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Xtra! Ottawa has provided a rather detailed account of the line-by-line committee reading of Bill C-279 — otherwise known as the federal ‘gender identity’ bill — which resulted in the Bill not being amended and which, as a result of its non-amendment, now has a less likely chance of passing Third Reading in the House of Commons. (See the Xtra! article here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Conservatives_filibuster_trans_bill-12904.aspx). As you may recall, Bill C-279 is the bill that seeks to add ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ to the anti-discrimination and anti-hate crimes provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada, respectively.

Some highlights of the line-by-line committee meeting (as excerpted from the Xtra! article with a few additional notes) are:

• The meeting began with MPs carrying a motion to remove the term “gender expression” from the bill.
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• Fifteen Conservative MPs who voted for the bill at its second reading said they would continue to support the bill only if the term “gender expression” was removed or defined.
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• The bill’s author, NDP MP Randall Garrison, offered a definition of “gender identity” he sourced from the Yogyakarta Principles, a set of international principles relating to sexual orientation and gender identity created by a group of international human rights experts in 2006.
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• After much debate, Garrison’s definition of “gender identity” carried, making his definition and the removal of “gender expression” the only amendments approved. Ten other amendments were dropped because they pertained to the term “gender expression” or called for a definition of “gender identity.”
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• Garrison motioned for an extension of 30 days to continue consideration of the bill because previous committee meetings had been interrupted. The meeting ended before the extension — and the final version of the bill — could be approved. Therefore, the bill must now go back before the House without any of the aforementioned amendments.
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• While this unamended version of the bill is definitely the best version, it is unlikely to pass given the requests made by the supporting Conservative MPs.
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• The Bill is expected to get its Third Reading in the House of Commons in February. If passed, it will then have to go through the Senate.
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Notes:

• The definition of “gender identity” found in the Yogyakarta Principles (Page 6) is as follows:

Gender identity is understood to refer to each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms.

• The definition of ‘gender identity’ put forward by Garrison (courtesy of Sarah Manns, Garrison’s Parliamentary Assistant) was:

Gender identity means, in respect of an individual, the individual`s deeply felt internal in individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth

• Significantly, this is the first time in Canadian history when the definition of a requested ground has been added to a bill, in what is understood to be an attempt to restrict the reach of the protections in question. This is absolutely despicable and represents the fear, misunderstanding, and contempt that is held towards transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, gender-neutral, and gender non-identifying people today.

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Today, on the anniversary of the 1989 Ecole Polytechiqe massacre, we remember the lives of the women who were murdered — and consequently denied the right to pursue a career in engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, alongside their male peers — simply because they were women in a traditionally male-only school and program. We also remember the lives of the other Ecole Polytechnique women who were killed that day because they were women and presumed to be engineering students. These are:

• Geneviève Bergeron, 21, a civil engineering student
• Hélène Colgan, 23, a mechanical engineering student
• Nathalie Croteau, 23, a mechanical engineering student
• Barbara Daigneault, 22, a mechanical engineering student
• Anne-Marie Edward, 21, a chemical engineering student
• Maud Haviernick, 29, a materials engineering student
• Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31, a nursing student
• Maryse Leclair, 23, a materials engineering student
• Annie St.-Arneault, 23, a mechanical engineering student
• Michèle Richard, 21, a materials engineering student
• Maryse Laganière, 25, a budget clerk in the Ecole Polytechnique’s finance department
• Anne-Marie Lemay, 22, a mechanical engineering student
• Sonia Pelletier, 28, a mechanical engineering student
• Annie Turcotte, 21, a materials engineering student

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We also remember the lives and livelihoods of the women who are abused (be it emotionally, physically, or sexually) and murdered (with or without prior abuse) because they do not conform to archaic and restrictive patriarchal/sexist/cissexist/cisgenderist conceptions about gender, and/or simply because they are women and are deemed suitable for domination or control.
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On this day, and every day, we stand in solidarity with women, particularly those who are most prone to abuse and murder. This includes, but is by no means limited to:

