OTTAWA - A bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against transgender Canadians was approved by the House of Commons on Wednesday.
The Opposition private member’s legislation passed by a vote of 149-137, with the crucial support of 18 Conservatives, including four cabinet ministers.
It was one of the first tests of the Conservative caucus’ resolve on lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) rights in Canada at a time when Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has been mounting a strong defence of such rights abroad.
Baird, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt and Heritage Minister James Moore were among the Conservatives who supported the bill. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, most of his front bench and the vast majority of his backbenchers opposed it.
Opposition parties were united in their support for the bill, sponsored by New Democrat Randall Garrison.
MPs are generally free to vote as they see fit on private members’ bills.
“Today, New Democrats are proud to have contributed to ensuring equal protection under the law from discrimination and hatred based on gender identity,” Garrison said in a statement after the vote.
“Transgender and transsexual citizens are among the most marginalized and are too often victims of harassment and acts of violence.”
The bill had triggered vigorous, sometimes emotional debate in the Commons.
After passing at second reading last year — with the support of 15 Tories and another nine abstaining — the bill’s momentum seemed to falter as some Conservatives began to express reservations about its impact and effectiveness.
There were complaints that the language in the bill was confusing and vague, including the term “gender expression” and “gender identity.”
Garrison tried to strike a compromise by removing the term “gender expression.”
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel teared up in the Commons earlier this month as she spoke about the discrimination that transgender Canadians face, even as she questioned the bill’s effectiveness.
“Both sides of this debate should agree that equality and protection against harm are two fundamental values that all Canadians of any gender, any age, any background are entitled to,” Rempel said.
“However, as legislators we are also tasked with deciding if the proposed legislation is sound. Given the lack of clarity that I found in the bill, I do have concern about its viability.”
Other Conservative MPs opposed the bill on other grounds, such as the argument that pedophiles would be protected when they lurked in public bathrooms.
Shortly before the vote, Calgary MP Rob Anders tabled a petition “on behalf of thousands” of Canadians opposed to what he called “the bathroom bill.”
“These constituents feel that it is the duty of the House of Commons to protect and safeguard our children from any exposure and harm that would come from giving a man access to women’s public washroom facilities,” Anders said.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal had supported adding transgender identity to federal anti-discrimination and anti-hate legislation, saying it would promote acceptance and send a message about tolerance.
While some MPs argued that the transgendered were already protected on the basis of sex and disability, the tribunal said it would be better to have explicit protection so that the question is not perpetually challenged.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version said 16 Conservatives had supported the bill.
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positive-press-daily:
Brothers of Phi Alpha Tau at Emerson College campaign to pay for FTM top surgery
Traditionally, college Greeks are an archetypally masculine institution—about as butch as the Boy Scouts. Pledging a fraternity and being inducted as a brother is often an arduous process, one that is meant to separate the men from the boys. But where does the LGBTQ community fit into this macho niche?
Much like the world of professional sports, the world of campus Greek life is not often heralded as the epitome of acceptance. Locker room antics are an insidious fact of the frat house. No doubt about it.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, which is what makes this story out of Emerson College particularly heartwarming: brothers in Emerson’s Alpha Chapter of Phi Alpha Tau have come together to raise funds for a new brother’s FTM top surgery (full disclosure: I’m a member of the PAT fraternity and currently a junior at Emerson).
Earlier this year, Visual & Media Arts sophomore Donnie Collins pledged as a prospective brother to Phi Alpha Tau, the nation’s oldest professional communicative arts fraternity. An Alexandria, Virginia native, Collins didn’t come out as transgender until age 17 while attending a boarding school in Windsor, Conn. Of his time in an all-girls dorm, he says in a recent interview, “They were really nice, but it was all horrible.”
Thus far, Collins has been taking his gender transition one step at a time. Barred from using his mother’s insurance to cover any physical transitions, he has singlehandedly covered the bulk of his hormone therapy since December 2011.
“I’d go to the endocrinologist and pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket, because, of course, I didn’t have insurance of my own,” he explains.
Collins now has a college health insurance policy through Emerson, a policy, like so many others, that is trans-exclusionary. It is common practice for insurance companies to deem female-to-male breast augmentation—or top surgery—as a cosmetic plastic surgery rather than a necessity. So Collins has been raising money for the procedure for months, but it seemed that one door after another would close in his face. His petition for a trans-inclusive policy was recently denied by the college’s insurance plan, and his personal Chipin fund will cease when the crowd-funding site shuts down next month.
In a time when his options were running out, Collins’s brothers in Phi Alpha Tau have rallied together to cover some of the surgery’s cost. Find their indiegogo fund here: Brothers of A Boston Fraternity - FTM: Top Surgery. The brothers’ fund has already surpassed the $2,000 they initially hoped to donate, but now they’re looking to cover even more of the procedure’s $8,100 cost.
Collins has been completely overwhelmed by the wave of support, admitting to have cried out of gratitude when he heard what his brothers were doing. But the thought that this is a fraternity raising money for him never even crossed his mind.
“I was just like, ‘Oh that’s such a Tau thing to do,’ and I didn’t even think it was that weird,” he says. “But then I started sending [the indiegogo link] out to people, and they were like, ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing! See, Greek Life isn’t bad; it’s amazing.’”
The brothers’ site says that they hope less to raise money with their efforts and more to spread acceptance, brotherhood, and love. “We are here… to tell a story.The story of transformation, the story of self-discovery, and the story of brotherhood.”
It seems that Donnie Collins and his brothers’ story is certainly one worth telling. Please consider donating to their cause.
This is an incredible story.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/60d66dd0ca82bed1cd6fdd40fd3785d5/tumblr_mixp4pFBwO1qm0g2co1_400.jpg)
