The Transport Committee will be meeting again on Thursday to discuss a motion put forward by Olivia Chow with Randall Garrison and Dany Morin to remove the gender marker requirement from the Aeronautics Act. The motion reads: “That the Government repeals Section 5.2 (1) 3 (c) of the Identity Screening
Continue readingTag: Trans
Dented Blue Mercedes: Canadian MPs Allegedly Snicker and Mock Trans Screening Concerns in Parliament
Continuing the reportage of the new regulations that could potentially bar some trans Canadians from being able to board a plane. Here’s part one for the background, and a statement from the Trans Equality Society of Alberta. There are a few online petitions to address the issue, including this one
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: TESA: New Regulations Potentially Bar Some Trans Canadians From Air Travel
I just wanted to update folks on the Aeronautics Act regulatory change issue. Firstly, I caution people to avoid saying that that trans people are “completely banned” from airlines, especially since we don’t know yet if that’s how this will play out. The regulation has been around since July or
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: New airport screening regs raise questions for trans Canadians
Marathon runner Jennifer McCreath has pointed out a recent regulatory change that the Harper Conservatives have made to the Aeronautics Act (i.e. passed by ministerial fiat, rather than shepherded through Parliamentary process) that potentially affects many trans (and cis) Canadians and could even ban some from air travel: Sec 5.2(1)
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: MARS Canada doesn’t want to be affiliated with homophobia / transphobia.
Not long ago, Charles McVety’s transphobic “Don’t Confuse Me” ads about a proposed LGBT-positive curriculum in Ontario made the rounds — first on the National Post (which apologized for running them) and then by Sun Media, which claimed they were free speech champions for doing so. The Toronto Sun and
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Trans woman asked by NWT Finance Minister to leave to accommodate “spooked” Governor General
CBC News is reporting that a human rights complaint has been filed against Northwest Territories’ Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger over an incident that occurred during the December 9th visit to Aurora College by Canada’s new Governor General, David Johnston. Miltenberger, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Thebacha, is alleged to have
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Parsing Hate: The motivation behind the “Transsexual Registration Act”
On December 10th, Monica at TransGriot pointed to a Facebook Group advocating for the creation of a “Transsexual Registration Act.” The creator of that page and the idea he presents are fringe enough that we typically don’t dignify them with attention, but sometimes it’s important to point to these things
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Can a Trans Human Rights Bill pass with a Harper majority?
“It’ll never pass,” I often heard. “Not with a Harper government. They’d never support human rights inclusion for transsexual and transgender people.” And then it passed. Oh, Bill C-389 — championed by the now-retired NDP MP Bill Siksay — had its challenges. It narrowly passed Second Reading in June of
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Hate Speech on Trial in Canada
If you lived in certain parts of Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Toronto over the past decade, there’s a chance you’ve encountered or at least heard about flyers distributed by Bill Whatcott. These fliers are typically peppered with photos of naked or half-naked gay men kissing (or in at least one instance, engaging in oral sex), with 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Learn about gay and trans kids? No. Have them protest abortion? Okay.
A group of parents in B.C. are adamantly opposed to the Burnaby school district enacting an LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying policy. Catholic school districts in Ontario want to ban rainbows and Gay-Straight Alliances. Charles Adler is worried that a calendar that is a teachers’ reference (and notes the Transgender Day of Remembrance) might cause kids to become 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Something brewing beneath transphobic ads in Ontario
On September 28th, Charles McVety’s Institute for Canadian Values pushed a proposed curriculum for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) into the forefront of the Ontario election, with a full-page ad published in the National Post. The ad read, “Please! Don’t Confuse Me. I’m a girl. Don’t teach me to question if I’m a boy, 
Dented Blue Mercedes: McVety Conflates His Confusion With “Canadian Values”
(On September 28th, The National Post ran an ad from Charles McVety‘s “Institute for Canadian Values,” which tried to allege that LGBT-positive education would confuse children about their gender. This was sent to the paper at the time, and the Post has since pulled those ads, and publicly apologized) Apparently, Charles McVety is confused. No, 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Trans Rights Bills Intrduced in New Canadian Parliament
In the first week of the 41st session of Parliament, two Private Member’s Bills were introduced, both proposing explicit inclusion of transsexual and transgender people in the Canada Human Rights Act and the hate crimes clauses of the Criminal Code of Canada. Both were inspired by Bill C-389, which had passed in the last session 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Guest Post: Beth Elliott’s Rebuttal of the Brennan-Hungerford Submission
Beth Elliott is a San Francisco Bay Area writer, musician and lesbian activist. The first transsexual woman to transition to be an out lesbian, she served a year’s term as Vice President of the San Francisco Chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (1971-72), but was purged from the organization three months later. She was one 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Less Than Woman, Less Than Human
Cathy Brennan and Elizabeth Hungerford have tendered a paper to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, in response to a query regarding the current international status of women. From this exercise, the Commission will be working to “identify emerging trends and patterns of injustice and discriminatory practices against women 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Trans Woman is Finalist in Radio Station’s Breast Augmentation Contest
Last month. 90.3 AMP Radio in Calgary launched their “The Breast Summer Ever” contest — and although not the first to hold a contest in which breast augmentation was the prize, the contest immediately caused controversy in the Canadian media and online. Complaints weren’t entirely unfounded, considering the message that it potentially sends about the “perfect” 
Dented Blue Mercedes: Decolonizing Trans As Allies
I’ve mentioned alliance when dissecting the problems with umbrella thinking in transsexual and gender diverse activism, in “The Death of the ‘Transgender’ Umbrella” and “Why The Umbrella Failed.” It’s easy to pull something apart — the more challenging question now becomes: how do we do activism if not as a single umbrella community? Why do 