No topic in a liberal democratic society should be off the table for reasonable debate. Yet here we are in 2022 with a seasoned educator being silenced and suspended for raising safeguarding concerns over ideological transgender literature being made available to children. Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.
The studies regarding medical transition are not conclusive, yet here in select transgender children’s literature everything is a-fucking-okay. This is an issue worth discussing in public and in great detail at the *very* least.
“An Ontario school board is facing charges of censorship this week after shutting down a teacher’s presentation to the group, saying her comments about books on transgender issues violated the province’s human rights code
Carolyn Burjoski was discussing publications she said are available in the libraries of Kindergarten to grade six schools. She had begun to argue the books made it seem too simple and “cool” to medically transition to another gender when her presentation was cut short by the Waterloo Region District School Board’s chair.”
Ms. Burjoski’s presentation was about safeguarding children from potentially dangerous medical treatments. Seems reasonable right? (Wrong)
“Scott Piatkowski ruled she could not continue and the board eventually voted 5-4 to back up his decision. The fallout has continued since.
Though controversial and opposed by most transgender advocates, concerns have been voiced before — including by leading figures in the movement itself — that gender-dysphoric young people are sometimes pushed too aggressively into medical transition.
Piatkowski latertold a local CTV station , however, that Burjoski’s comments were actually transphobic and “questioned the right to exist” of trans people. Meanwhile, the organization took down its recording of the meeting — a regular, public session of elected officials — and had YouTube remove another copy of the video for alleged copyright infringement.”
Piatkowski and the Board have taken down the meeting off of youtube, fortunately the meeting recording has appeared elsewhere.
Go here and judge for yourself if *ANYTHING* Ms. Burjoksi says or presents is in the least bit ‘transphobic’ or in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Code (nothing is).
Time Stamp Highlghts:
2:01 – Book called ‘Rick’ – That is about why Rick doesn’t think about naked girls. He goes to a ‘rainbow club’ and identifies as ‘asexual’. Counterpoint – Maybe Rick doesn’t have sexual feelings yet because Rick is a child. Also a book that sexualizes and objectifies girls might not be appropriate reading for young girls (ed. or really *any* educational setting)
2:59 – The first warning from Piatkowski directed at Ms. Burjoski on the unfounded basis of her presentation somehow being against the Ontario Human Rights Code.
3:55 – Book called ‘Shane’ – The main character dismisses the very real consequences of being sterilized. The book also makes medical transition seem like an easy cure to emotional and social distress. (ed. it most certainly is not).
4:16 – Ms. Burjoski shut down by Chair Piatkowski for alleged breach of Ontario Human Rights Code.
Watch the whole thing, but like any zoom meeting its disjointed and frustrating to watch especially when those who value critical analysis and freedom of speech are shut down.
There is nothing wrong with the board’s policies. They accurately reflect the requirements of the Human Rights Code and the case law interpreting it. The problem is the Board’s interpretation.
The Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in the employment, housing and the provision of services on prohibited grounds of discrimination which include “race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status or disability.”
It also prohibits harassment in employment or housing. Harassment “means engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome.” The board’s human rights policy elaborates on this definition and explains that harassment consists of conduct directed at an individual such as insults, epithets, persistent teasing and offensive jokes based on a protected characteristic. Nothing in Ms. Burjoski’s presentation could possibly fit this definition.
The Ontario Code does not attempt to regulate speech in general. Section 13 prohibits publication of a “notice, sign, symbol or emblem” that indicates an expression to discriminate but it is subject to a proviso that it shall not interfere with freedom of expression.”
Yeah… So it would seem that these ‘human rights violations’ are really just important and valid concerns with gender ideology that desperately need to be discussed in context of their application in Public Schools.
Also Ms. Burjoski was then summarily excommunicated from her staff and students for her heretical statements.
“And then the teacher was given what she calls a “stay-at-home order” and told not to communicate with colleagues or students, though she’s still being paid and is slated to retire soon. On Thursday, she says her union rep informed her the board had appointed an outside investigator to examine her actions.”
