Commons Passes Transgender Protection Bill

[tenni]

OTTAWA — The House of Commons passed a bill Wednesday (today) that will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code to protect transgender and transsexual Canadians from discrimination...."This is not a partisan issue, it’s a human rights issue.”

This was the third attempt by Siksay, the NDP critic for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual issues, to introduced such a bill to the House. The two previous attempts never made it to debate, so this marked the first time transgender issues were debated in Parliament.

The amendments proposed in the bill prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression through adding “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in the Canada Human Rights Act, and through adding transgender and transsexual Canadians as identifiable groups in the Criminal Code’s hate crimes law.

The term ‘gender expression’ refers to an individual’s outward expression of their inward sense of gender, Siksay said.

Now that the bill is one step closer to becoming law, at least one critic said he is going to intensify his campaign against C-389......

“This is reckless. I’m appalled,” said evangelical minister Charles McVety, who has been fighting the legislation since June. “This is a dangerous, inconsiderate bill. The considerations of all Canadians were not taken into account.”

Having received majority approval in the House, the bill will now be sent off to the Senate for review. If Senate passes it, the bill the Governor General grants royal assent.

full article at

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Commons+passes+transgender+protections+bill/4254331/story.html

[Long Duck Dong]

and NZ has had it for years, but we made it a one law for all people the first time ... not a law for some people than we need to add other people to it later....

guess the rest of the world is still trying to work out how basic equal rights actually works....

[tenni]

Will you expand upon your statement LDD? What is the name of the act? How is it worded so that it protects transgendered people in particular? I see that you mention that it protects all people. Has it been tested in a court and what is it about the language that protects transgendered people?

[Long Duck Dong]

New_Zealand_Human_Rights_Act_1993 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Human_Rights_Act_1993)

go read about it

1. Sex (including pregnancy and childbirth)
2. Marital status
3. Religious belief
4. Ethical belief
5. Colour
6. Race
7. Ethnic or national origins
8. Disability
9. Age
10. Political opinion
11. Employment status
12. Family status
13. Sexual orientation

transgender people are under 1 and 13 and the reason for that, is that they are treated the same as everybody else.... but the thing is, we generally do not single out trans people as seperate groups......

and as for how things hold up in court.... its rare to see anti discrimination laws challenged in court...so nz is not a country where we have a habit of arguing in court about how we legally should have the right to treat people like shit.....

not sure about canada.... but yeah interesting how they have having to argue over laws that require them to treat people like people.....

[tenni]

Thanks
I think that I understand what you mean with the words "treating people like people" but historically it seems to have been more along the lines of treating people like inferiors or equals. I do not understand why transgendered needed this specification but I do believe that those that voted against it more than not saw no need to give credibility as a group that was persecuted. To me they were voting yes or no as to whether transgendered were being discriminated against and they wanted it stopped or not. It has been reported on this site that many transgendered people have been discriminated against, beaten and killed because they were transgendered. If the society has not identified them as needing protection then the criminals may not be prosecuted. Gender issues are not sexual orientation issues and was deemed necessary to acknowledge this at this time. There is no guarantee though that the Senate will pass this act because the minority government has now created a Senate that will do as the government tells them to do.

[void()]

Void wanders by, hugs tenni just because, wanders on.