Update / Correction: The amendments were given a voice vote, but not actually passed. Because there was visible opposition, it’s subject to recorded division, and the amendments will be voted on, on March 20th. More twists and turns than a mangled slinky. It’s official, the amendments to drop gender expression
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Dented Blue Mercedes: C-279: To amend or not to amend?
… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we still don’t know what Bill C-279 is going to be when it’s voted on at Third Reading. The bill, which proposes to add trans people to human rights legislation, had an hour of debate at report stage. Randall Garrison requested that amendments be added to the bill,
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Guest Post: Teacher plays scene from Disney Movie to Humiliate Student in Class
[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 readingDented 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
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Dear anonymous guest.
Hi. On Sunday November 18th, 2012, you attended the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony commemorated in Calgary, Alberta. Thank you. You also left a small tribute. I wanted to let you know that we’ll make it a permanent part of our display for you. It’s a small thing, but hopefully it will help let everyone
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Defining human rights.
Next week or in the week following, Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST) will be reviewing the trans human rights Bill C-279, to approve or amend it before deciding whether to forward it on to Third Reading. Following federal Member of Parliament Rob Anders’ disastrous attempt to lobby Canadians against the bill by
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 readingDented Blue Mercedes: Michelle Kosilek, Barney Frank and Prisoner Sex Changes
If Barney Frank seriously wants to be an ally for trans people, the absolute first thing he could do is stop talking about anything at all to do with trans people. To be fair, the media has this bad habit of considering him a superior authority to absolutely anyone who’s
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Bill C-279 proceeding to committee for amendments
Offered without comment, other than to say that Bill C-279 is reported to be headed to committee very soon. No date has been given thus far, and it’s not on the calendar as of yet. From Xtra.ca: As federal politicians settle in for the fall session, NDP LGBT critic Randall
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: On Trans Celebrities
“Cloud Atlas” will be winding its way to movie theaters shortly, being billed as an exploration of “how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave dramatically through the story as one soul is shaped
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Montreal LGBT couple beaten in Paris
I’ve heard via Michelle Blanc that on the afternoon of Wednesday August 1st, a Montreal trans advocate (who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting) was assaulted with her partner in Paris, in view of the couple’s children. Marie-Ève is with l’association Fierté Montréal Pride and has been active within Montreal’s
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Basic human rights should not be “controversial.” Jacksonville, this means you, too.
“After dismantling Apartheid, when we sat down to write our Constitution, we quite deliberately ensured that gays, lesbians and bisexuals were included in South Africa’s Constitution. “Having ourselves suffered terribly, we did not want to inflict discrimination on any group that lived within our borders and we explicitly stated this
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: On Persecution Complexes and Rage
The interplay of rage and persecution complexes works to shape trans, LGB — and in fact all — struggles against oppression. It can become an eternal feedback loop that can stymie any attempt to move progressive causes forward, if it succeeds in establishing its circuitous pattern. This translates to many
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: One More Thing.
Oh, and, uh, here’s one more thing. This is for Albertan trans folks who filed human rights complaints following the delisting of GRS funding in 2009 and on into 2012, Who’ve been lobbying through up to (I think it’s) five tries to pass trans-inclusive human rights legislation at the federal
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Alberta reinstates funding for Sex Reassignment Surgery
The Alberta Government has announced that it will be reinstating health care funding for sex reassignment surgery (often called gender reassignment surgery, and abbreviated as GRS by the province and its clinicians), effective June 15th. In the recent provincial election, Premier Alison Redford was returned to power by an electorate
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
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