Yep. Did you think that freedom of speech is a valued tenet of our society? Try speaking out against the gender-religion and see how far you get. Suspended in Burjoski’s case for wanting to discuss the appropriateness of sexualizing children and child safeguarding against still largely experimental medical gender therapies.
“In her first interview on the affair, Burjoski said she was “flabbergasted” by what happened at the meeting and Piatkowski’s remarks afterward
“I am not a transphobic person. It’s crazy that just because you ask a question, the first thing people do is call you that,” she said. “We do need to have a conversation about the intersection of biology and gender. We’re not having those conversations in our culture because, look what happened to me.”
She said the order to stay away from school was likely meant to make an example of her: “The message is clear: no dissent is allowed.”
No ideology is above reproach and measured critique by members of a free and open society, yet here we are watching a teacher be excommunicated for questioning the transgender doctrine in the context of prioritizing the safety of children.
If you are not asking questions about what transgender ideology is and how it affects children (and society) it is time to start. How many more people are we going to let be silenced in the name of transgender orthodoxy? Thankfully Ms. Burjoski is not going quietly. Support her legal fund as she fights not to be silenced for making valid criticisms of a potentially pernicious ideology.
The demands of people for you as a third party to partake in their gender-fantasy is not a reasonable one.
What other adults think and believe in society is not my responsibility. I believe that society should be based on verifiable facts, evinced arguments, and the willingness to be compromise on contentious issues. We’re all not going to get exactly what we want from society, but through negotiation and Reason, a middling solution must be found. The best way to interrogate the issues that we all face in the broader societal context is to have the ability to discuss social issues without fear in a nuanced and usually complex way. No topic should be off limits in a reasonable discussion – yet an entire class of unreasonable arguments seems to be off that table. Those arguments deal with the ideas of personal identity and how the individual and society is supposed to interact.
The problematic identities that are causing friction in society usually involve the nebulous concept of ‘gender’. Gender is the set of socially constructed beliefs and values that are associated with the two sexes of human beings in society. For instance, males are aggressive and good leaders, while females are compassionate and good care-givers are both examples of sex stereotypes (aka gender) that individuals in each sex class are saddled with. Society is constructed around the preservation of these stereotypes and in breaking them there is usually a negative social cost involved.
Feminists, during the second wave, sought to break down these gender stereotypes and move toward an understanding of gender as an often toxic construction of norms and ideas that shouldn’t necessarily be followed. Gender non-conforming behaviour was lauded as the way forward as individuals of both sexes should be able to access and embody the traits and values that were traditionally ‘not allowed’ for them. Women could be aggressive, powerful leaders while men could be caring nurturing and family orientated – and neither would face social censure for acting outside what was considered “normal” for their sex classes.
I consider the refutation of gender norms and gender non-conforming behaviour to be the way forward in society as individuals should be able to embody whatever sex stereotypical sets of behaviours that seem right for them.
All of this is based on the notion that gender is a set of sex stereotypical behaviours that have been arbitrarily (and some times coercively) assigned to the two human sexes.
The Transgender Identity movement we know today takes precisely the opposite view of sex stereotypes and how they should play out in society. Transgender ideology states that the act of performing and identifying with one set of sex stereotypes *makes* you that stereotype AND the physical sex associated with it. So for instance, a man who likes wearing high heels and dresses (both sex stereotypical clothing types) should be regarded as a ‘woman’ (adult human female). Because, in transgender ideology, adopting femininity and feminine affect is what makes women ‘women’.
To reality based feminists and most of the general population this is a preposterous notion. Human beings inhabit a sexual binary. We are either male or female for the most part. What makes a woman or a man is simply being male or female with all the associated physical characteristics. We are defined by the sex class we are born into – the set of stereotypes prescribed for us is based on natal sex. Second Wave feminism correctly identified gender as (usually harmful) sex-stereotypes and specifically rallied against the notion that to be a proper man or a woman one must follow the normative prescriptions of gender identity.
