Welcome Canada

[sashh]

Do it has just been suggested on Twitter that Canada needs a Mumsnet, I have tweeted that Canada is welcome to join so I thought we could hold a small welcome gathering.

@MNHQ - I hope that's OK

Ornery, I would be tempted to place the complaining women with transgender roommates this year, and tell them their complaints have worked!

Mrstwiddle you said it about CBC Radio. I moved back to Canada 3 years ago after more than a decade in the UK and I cannot bear what CBC has become. It's the mouthpiece of WokeNation. I still listen a lot but at times it makes me uneasy, it almost feels like state-controlled journalism peddling "progressive" values and no dissent is brooked. I have never voted conservative in my life, nor would I actually vote for Scheer's conservatives, but the breathtaking anti-con bias is so obvious that I want to consider it just to be difficult!

And yes, Canadians can be difficult to get to know. I moved to a new part of the country and it took me a good two years to form a solid network. Most of my friends are Brits (not hard to do, I'm on Vancouver Island, you can't move without bumping into one) or Canadians who have recently moved back from the UK!

Ornery, I would be tempted to place the complaining women with transgender roommates this year, and tell them their complaints have worked!

WTAF? Men (identifying as trans) get single room accommodation, for the price of shared room, while women (identifying as women) don’t get that privilege. That’s SEXIST. Sorry to be shouting, but someone has to.

Stop giving privileges to men. Stop giving special rooms to men. Women are allowed to be put in the ballot for single rooms, at shared room prices. MTF trans should share with people with the same genitals.

Section 15 of the Canadian charter (or, I assume, your provincial equivalent) guarantees against discrimination on the basis of sex. This is a textbook example of it.

Boris, Ornery is putting the males in single rooms for the benefit of the women, not to discriminate against the women.

No. Put the males in shared (twin) rooms. Do not give them an added benefit (single room for no extra money) that is not available to women. If they want to pay for a single room, fine. Otherwise they are being conferred an extra advantage in direct contravention of protected rights.

Otherwise, it’s like only white people being allowed to sit at the front of the bus.

Women’s rights are human rights.

I don't imagine not housing the trans people with the women is an option that is allowed.

Is gender a protected characteristic under BC law? And does that include self id?

Yes like Goose said, I don't think it would be allowed to separate the males from the females in the shared areas. The women are getting the 'benefit' of not having to share with males.
My understanding is that self-id is very much the law of the land in BC.

My understanding is that individuals can choose to go for gender X or change gender, fairly easily, on their birth certificate, but they still need a doctor or psychologist report. Even though that process is very cursory and mostly just a box ticking exercise, it is still not the same as self-id. I haven’t seen anything supporting self ID under BC law - please can you direct me to it?

Regardless of this, student accommodation very clearly should be allocated on the basis of sex, not gender. This is a safety issue for the university.

Whatever rights transgender people have, that doesn’t make it right to discriminate against women on the basis of sex, by offering them inferior accommodation.

As I understand, the facility has shared rooms. Singles are limited and were offered to transgender women for the benefit of “cis” women, rather than for the benefit of the preop women.

There are HRT decisions which state preop transgender women are to be recognized as women. The solution here was to recognize that, but give them single rooms, do that women would not be forced to share a room with a woman with a penis.

In the general sense housing decisions like this are made all the time, where someone might get a single room because it avoids some other problem, and is for the good of the group, rather than choosing who the lucky recipient is randomly. It's not fair, in a sense, but then life isn't fair.

In this case, if the women don't want that kind of decision made, and fair enough, the other option is not to upgrade them for free. It is to mix the trans women in with the others.

Maybe that would be the best choice, too, it might cause problems, but then that might mean there is some kind of official recognition of the problem.

As far as I can see right now, whatever the law says, its being interpreted as protecting the right of transwomen to be treated like biological women under the law. Not just by individuals but human rights boards and the law.

@Mrstwiddle that’s right.

The other thing that can be argued, Ornery, is that giving transgendered women their own spaces is to protect them. Protect them from anxiety, increasing their dysmorphia, and providing them a safe space.

Were the women to file a complaint, by couching your decision in terms of protecting the dignity of the transgender women, the chance of that complaint succeeding is minimized.

@PhoenixBuchanan Glad it’s not just me! Just this afternoon I switched it on briefly to get the road report and they were announcing a song by so-and-so, who is “a queer non binary” something or other. Not that they identify as being non binary, but that THEY ARE non binary.

I do worry that Canada has taken an Orwellian turn in their rush to be as “enlightened” as possible, perhaps as a result of their desire to be as different as they can be to their American neighbours.

