This might get me on board against the CHRC
I've been one of the bloggers reluctant to get on board against the Canadian Human Rights Commissions, and their out to lunch Ontario counterparts. The reason is that I'm actually more in agreement with Warren Kinsella on this file... yes, they need to be reformed, but way back when they stuck working within their original mandate, it was a useful forum to fight discrimination. For the record, when the vote in Winnipeg took place about striking down Section 13, I intentionally made sure I was out of the room.
However, if this case gets any traction, you better believe that I'll jump on board the bandwagon seeking to kill the Ontario Human Rights Tribunals once and for all.
I'm sorry DUDE but when you applied for membership, you we're a man... or, at least, still a man. We can get into all the symantic debates about attempted gender swapping all you want, but this guy was PRE-OPERATIVE... which means there's absolutely no doubt about what gender he was at the time. And he was trying to get membership to a women's only gym, including the changerooms? How do all you women feel about that? That's right... a guy wanted the right to change with you.
This one better be thrown right out the window, PRONTO. I'll be making a few phone calls about this one.
By the way, if anyone's interested... this one is post #2000 for this wii little blog.
However, if this case gets any traction, you better believe that I'll jump on board the bandwagon seeking to kill the Ontario Human Rights Tribunals once and for all.
I'm sorry DUDE but when you applied for membership, you we're a man... or, at least, still a man. We can get into all the symantic debates about attempted gender swapping all you want, but this guy was PRE-OPERATIVE... which means there's absolutely no doubt about what gender he was at the time. And he was trying to get membership to a women's only gym, including the changerooms? How do all you women feel about that? That's right... a guy wanted the right to change with you.
This one better be thrown right out the window, PRONTO. I'll be making a few phone calls about this one.
By the way, if anyone's interested... this one is post #2000 for this wii little blog.
Labels: "progressives", activism, loony lefties
posted by Christian Conservative @ 2:44 p.m.
8 Comments:
At Thu Feb 26, 03:15:00 p.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
Congrats on the 2000th post
Anyway, knowing me, this shouldn't come as a shock, but in my opinion the owner of the gym should be free to have in place any rules she sees fit to run the operation.
If the gym's owner doesn't want pre-op trannies changing with the other clients, well then, that's the owner's right.
End of discussion
Period
Mike Wisniewski
At Thu Feb 26, 04:14:00 p.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
Should be Mike, but that's not what this blogger wants is it? The gym owner is allowed to have any rule that Christian Conservative thinks is not discrimination, otherwise see you in court.
At Thu Feb 26, 04:36:00 p.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
The differing opinions on the size of government between me and CC are documented here on this site.
On this particular issue, however, CC and I agree
Mike Wisniewski
At Thu Feb 26, 05:08:00 p.m. EST,
Christian Conservative said…
What's going on here? Is there some spectacular planetary misalignment going on that I didn't know about? Mike is actually agreeing with me on something?!?!? STOP THE PRESSES!!! ;-)
At Fri Feb 27, 08:55:00 a.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
It's not the first time we've agreed on something.
But to be fair, I think the last time was ancient history.
That's all I'll say
Mike Wisniewski
At Fri Feb 27, 09:22:00 a.m. EST,
Luke Coughey said…
I'm sick of the Human Rights Commission. Shut thme down and let us live our lives.
As to the gym issue. It is a women's only gym. Not a men's gym, not a co-ed gym and not a transexual gym. Throw in the fact that the owner gets to make the rules, he gets to make the final decision on how his gym runs. Don't like the rules, go somewhere else.
So, for those who are confused about who God made them to be, start your own gym, with your own rules.
At Tue Mar 03, 05:37:00 p.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
I also tend to agree with Warren (and CC, as it turns out) when it comes to the CHRC. I think that it is an important (if somewhat overused) tool to help fight discrimination in our society.
That being said, this is a ridiculous case. The guy couldn't wait until he was post-op? I personally don't have an issue with the whole gender swapping thing (I'm pretty socially liberal), but the person in question should have waited.
The funny thing is, the gym owner said this: "For 10 of the last 15 years, I've been the title sponsor for the AIDS walk in St. Catharines, and I've dealt with gays, lesbians, transsexuals, straight, whatever," Mr. Fulton added. "So I'm a very liberal, open-minded person and I wanted to look at this, at what we could do."
Which, to me, means that the gym owner was looking at options to see if they could work something out! You can't fault the owner for wanting to find a balance between accommodation for the trans gendered individual, and the rights of the other patrons! And he didn't say no off the bat!
So to me, this is a stupid case, and the tribunal will hopefully see that as well.
Sorry for the wall of text, btw.
At Wed Mar 04, 08:08:00 p.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
CC,
While I wholeheartedly agree that a) individual freedoms are significant, and b) the CHRC needs to return to their original mandate of dealing with - principally - employment and tenant issues, this subject is problematic.
I'll paraphrase to make my point: you claim that John Fulton, the gym owner, has the right to deny service to Ms. Reid because, I assume, the reason that he provided - that he can refuse people of the same gender if they're deemed indecent. Fair enough. The problem with this, however, is that in this instance, she was judged to be "indecent" because of a phenomena distinct to her transgender - so effectively female - identity, chiefly her genitalia.
As legal precedent goes, no distinction exists between transgender persons on the basis of whether they're pre- or post- op, and with good reason: forcing people to rush to undergo SRS to attain status as women and not granting them protection against discrimination otherwise would be tremendously repressive, and is reminscient of Iran's policy of forcing homosexuals to undergo sex changes to avoid persecution (in this regard, I'm insinuating that your notion that Ms. Reid "was a man" is unworkable policy-wise, since it's effectively saying all transgender people are "men" until they can find a vast amount of money for a sex change).
And that's the problem. If Mr. Fulton can use the defense of indecency to block a TS person from joining his gym due to their having a distinctly TS appearance - and if that's a precedent - then pre-op transsexuals effectively could lose all access to services guaranteed to the gender they identify with; a tragedy of human rights, certainly moreso than most of the CHRC's cases. Simply put: if you can't start a gym solely for white women, then you shouldn't be able to start a gym solely for women and transsexuals barring those who haven't paid thousands yet for gender reassignment; as if that makes them any less "female."
Lastly. Whether someone is male or female is not, in psycho-scientific terms, a matter of whether they have a "penis" or "vagina", but rather a matter of which gender they are able to operate functionally as and identify with, a dichotomy linked to the chemistry of the brain. To say, as you have, then, that someone is "a man" because they haven't undergone SRS is ignoring the core premise of trans phenomena: that people undergo SRS because they ARE females or males with converse bodies, not that they become those respective genders once they're operated on.
An apt example is this: I could be a woman. Would you know? No. But that could be the way I think, in much the same way as black people weren't assigned rights because someone figured their noses weren't that different from white people's, but because they possess the same mental faculties as all other humans, and thusly deserve equal treatment.
In any case, if it wasn't your intent to be insensitive I would sugggest you do more research on issues such as these before you arrive at conclusions. Here's a good place to start:
http://www.pflagcanada.ca/en/helpframe-e.asp?helpframe=links-e.asp?audience=transsexual
Cheers and good luck,
Konrad Bongard
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