource Society. She was evicted by the society, and ultimately agreed to leave the residence. Atira's grounds for the eviction were that Dawson did not observe the non-violence rules of her agreement with the housing facility (which provides housing for women in the Downtown Eastside).
Later Ms Dawson said she had been harassed by other tenants; and filed a human rights complaint. But her complaint was dismissed even before a hearing because Atira produced affidavits (sworn statements) from tenants who complained about Ms Dawson, and about Atira's responses to Ms Dawson, but Ms Dawson did not have equivalent sworn statements. So the tribunal concluded that Ms Dawson could not possibly succeed at a hearing, and dismissed her complaint. The take-away lesson for people who are harassed for being queer is that in order to be successful at a human rights hearing, you MUST write down everything that happens as it happens; you must bring the harassment to the attention of the managers/employer/landlord; and you must get witnesses who will agree to sign sworn statements about the treatment you received. The same take-away lesson applies to societies, employers, or landlords: document situations and your response to them as the situation occurs, and be prepared to produce sworn statements from witnesses. Dawson v. Atira Women's Resource Society, [2012] B.C.H.R.T.D. No. 166 The Nepalese government, responding to pressure from the LBGT community and a court case last year, has announced that citizenship documents will now provide an option to identify as a third gender.
The change was greeted with alacrity in the Nepalese queer communities, according to an online article in IBN Live (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/nepals-gays-lesbians-get-citizenship-status/261025-2.html) It is interesting that in Nepal, being lesbian gay or bisexual, or being transgendered, are treated together; in North America (except for some First Nations) we treat sexual orientation and gender identity as separate concepts. And it is interesting that Nepalese queers have argued for another category, as opposed to arguing that gender markers should be removed altogether. In pending human rights cases we are arguing that passports (and any other identity document that includes a photo) should have no gender markers. Christin Molloy has reported (http://chrismilloy.ca/2012/05/tobys-act-likely-to-become-law-in-time-for-pride-full-details-and-next-steps/) that "Toby's Law", the Ontario private members bill that adds "gender identity" and "gender expression" to human rights legislation in that province, has received all party support and is likely to pass very quickly.
B.C. queers may remember Toby Dancer, after whom the bill was named. Toby lived in Vancouver in the early 90s. B.C. does not yet included gender identity or gender expression in its human rights legislation; however trans people have been successful in all of the human rights complaints that they have brought on the ground of 'sex' and/or, sometimes, 'disability'. So trans people are protected by the current law. Whatcott went to the University of Calgary to distribute anti-gay leaflets. The University charged him with trespassing. Whatcott argued successfully that the university cannot charge him with trespassing in those circumstances, because his right to distribute anti-gay leaflets is protected by the guarantee of freedom of expression in the Charter of Rights.
For the complete decision: R v Whatcott http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=whatcott&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb231/2012abqb231.html |
Archives
December 2019
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