Transgender ideology flips this around and says that people who don’t associate with set of sex stereotypes that are assigned to them must then adopt the stereotypes of the opposite sex and through gender magic the individual ‘transitions’ to actually being the opposite sex. Thus, acting a male acting in a stereotypical female fashion ACTUALLY becomes female.
This is Grade A bonafide horseshit, but it is the tenet that lies at the very heart of transgenderism – by adopting they stereotypes of the opposite sex, you become that sex… Fundamentally, the notion is nonsensical and at odds with the physical reality we all share. But it is also here where the compelled speech becomes and issue for me and the rest of society. You see, correctly observing reality is looked at as harmful and abusive because it does not align with the transgender individuals internalized notion of gender and of which sex they are. The transgender movement argues that subjective feelings of individuals should override the rights of others in correctly identifying the physical reality that is before their very eyes. A male is woman because he has feminine feelings and because he says so, and to contradict his gender delusion is to be bigoted and transphobic.
In polite society, being a bigot or phobic carries serious social consequences which is precisely why the transgender movement subverted these social norms to comport with their inner feelings of gender and the protection thereof. Individuals in society must then carefully consider the social costs to disagreeing with transgender ideology which makes it harder to discuss and grapple with. Sometimes it’s just easier and safer to go along with the gender deluded individual despite the damage being done to free speech and allegiance to material reality in society. It is this chilling paradigm that I rally against.
If we value the liberal foundation that we have based our society on, transgender ideology and those who espouse it should not get a free pass. Transgender ideology must be debated, argued, and its merits and faults examined closely in society. Compelled speech to preserve gender-feelings that do not comport with reality is an unacceptable state of affairs. The current imposition of transgender ideology is a clear and present safeguarding issue to women and children in our society because men who identify as women are gaining access to single sex spaces based on their say-so and that, if we value the safety of children and women, is a problem.
“That’s the way feminists have used the terms since the 1970s, as they challenged patriarchal claims that men’s domination and exploitation of women is “natural” because of biology. Patriarchy turns biological difference into social dominance. Feminists have long argued that gender is connected to our sex differences but is “socially constructed” in a way that reflects the unequal distribution of power between men and women over the past few thousand years. Anything socially constructed could be constructed differently through politics.
The trans movement flips that understanding, routinely asserting that gender is not the product of social forces but is a private internal state of being, which may be innate and immutable (opinions in the trans movement vary). In other words, transgender ideology asserts that gender is something one feels and has no necessary connection to one’s body and reproductive system. Trans activists routinely assert that “sex is a social construction,” that the biological distinctions of male and female are not objectively real but are created by societies. Stock painstakingly explains why this—again I’ll use the phrase, though it sounds harsh—doesn’t make sense.
In the preceding paragraph, I wrote “routinely assert” not only because there are differences of opinion within the transgender movement (which is to be expected in any movement) but because I have heard trans activists shift arguments when asked to defend a position (which is an indication of a weak argument in any movement). I once asked a trans activist, “If sex is socially constructed, that implies that it could be constructed in some other way. Do you know of any other way for humans to reproduce other than with an egg (produced by a female) and sperm (produced by a male)? By what means would human reproduction be socially constructed differently?” The activist offered no rebuttal to that, but simply dropped the claim, moving on to assert that trans people know what sex they “really” are and that any challenge to this idea was hateful and bigoted.”
This paucity of argumentative integrity has not stopped the gender-faithful from pushing their agenda and colonizing female spaces in society.
Stock also explains why allowing transwomen—again, males who identify as women—to participate in women’s sports will undermine and potentially eliminate sex-segregated activities that create opportunities for girls and women to thrive. Separate athletic competitions for males and females exist because of the physiological advantage males have over females, and those advantages don’t disappear by identifying as a woman.