Love Vancouver Island btw, we had fish and chips at a proper English pub in Parksville a couple of months ago, it was great!

@Slacksandblouse, when I first moved to BC, I thought about living in the Okanagan as it’s beautiful out there, but realised it was just too far inland, I couldn’t face being that far from the sea!

@Goosefoot That’s exactly it! A deep reserve. I wonder why.

I'm a British immigrant to Canada. I've been in Alberta for 3 years. Yes, they're homophobic. Even the people who aren't, are by the current definition. Which isn't to say they're unkind or actually phobic. But homosexuality isn't unremarked upon. It's just like living in the past a bit. I also can't get over how people my age (37) remark on everyone's race all the time. It's never "That guy over there." It's "that black/native/white/arab guy over there." It isn't mean spirited, but it's definitely a kick back against the 'wokeness' of the rest of the country and a refusal to play along with pretending not to notice. It makes me uncomfortable sometimes.

I haven't noticed a 'deep reserve'. I've met the warmest, friendliest people ever here. Our house is always full of neighbours and friends and I can't imagine moving away. But it often reminds me of what I imagine the 1950s were like for my grandparents. I can't understand why I'm not perceived as 'other', but British apparently doesn't count. Very weird and can make me squirm.

I'm not painting a very kind picture here, but I'm trying to be honest. There's no malice in any of these attitudes, or we just wouldn't be friends, but there is an acknowledgement that I grew up in England being told not to make.

@Mrstwiddle yes it’s too far inland, I agree. You look like you’re in a great spot.
It feels kind of stuck here. Very beautiful but not a large city at all. I think it takes some getting used to.

My employers policy is that twaw. They run monthly training sessions. We are absolutely going against our employers ethos by treating tw differently, and they are well aware of the backlash against organizations that do not treat twaw. In general terms, self ID is treated as biological sex here, however depressing that is in reality. It’s basically a competition as to who can be the most woke.

Well I hope they get paid less, get promoted less and get smaller bonuses. And groped at the office Christmas party by a drinken idiot. Bus is suspect not.

They say the same in other parts of the country, weaseley. You don’t know racism until you’ve lived in Quebec. Plus, it’s (a) very generational; and (b) very tied to education.

My husband is the only Caucasian male in his workplace. He’s routinely spoken about maliciously (he’s multilingual and picks up languages quickly) by coworkers. He just shrugs and doesn’t care.

The Scottish Government yesterday released what seems to me a positive statement on their proposed reforms to the Act that allows people to legally change gender/sex. Basically they had tried to bring about a change to 'self-identification' or 'self-declaration' removing the need to be medically diagnosed with gender dysphoria, making the process much easier and quicker. However, they had a legal obligation to consult with representatives of affected groups, eg women in this case, in drafting their proposasls, but they didn't do so. Scottish women's groups have been challenging this, and finally the government listened, and is going to now consult with women's groups about the impact on women, and re-draft a new proposal. They have finally acknowledged that women's safety concerns are valid and need to be properly addressed. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone in power acknowledge this.

Canadians - is the law relating to sex/gender federal, or different in each province? In the UK, we have a law that allows sevices/organisations to have female-only services (Equality Act 2010), however it has got to the point where if services were to try to use that, they'd be tarred as transphobic, so largely it is ineffectual through fear of being accused of transphobia, so women are losing all our female-only spaces even though in law we are entitled to them.

news.gov.scot/speeches-and-briefings/statement-on-gender-recognition

Part of the statement:
"I have stated before, as has the First Minister, that I don’t feel a conflict between my support for women’s rights and for trans rights. But I know and I understand that many do.

It is important that we listen to, and address these concerns.

Of course, at their core, these concerns are not about trans women. Rather they are about men who seek to abuse women.

The fear is that some men will misuse trans equality to access women and do us harm. I understand that. I understand that predatory men will always seek to find ways to harm women.

That’s not a new problem in Scottish or global society – nor is it a problem created by, or the fault of, trans people.

This government has a duty to address the concern that reforming the process for gender recognition will increase the risks women face from men.

This is something I have sought to do already and will continue to do as we seek to build confidence that achieving equality and dignity for trans men and women is possible without diminishing the rights of anyone else."

The law is both. Human Rights Tribunals are provincial, but the Charter, our constitution, also applies.

Justice Centre representing three more BC aestheticians facing Human Rights complaints over refusal to perform waxing service | Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms - first hearing is tomorrow (4 July).

"The three aestheticians face complaints for declining to perform waxing services for a trans-identifying individual who possesses male genitalia."

www.jccf.ca/justice-centre-representing-three-more-bc-aestheticians-facing-human-rights-complaints-over-refusal-to-perform-waxing-service/