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I’ve has the honour and pleasure to meet some brilliant people over the years.  Some even happen to reside in my home province and share some of the same political tribulations that I do.  This letter is a call to halt the erasure of females and female history in our society in the name of being diverse and inclusive.

I encourage everyone to get a hold of ATB if you deal with them and ask why are they participating in activities that remove women from the public sphere and edit them out of history.

 

“Dear Ms.————,

 

     I hope this finds you and yours well. I have received your email response, made on behalf of the Alberta Treasury Branches’ Customer Service department, in response to my earlier email which was in regards to the ATB art show “In Full Bloom” which is scheduled to be held in Calgary in 2023 on International Woman’s Day. As you know the call was for “artists who identify as women.” The description of the exhibit is as follows: “In Full Bloom: A celebration of artwork by and about women will focus on artwork that celebrates the creative practices of women with an emphasis on female- and nature-inspired imagery and narratives.” In a nutshell my initial complaint was that opening this show to men was both highly insulting and sexist. The response I received on behalf of the bank was that the ATB believes in “inclusivity.” But what exactly is “inclusivity”? After having researched Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ideology I have concluded that so called inclusivity, as the ATB is practicing it, is a postmodern concept which is playing a role in deconstructing and redefining the material reality of the human sex class of men and women/boys and girls.

     As a student of art history and a woman with a degree in painting from the Alberta University of the Arts, I can assure you that the disappearance of women’s and girls’ artistic endeavours in order to centre men is nothing new. For millennia the artistic works of women were disappeared, negated, or not even brought to life. Not because women lacked talent or artistic merit, but solely based on the material reality of our sexed lives. Artistic women had a brief window, beginning in the late 1960’s with the rise of second wave feminism, where we successfully challenged the system which had resulted in an art history full of nude portrayals of the female form created by men and a tiny percentage of art works created by women. It was those successful challenges to the artistic norm that lead institutions like the ATB to offer sex-based opportunities for female artists. Now the ATB simultaneously asks us to reflect and create art work on the theme of womanhood and nature while literally redefining woman from adult human female to nothing more than a claimed identity.

     This brings me to the portion of my letter where I will illustrate how the ideology of inclusion negatively impacts the lives of girls and women in societies where DEI have risen to the forefront of society. It is via the mechanism of inclusion that the following events are taking place: In June of 2017, with no public accountability and without being made clear to the voters of the 2016 election, Bill C-16 was passed into law. The bill amended the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. Running along side Bill C-16 was a change as to how Canadians were identified on their legal documents. Sex was overturned in favour of “gender.” This alteration allowed any man to “identify as a woman” with four simple words: “I am a woman. In the same year the federal government began housing convicted male criminals in women’s prisons where they were put into the general population. It is difficult to get clear numbers on the number of violent and sexual offenses these men committed because all crimes are recorded via “gender” so all crimes appear to be women on women. However, testimony gathered from women within the prison system anecdotally suggest that they are being harassed, terrorized, robbed, assaulted, sexually assaulted, and even raped by criminal men.

     I assume the ATB would like to consider itself as partners in Reconciliation, yet First Nation’s women are disproportionately housed in prisons. Now they must attempt to rehabilitate themselves while taking shifts at night in order to attempt to keep violent males at bay. As I draft this response Canada’s top ranked woman competitive cyclist is currently a man. This means that at least one outstanding woman cyclist has been pushed from the podium. We will never know how many women no longer compete because of the policies which allow men to steal the podium. The sporting events women fought for so that our daughters could make their mark are now used to affirm men’s identities. This bizarre colonization by men and boys increases the number of serious, even life threatening, injuries to female athletes, including concussion and spinal injuries. This policy of inclusion also subjects girls and women to naked males in their formerly female only change rooms. As well, mediocre males can now easily change their “identity” at any time so that they may claim the prize monies, awards, and educational scholarships which were formerly for girls and women.

     The notion of inclusion also affects matters of justice. For instance, in 2019 during a trial where a woman was giving testimony against her rapist in British Columbia, the victim was forced to perjure herself and mis-sex her attacker because his “preferred pronouns” were she and her. As a survivor of male sexual violence, I can well imagine the mental torture and humiliation of being forced affirm a rapist’s wrong sex identity rather than speak to the material reality of the sex of her assaulter. More recently in August of 2022, a woman in Ontario entered a rape shelter for counselling and housing after she was raped. While at the shelter seeking care and safety, she was raped again by a serial rapist who gained access to the shelter by “identifying as a woman.” Does the ATB really want to practice “inclusion” when it has this kind of real-world impact? I am sure the ATB thinks of itself as a supporter of gay and lesbian rights. Yet there is an inherent conflict between a heterosexual man who “identifies as a woman” and lesbian women who are exclusively same sex attracted. Thanks to the same inclusivity the ATB proudly claims, lesbians are now told they must “get over their genital preferences.” A well documented example of this took place in Toronto when a heterosexual man who “identifies as a woman” and therefore as a lesbian, set up a workshop on how to “overcome the cotton ceiling.” The event was aimed at teaching men how to get lesbians to accept “women with a female penis” in their dating pool. That is an attack on the rights of homosexual women to practice their sexuality free from harassment from male persons. Finally, the inclusivity the ATB declares as policy puts women and girls like myself in real danger as well as financial and mental crisis. We are harassed, silenced, fired, cancelled, and even physically assaulted when we attempt to discuss this rewriting of the rules of society in both private and public spaces.

     So, what is it I would like from the ATB?

Going forward I would like the ATB to alter its language on the calls for submissions for opportunities set aside for women and girls so that those programs are for girls/woman only. Should the ATB want to offer separate artistic opportunities for people who identify as the opposite sex, or asexual or non binary or cat or cake gender I have no issue with that at all. Cat and cake gender are real examples by the way. For example, I can be “A woman who used to have $$$$$$$ in savings at the ATB” gender. After all, gender is undefinable, subject to change at any time and, as I am constantly reminded, all genders are valid. In closing, I certainly appreciate the situation the ATB finds itself in. While other countries like the UK have had several successful legal challenges to Gender ideology, Canada lags a few years behind.

     However, as the issues become clearer over time and more courageous Canadians and First Nation members begin to re assert the need to provide sex-based rights for girls and women, things will change. I am providing the ATB with a chance to assess their policy and tweak it in order to provide everyone a chance to excel in their field while serving the sex-based rights of more than half of the population of Alberta. As I mentioned in my last email to you, I was planning on closing my ATB account over this issue even though my husband and I have been dedicated ATB clients since 199-. Currently the combined balance in our saving accounts is in excess of $$$$$$$, a sum we see as having some significant value. We also have an ATB Line of Credit and ATB Mastercards. I would of course prefer to stay with my local branch because the women who work there are pleasant and familiar with our needs but given the scope of the issues brought about by “being inclusive,” should no policy change be forthcoming, we will be forced to close our accounts and take our business elsewhere. I have researched other institutions and I believe I have found one who still respects women and our sex-based rights. I look forward to your response in this matter.”

Well said and unfortunately a very necessary action that needs to be taken in our society.