Does any of this really matter? Well, it matters to teenage girls who may not want to change clothes in a locker room next to a boy who identifies as a girl. It matters to women at a health club that allows transwomen in a “women only” space. It matters to clients in a women’s homeless shelter that refuses to restrain sexually aggressive behavior of transwomen in order to be “inclusive.” It matters to the woman who is bumped from a country’s Olympic weightlifting team when a transwoman is allowed to compete as a woman. It matters to the women who were sexually assaulted by a transwoman who was housed in a women’s prison. It matters to the lesbians who choose not to date transwomen—because their sexual orientation is toward female humans and not male humans who identify as women—and are then called bigots and ostracized. And it matters to the woman who had to fight to get her job back after being fired for publicly stating that she believes “that sex is immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity.”
Trans activists’ responses to these challenges vary, but they can be reduced to a trans slogan so popular that an LGBT organization in the UKput it on a t-shirt: “Transwomen are women. Get over it!”
To say the least, the meaning of the statement “transwomen are women” is not obvious, either intuitively or logically. It’s a claim that many people find hard to understand, not because they are bigots but because it seems at odds with material reality. It would be more accurate to say: “Transwomen are transwomen, which raises many complex intellectual, political, and moral questions. Let’s work out solutions that respect everyone’s rights and interests!”
Not the catchiest slogan, but accurate and honest. It’s a t-shirt that I think Stock would endorse. She doesn’t condemn or mock trans people but rather seeks deeper understanding to make public policy choices as fair as possible for all.
The problem is that there has never been a public debate or a reasonable discussion of how we are in include the gender religious into society. It has always been ‘accept every demand, otherwise you are bigot!’. It has gotten them far, but at the expense of female rights, boundaries, and safety, which is clearly unacceptable in a society that values individuals rights and freedom.
Do you think referring to a man as a she/her is stupid? Yeah, well you may have to watch your step and bite your tongue in Canada or face the consequences. Write your MP and get them started on amending these laws to include a lick of common sense.
‘Back in 2016, I fought tirelessly just to publish anything, anywhere, explaining my concerns about Bill C-16, Canada’s gender identity legislation. Almost no outlet would consider it (certainly not our publicly-funded CBC), except, finally, The National Observer, who did me the favour. As a result, I was invited (via a Conservative senator) to testify against the bill at the Senate — I and Pour les droits des femmes Quebec (PDF), a Quebecois feminist group, were the only women and feminists invited to speak against the bill, and I suggested a representative from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter also make a presentation, to put forward a feminist argument in favour of women-only space.
Our arguments were completely ignored by our left wing political representatives in the NDP, as well as by the Liberal government that proposed the bill, and Bill C-16 passed almost unchallenged. I had suspected as much, but wanted it to at least be on record that there was some push back from women/feminists. The only person who really received any traction on his arguments was Jordan Peterson, who expressed concerns about “compelled speech.”
This trend has persisted ever since. Women’s concerns about the sexism and danger of gender identity ideology have been almost completely ignored by Canadian media and politicians, and the debate has been consistently framed as one of “good, progressive, open-minded people who care about the rights and safety of marginalized groups” vs “evil, religious right bigots who hate gays, lesbians, and trans-identified people.”
This has played out yet again in our attempts to challenge amendments to the “conversion therapy” bill proposed by the Liberals.
Last year, David Lametti, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, reintroduced proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, which would criminalize “conversation therapy,” commonly understood to be the practice of attempting to turn gay people straight. But the proposed amendments in Bill C-6 (which later became Bill C-4) conflated this homophobic practice with the practice of affirming “gender identity.” Lametti told the Canadian House of Commons that “conversion therapy refers to misguided efforts to change the sexual orientation of bisexual, gay, and lesbian individuals to heterosexual [or to] change a person’s gender identity to cisgender.”
By adding “gender identity” to the bill, the Liberals succeeded in conflating homosexuality with the postmodern notion that one can “feel” like the opposite sex, and that this feeling in fact means you literally are the opposite sex. The new legislation will criminalize those who profit from or advertise “conversion therapy,” including therapists and medical practitioners who do not practice the “affirmative model” — which means confirming an individual’s “trans identity” unquestioningly. Because adults do have the right to make their own choices about their bodies and whether they wish to undergo cosmetic surgery, what we are really talking about here are children and teens — individuals who are not equipped to understand the long-term consequences of medical transition on their bodies and lives, and are sent to therapists before proceeding to hormone blockers, hormone treatment, then surgery. Indeed, therapists should encourage these youth to wait it out, not to rush forward on a path to medical transition — this is the responsible thing to do. Instead, they are now obligated to take the opposite approach.
