Hey all yall! Just a reminder that its transgender awareness month. Please take the time educate yourself about the difficulties still faced everyday by trans* people. The transgender community have extraordinarily high suicide rates, with a startling 43% of surveyed Ontarian transgender individuals admitting to attempting suicide. It may shock a lot of you, but there still isnt protection against trans* folk in Canada under Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code. We are on the cusp of making history right now in parliament with Bill C-279 by providing protection for gender identity and gender expression. It just passed its second reading in October. However, this bill was proposed in 2011, yet is still being delayed and debated by the senate, as well as lambasted by a few conservative members. On a more hopeful note, something remarkable happened in Alberta this past summer when a 12-year-old transgender boy was given a birth certificate that identified him as male. This made history in Alberta because the previous law said individuals had to go through reassignment surgery before legally identifying them as their gender. As much as it seems like progress is being made for the trans* community, we need to create a huge social shift so we can stop the prejudice and discrimination. Incidences of violence and discrimination are very frequent, with 37% of Canadian transgender youth reporting violence, and 74% reporting verbal harassment. We need to make trans* folk visible so we can change preconceived and ignorant perceptions perpetuated by mass media, social norms, and gender binaries. So please, educate yourself, realize genders fluidity, support Bill C-279 to finally pass, speak out against hate, and hug your trans* friends.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 20:41:35 +0000
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