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Bill 44 - Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act, 2009

Amendment A3 - Add Gender Identity to the Human Rights Act

Ms Blakeman: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me. I had an additional amendment.

Dr. Taft: We even lost the people in the gallery. Bye.

Ms Blakeman: Oh, there goes the last fan of the evening, gone, walking out the door, and we’re still here.

All right. I would like to move another amendment, and this is an amendment for sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 13. It’s essentially adding in the concept of gender identity to be another ground that prohibits discrimination. So I’ll let that be distributed, and you will call me when you’re ready.

The Deputy Chair: Yes. Thank you.

Hon. members, we’ll call this amendment A3. Please proceed.

Ms Blakeman: Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. This amendment is intended to include the concept of gender identity under those areas that are protected under our human rights legislation from discrimination and, let’s be honest, specifically protection from discrimination on the grounds of employment, housing, and access to government programs and services. But that does tend to flow outwards and does sort of establish an expectation that any one group that is protected under this would find itself receiving equal treatment in the community.

The reason that I specifically included gender identity is that this is not covered under sexual orientation. I know that currently the Human Rights Commission is accepting cases of gender identity under the auspices of sexual orientation, but they are under no obligation to do so. It’s not the same thing. This is a concept that can be a struggle for people to understand. Gender identity is an issue of being, if you can think of it this way, arbitrarily assigned one body, yet your personality does not match that. We had a very good example of it in the Assembly here when the budget was brought down and the minister announced that he was no longer going to cover the cost of gender reassignment surgery.

We, in fact, have never had surgeons qualified or interested in doing that here in the province, so people have always had to travel out of the province to get that. Believe you me, this is not something that someone does on a whim. This is a series of very painful and complex operations, so you can understand that someone only undertakes that if they really felt driven to it, that it was really something that they had to do in order to lead a fulfilled life.

I know that for some people this seems pretty out there, but for those individuals that I work with, and indeed there are some members in the House, I think, who have come to understand that gender identity is an important part of our lives, and for most of us it’s a done deal. It’s not a question. It just is. But there are a number of individuals for which it’s not a done deal, and it does involve a number of, as I said, very painful and complicated surgeries to match them up with the right body. So gender identity is not about sexual orientation. It’s not about who you like or who you want to be with. It’s about who you are.

We recognize that this exists as a medical condition. We have until this year paid for the surgery. It was recognized for many, many years in the – I never remember the name of this, and the medical people have all gone home. It’s the psychiatric diagnostic manual.

Ms Notley: DSM-4.

Ms Blakeman: DSM-4. Thank you.

…the DSM-4, which is our bible, if you will, of medical diagnosis. I struggle with that because I had never regarded gender identity or transgendered individuals as having a mental illness, and clearly the medical profession has now come to that same point because it’s no longer listed. That may be the reason why the government decided that they were no longer going to fund the surgeries, but actually we don’t know because we never got an explanation from the minister.

But there’s no question that individuals who are transgendered face in many ways a double jeopardy because there are questions about their sexual orientation, but also, I mean, people don’t understand what’s happening and most people are afraid of the unknown. You know, looking at transgendered individuals, for a lot of people they just don’t understand what’s going on. As a result there is a great deal of discrimination against them, misunderstanding, some very real difficulties about which facilities they can use or are allowed to use, a misunderstanding about what their place in the family is, et cetera, and then there are all the medical issues that go along with that.

So to me it’s very clear that, actually, of the two groups of people that in my experience are the most likely to experience severe discrimination and a lack of access to services and a struggle to find appropriate housing and sometimes even employment are people with aboriginal ancestry and transgendered individuals. Clearly that’s why I had the previous amendment and why I’ve brought forward this amendment. I know that this is a struggle for a number of people in this Assembly to grapple with this concept, which doesn’t mean that it is not meritorious, and I would urge my colleagues in the Assembly to make that leap and to understand that this is a group of people that is in need of protection, that this is a different issue than sexual orientation, and it shouldn’t be assumed that they would be captured under that definition. As a matter of fact, I mean, as I said, they are currently, but that doesn’t mean that they will be in the future because they are not specifically mentioned under this legislation under protected grounds. I think they need to be.

We make ourselves a better society when we recognize the people who are truly vulnerable and are in need of some assistance now. I would ask people to support this amendment. Thank you.