Yesterday, the Senate passed Bill C-4 with no objections, which means it will be essentially illegal in Canada to question or challenge a child’s declaration of transgender identity and their desire to socially and/or medically “transition” to the opposite sex.
This time around, feminist groups (and many other concerned individuals) did attempt to organize and speak against the bill, but were again ignored by the media, and clearly not taken seriously by politicians.
It is already difficult to question the legitimacy of gender identity ideology in Canada, and already practically impossible to access therapy that might allow a teen to grow out of their desire to transition, as so manydo. This new legislation ensures it is now impossible to offer therapy that does not approach transition as the best path.
Moreover, the Liberal government is currently working to push through legislation criminalizing so-called “hate speech” online, which would surely include challenges to gender identity ideology and, for example, make it illegal to use correct pronouns to describe someone who prefers to use the pronouns traditionally reserved for the opposite sex.
Essentially, the Canadian government, considering itself ever-so-progressive, is criminalizing not only feminist speech, but free speech and critical thought as a whole. One will no longer be permitted to challenge government orthodoxy in Canada, and dissenters will not only be silenced, but punished under the law.
It is terrifying, and means an end to democracy and civil liberties in Canada.
The only solution is non-compliance — with all of it, though my solution has been to leave Canada, with the knowledge that I can no longer work and exist in my country without persecution. I will absolutely continue to speak and work for women’s rights and constitutional freedoms everywhere, including in Canada, but not based out of my home country. It is difficult for me to envision a free future when so few are standing up and fighting back, and when our political representatives refuse to respect and hear our concerns, voices, and rights. We the people are our only hope — and I hope we fail to comply.’
Mia Ashton writes on Canadian Bill C-36 and its implications for women and feminists who have taken up the mantle of defending female rights and boundaries in Canadian society.
“There is the same complete lack of understanding surrounding this proposed hate speech legislation. Most people in Canada are not aware that a small subset of the population believes a simple statement of biological reality should be treated as a hate crime. Nor do they know that women’s groups fighting to maintain their right to the safety of single-sex spaces are considered hate groups. Furthermore, most people still have faith in our legal system. It seems preposterous to the average person that the legal profession could be captured by a political ideology, but a quick look at British Columbia shows that our legal system is far from immune. In December 2020, BC courts issued new directives requiring participants to introduce themselves with their titles and preferred pronouns, and in 2019 a BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled that a Christian minister referring to a trans-identified male as a male in a pamphlet amounted to denying the existence of transgender people. This is an argument one would expect to find among gender ideologues on Twitter, but not in a legal setting.
Love it or loathe it, social media is now the town square. It is where almost all political discussions take place, where people go to get informed, test ideas, debate and organise. Gender critical feminists already play the Twitter language game, in which a statement as simple as only women have a cervix is enough to earn a permanent ban. Therefore, we all carefully word our tweets in the hope of evading suspension, but until now the worst that could happen to us for accidentally stating biological facts was Twitter or Facebook banning us. Now Canadian feminists have a much bigger reason to fear speaking or writing what everyone knows to be true: the very real threat of hate speech allegations, a fine of up to $70,000, and a costly and stressful court battle.
If this bill is reintroduced and becomes law, it will have a disastrous effect on a movement only just getting off the ground. For Canadian trans activists, of course, that is the point. Earlier this year, a prominent Ottawa trans activist, Fae Johnstone, tweeted: “I actually do want a political environment in which TERFs are so vilified they don’t dare speak their views publicly, let alone act on them. Shut. Them. Down.” It is frightening to think that this bill would give those with such undemocratic, authoritarian beliefs the power to report feminists for hate crimes from behind a veil of anonymity.”
The notion that stating mere biological fact could be a ‘hate crime’ in Canada is chilling.