• women who are assertive
• women who are self and culturally aware
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• women with disabilities, particularly those with perceivable disabilities who are targetted because of their presumed or actual vulnerability
• women of colour, particularly those who face the brunt of imperialism, colonialism, and racism and are targetted due to their perception as racially or ethnically inferior, and/or as a threat to White and Anglophonic dominance
• women who are living in and/or who are coming from overtly patriarchal families and societies, as well as those who have to face patriarchal, sexist, and misogynistic mistreatment (however subtle or covert) on an everyday basis
• women who are targetted for fundamentalist religious reasons, regardless of the religion in question
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• transgender and transsexual women, particularly those who
  • do not (and/or cannot) conform to archaic and restrictive patriarchal notions of what constitutes a so-called “real” ‘woman’ or ‘female’, and/or
  • have yet to (or have no desire to) change their bodies or their social presentation, and/or
  • were born intersex, and/or
  • are racialized, and/or
  • are disabled, and/or
  • are coming from patriarchal, misogynystic, cissexist, and cisgenderist families and societies, and/or
  • work as sex workers
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• sex workers, particularly those who are
  • transgender, and/or
  • transsexual, and/or
  • racialized, and/or
  • disabled, and/or
  • living with HIV/AIDS, and/or
  • who have willfully entered the sex industry and actually enjoy the work they do, and/or
  • who have been forced to work as sex workers against their will, be it because of
    • a relationship with an exploitative individual, and/or
    • a lack of social, societal, and institutional support structures to provide them with the ability to resist the exploitative situation they are in and/or to get out of it
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• women in living and working situations that deny them the right to fully realize themselves, personally, socially, and professionally, be it because of
  • the extra work they are expected (and forced) to provide for their (or other people’s) families and children, simply because they are mothers, daughters, or female live-in caregiver, and/or
  • the limited employment opportunities that are available to them as a result of archaic and restrictive patriarchal notions about what women can or should do, and/or
  • the substandard pay and denial of promotions many women have to endure because of their sex and/or gender, many of which are systemic, if not government-sanctioned
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• women who cannot get pregnant and/or bear children, including transsexual and transgender women
• young women who have sex before marriage and/or no longer have (or never had) hymens
• women who are subjected to (and/or refuse to subject themselves to) clitorectomies and other de-sexualizing and sterilizing procedures
• women living with HIV/AIDS, particularly those who are transsexual, transgender, Black, Asian, South Asian, Aboriginal, sex workers, and consumers of injectable drugs
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• women who have no interest in having sex or establishing a relationship with men, particularly lesbian, asexual, and aromantic women
• lesbian, queer, and genderqueer women, particularly those who consciously/politically (or not) defy archaic and restrictive patriarchal gender roles
• intersex, sex-queer, sex-neutral, sex-nonidentifying, genderqueer, gender-neutral, and gender-nonidentifying individuals who are read as being ‘woman’ or ‘female’
• women who consume alcohol or other drugs, particularly those in an altered state of consciousness
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Indeed, we ask that you keep these individuals in mind as you go about your lives today — and for the rest of your lives.
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The Queer Ontario Steering Committee
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Today — December 1, 2012 — is World AIDS Day.  Let us use this day to remember the lives of the individuals we have lost to HIV and AIDS, be it because of a lack of access to HIV and AIDS-related information, testing procedures, prevention methods, or treatment options; or because of the ongoing stigmatization, criminalization, scapegoating, and mistreatment (including  the serophobic harassment, assault, and murder) of people living with HIV/AIDS (or, for that case, of people presumed to be living with HIV/AIDS).
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This includes:

• People who are unable to access:
  • HIV/AIDS-related information
  • public or private insurance coverage, especially due to
    • insufficient funds (regardless of income) and/or
    • ineligible residency status, and/or
    • a lack of access to employment health benefits
  • health care centres and/or health care professionals — particularly ones that are knowledgeable, respectful, and non-stigmatizing
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• People who are not given timely HIV/AIDS-related information (if at all) because they are presumed to not be at risk of transmission and/or to not be living with HIV/AIDS. Case in point: people who are straight-identified and/or who are currently in a heterosexual relationship
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• Sex workers, especially sex workers who engage clients outdoors
• Transpeople, particularly transwomen who are sex workers
• Racialized people, particularly: Black men; Black men presumed to be from Africa; Aboriginal women (both cis and trans); and East and South Asian transwomen
• First Nations people, especially First Nations women (both cis and trans) and two-spirited people who are sex workers and/or intravenous drug consumers
• Men who have sex with other men, especially older gay men and men who engage in ‘public’ sex
• Intravenous drug consumers, particularly individuals who consume heroin.
• And anyone who lives or embodies any combination of these and other unlisted social positions. (Feel free to contribute to our list).

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For more information about World AIDS Day, and the prevention, transmission, and treatment of HIV (including treatment-as-prevention), we recommend a visit to CATIE’s website at http://www.catie.ca/en/world-aids-day
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Sincerely,
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The Queer Ontario Steering Committee
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