A representative of the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community welcomes the decision to make it illegal to discriminate against someone’s gender identity.
The House of Commons passed a private member’s bill this week with the needed support of 18 Conservative MPs, including four cabinet ministers. The bill, which still has to pass the senate, would make an amendment to the Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to make it illegal to discriminate against anyone who self identifies as another sex.
The bill was commonly known as the ‘bathroom’ bill because it would allow transgender people who were born male to use women washrooms.
Jake Hume, Lakehead University’s pride central director, was pleasantly surprised by the decision by the House of Commons and said it was a step in the right direction. “It’s actually really exciting to see gender identity on a Human Right’s legislature,” Hume said Friday. “It’s nice to see protection for transgender individuals as well as transsexual individuals and transgender variant is being recognized.”
Having support from the Tories was especially critical as many Conservatives voiced concerns regarding men being in women’s washrooms. Some believed the bill would protect pedophiles if they were to lurk in the bathroom.
Hume said that fear should have never even been a talking point. “It’s highly offensive,” he said. “There’s harassment that takes place in the washroom constantly for anyone who is gender variant. There’s that whole catty approach that we’re experience with students here on campus who have experience issues with that. “I don’t feel it will be a swift change. I feel there will still be harassment and a few things that people need to get over.”
Besides using washrooms, the bill will also apply for transgenders who want to change the sex listed on their licenses.
Anyone who has identified as a man or woman can apply to have that put onto his or her passport.
Aiden Kivisto, the coordinator of Trans Support Collective and who was born female but self identifies as a man, also welcomed the decision. “This will help people in Thunder Bay and in smaller communities step out and feel a lot safer,” he said.
It will also help people feel safer with cross border travel, Kivisto said. “I don’t cross the border. I have my name changed but I have to change my passport still and I’m in the process of changing my gender marker. I’m not going to go across the border until that is all finished and I’m only a couple months away from doing that. “They can deny you access at the border if it doesn’t match. What this bill will do is give people kind of a standing box to say ‘I know I can do this and I know this is allowed and you are being discriminatory.’”
He believes calling it the ‘bathroom’ bill gives it a negative connotations because there’s more to the bill than where someone can go to the washroom.
He added it’s baseless to connect issues with pedophiles to someone who is a transgender because the two have nothing to do with each other.
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