For the record these facts include the following:
1. Women are only adult human females.
2. Sex is immutable in humans.
3. Gender is not the same as sex, and gendered feelings do not overrule the common physical reality we all share.
C-36 is a dangerous bill if you value the marketplace of ideas and the idea of free speech.
“The legislation proposes four new Criminal Code offences that would prohibit:
causing another person to undergo conversion therapy
removing a minor from Canada to subject them to conversion therapy abroad
profiting from providing conversion therapy
advertising or promoting conversion therapy
The proposed legislation would also authorize courts to order the seizure of conversion therapy advertisements or to order their removal from computer systems or the Internet.
This bill expands on Bill C-6, adopted by the House of Commons in the previous Parliament. It does so by protecting all Canadians—regardless of their age—from the well-documented harms of conversion therapy practices.
Conversion therapy practices aim to change an individual’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change an individual’s gender identity to cisgender, or to change their gender expression to match the sex they were assigned at birth. They harm and further stigmatize sexual and gender-diverse persons and undermine their equality and dignity. They reflect myths and stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2) communities, particularly that their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression are wrong. These harmful practices also reinforce heteronormative and cis-normative ideas, as well as gender-conformity on LGBTQ2 individuals.
The practice can take various forms, including counselling and behavioural modification. Conversion therapy practices are discriminatory and have been proven to be harmful to the physical, mental and social well-being of the victim, even for adults who consented to it.
Criminal law reform is an important step in protecting the equality and dignity of LGBTQ2 persons, but more remains to be done. The Government of Canada is committed to working with provinces, territories, municipalities, survivors and stakeholders to ensure that Canada is a country where everyone—regardless of their gender expression, gender identity, or sexual orientation—can live equally and freely.”
The Federal Liberals are going full steam ahead with the gender ideology bullshit. It just passed the in the House of Commons unanimously – because our Conservative opposition has jello instead of a spine.
It looks like we’re trying to codify the ‘gendered soul’ into law in Canada. Of all the nebulous concepts that don’t need the state backing them up, it at the head of the list. This bill had better not be lumping the therapy that actually helps children be comfortable in their own body without surgery of hormones into an unlawful category. The notion that watchful waiting and other material reality confirming therapies are unlawful is just fucking crazy.
“Ken Zucker, Ph.D. C.Psych and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto presented a discussion of the differences in developmental trajectories for children with gender dysphoria at the 24th Congress of the World Association of Sexual Health, in October 2019, Mexico City. The following information is summarized and quoted from his presentation.
Dr Zucker based his analysis on a review of a number of follow up studies for persistence and desistance rates. He categorized therapeutic approaches designed to reduce gender dysphoria into 3 different types:
Treatment 1: Assessment, “watchful waiting”
Treatment 2: Assessment, active treatment of many kinds (recommendations to parents to implement in the naturalistic environment, behavior therapy, play therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, group therapy, etc., etc.)
Treatment 3: Gender Social Transition
“The follow-up studies summarized so far, by and large, collected data on children who were assessed (and sometimes treated) prior to the emergence, around the mid-2000s, of pre-pubertal gender social transition as an alternative type of psychosocial treatment designed to reduce gender dysphoria: a treatment that parents may have instituted on their own, in consultation with a clinician, or on the advice of a clinician or some other type of professional (e.g., a teacher).”
The very low persistence rates in the case of Treatments 1 and 2 show that gender identity becomes more congruent with birth-assigned sex in the majority of cases.
To compare the persistence and desistance rates of children who received a gender-affirming care approach characterized by social gender transitioning, Dr Zucker used data from Steensma et al. (2013) which reported a systematic follow-up study of children in which some children were classified as having had either a partial or a complete social transition prior to puberty.
The relationship between social gender transition and the follow-up persistence and desistance rates is striking. Among desisters, almost none of the natal boys had socially transitioned. Almost 45% of the persistors, however, had partially or completely socially transitioned, yet their gender dysphoria had not resolved.
