[This post comes to us courtesy of Michelle Boyce at the Alphabet Community Centre. -M] Anna Saunders is a mature student who attended a summer school class at Saunders Secondary School and a teacher decided she was a “guy in a dress”, beginning to use male pronouns and “Sir” when
Continue readingTag: transgender
Dented Blue Mercedes: Trans Human Rights in Canada: Progress, Stalls and Confustication.
The Province of Nova Scotia passed Bill 140, the Transgendered [sic] Persons Protection Act, today. The Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project (NSRAP) commented on Facebook: “Bill 140 passed today with unanimous support in the Nova Scotia Legislature. “Debate” isn’t the right word to express what happened – it was an outpouring of support for adding 
knitnut.net: Gender Failure
I’ve set up a google alert for ‘transgender’ so I can keep abreast of transgender news and activity on the internet, since my favourite part of my new job is about transgender stuff.
So, on my first day with the new Google alert, I was google-alerted that Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon were playing a FREE […]
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Trans Depathologization: the spark of change.
I watch a lot of news stories unfold, reading left-wing, centrist and right-wing media alike. In the course of a news story, issues ignite, blaze hotly and then smoulder into memory. After awhile, one develops some sense of when a campaign will spread like a prairie fire or when it
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: MP’s trans predator fearmongering escalates.
On Friday, Sun News commentator Brian Lilley interviewed Rob Anders, the Member of Parliament who has drawn condemnation for conflating transsexual and transgender people with sexual predators in a petition he has been circulating on his website, and to at least one church in his riding. In “Children’s bathroom bill
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: The Mask of Gender
Normally, I’m not one to promote something if I’m in it. That kind of thing is horribly self-aggrandizing. So I’ll apologize right off for doing that here. But given the recent focus on trans issues due to the comments made by Rob Anders, I thought it would be a good
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Rob Anders, the transsexual bogeyman, and the weird phenomenon of MPs petitioning their constituents.
Rob Anders is on a mission. Hot on the heels of having to halfway apologize for alleging that NDP leader Thomas Mulcair drove former NDP leader Jack Layton to his grave, Anders is now sending at least one church (possibly more) a letter asking them to petition MPs to oppose
Continue readingTrashy's World: Rob Anders is a buffoon, part 346!
Yup, big Rob is at it again! This time he is trying to stop transgender folks from using women’s washrooms. Seems that this is a huge problem in his world. You know that world – the one with green skies, angels and dragons? That one. Gotta say, though, he’s great
Continue readingArt Threat: Finding (Queer) Time – Book review: First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon
Rae Spoon (Photo: JJ Levine) In his remarkable 2009 text, Cruising Utopia, José Esteban Muñoz fixates on the ways in which queer bodies exist outside of and subvert what he calls “straight time.” Straight time, for Muñoz, is what tells queers that “there is no future but the here and
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Trans rights bill supporters being targeted. Also, a flag for you.
On Wednesday June 6th, Parliament voted to send Private Member’s Bill C-279: An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code (gender identity and gender expression) to committee for review as part of its trek toward passage. I had expressed concerns at that time about some possible
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: C-279: When a victory for one can be a victory for… one.
The second hour of Second Reading debate for Bill C-279: An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code (gender identity and gender expression) occurred on Friday June 1st, and the Second Reading vote is to take place on Wednesday June 6th. I missed any indication that the
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: CBC: Should we use gender-neutral pronouns instead of ‘he’ and ‘she’?
CBC is asking the question, “Should we use gender-neutral pronouns instead of ‘he’ and ‘she’?“ Citing Sweden’s addition of a gender-neutral pronoun to the National Encyclopedia and a news story last year about a Toronto couple who wished to raise their child genderless until the child decides, and asks: Do
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