Social transition in relation to persistence and desistance was not as strong among the girls. Almost 60% of the persistors had socially transitioned. A significant number of desisters had socially transitioned as well, although Dr Zucker cautioned that the definition of social transition used by Steensma probably captured some girls where the social transition metric may have been very broad (e.g., change in hair-style or clothing style).
Dr Zucker predicts that as new samples of socially transitioned children become available, the rate of persistence will be much higher when compared to the older studies, where most of the children received either Treatment 1 or Treatment 2. Of the 3rd type of treatment, social gender transition, he commented that it offers a different approach that leads to desistance: the gender dysphoria dissipates because the child is now living in the “desired” gender; however, for desistance to remain stable, it will often, if not always, require biomedical treatment (life-long hormone therapy with or without gender-affirming surgery).
There are many possible pathways to desistance, which leads to the parental conundrum: which therapeutic approach does one take to reduce gender dysphoria? This is what the contemporary parent (and clinician) must decide.”
This is some authentically scary shit. Parents could be arrested for wanting effective means of treatment for their children. This isn’t good my fellow Canadians, and let us hope that the Senate can add some clarity to this proposed nightmare of a bill.
“A Canadian medical researcher who rose to become the nation’s top voice on indigenous health has been ousted from her government job and her university professorship — after suspicious colleagues investigated her increasingly fanciful claims of Native American heritage and learned she was a fraud.”
“Far from being a member of the Métis nation, as she had long claimed, a laborious trace of Bourassa’s family tree revealed that her supposedly indigenous ancestors were in fact immigrant farmers who hailed from Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
Wheeler, a documented member of Manitoba’s Fisher River Cree Nation, started digging into Bourassa’s genealogical records — and took her findings to the media.
But when pressed to provide evidence of Native American heritage, Bourassa suddenly changed her story — saying that she had been adopted into the Métis community by an unnamed Métis friend of her deceased grandfather, Clifford Laroque.
“Even though Clifford passed, those bonds are even deeper than death because the family has taken me as if I was their blood family,” she insisted in a statement. “In turn, I serve the Métis community to the best of my ability.”
“Wheeler said the fact that the letter advocates sidelining genealogical proof is alarming at a time when Indigenous people are fighting for their rights and their land.
“That’s opening the doors to every Tom, Dick and Harry to claim Indigeneity,” she said. “Then suddenly out of the woodwork, everybody’s Indigenous because they feel like it.”
University of Saskatchewan associate professor of Indigenous studies Winona Wheeler says Bourassa’s story is built on a fundamental falsehood. (Chanss Lagaden/CBC)
According to an email from the University of Saskatchewan, if Indigenous identity or experience is required for a role, the university “accepts self-declaration in matters of employment.”
Wheeler said that’s not enough.
“When I apply for an academic job, I have to give them a copy of my certificate for my PhD,” she said. “But if I’m applying for a position that’s targeted only for Indigenous people, I’m not required to provide anything except self-identification. Now that’s lowering standards.”
Smylie said she decided to speak up, despite the risks to her career, because the consequences of continued silence are grave.
“If I was to stay quiet and let somebody who’s an impostor regularly inform the nation and lead the nation like in Indigenous health, then I guess then I wouldn’t [have] earned the right to call myself Métis anymore,” she said. “And that will be the end of our people.”
The discrimination and hatred that transracial individuals receive in Canada is real, and their very existence is being questioned. When will this rampant transracialphobia and marginalization stop?
Is there a better example of how utterly inconsistent and deranged transgender ideology is? Why in the case as ‘someone who identifies as Indigenous’ is lambasted in the press and yet, somehow a man can identify as a woman and all is well in the world (it really isn’t).
Like, come on CBC, either self identification all the time or none of the time – it can’t just be for men who think they are women. You should be championing Bourassa’s case not denigrating her and questioning her ‘validity’. So what if the established facts of the matter point to the exact opposite of her identity claims? How can we not endorse Bourassa while tirelessly advocating for men to freely claim womanhood because they self-identify as such?
What is the metric you are using to promote one aspect of self-id, but not the other?
Asking for the female population of Canada that is being erased in Canadian society through the wildly inappropriate application of gender identity laws.
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