RANT: WHEN MEN WERE MEN AND WOMEN TOO

 

   U.S. Trans-woman  Lia Thomas. Women's university swim meet 2022

STOP THE PRESSES! This week, the highest court in Britain has made a ruling that will profoundly influence how we see ourselves as a species and how we understand what it is to be human. Not since perhaps Darwin’s theory of evolution has there been such a turning away from the hard-won wisdoms of our age. On 16 April, this year, five Supreme Court judges unanimously issued

 

“…a historic and definitive ruling that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer only to a biological woman and to biological sex.

In a decision that delighted gender-critical activists, five judges ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

The judgment could have far-reaching ramifications and lead to greater restrictions on the access for trans-women to services and spaces reserved for women. It prompted calls for the UK’s laws on gender recognition to be rewritten.” (Reuters)

 

THIS WEEK’S RULING by the British Supreme Court came about when an advocacy group of “trans-critical” women in Scotland, “For Women Scotland” (FWS)* brought a motion in 2018 before the courts against guidance issued by the Scottish government, which was then involved in an effort to hire more women for public boards. The guidance said that trans-women with a “gender recognition certificate” were legally women and eligible to be put on the hiring roster. FWS challenged the ruling claiming that trans-women were not, in fact, women, and therefore ineligible to be included in the government’s equality hires. The FWS campaigners lost their case in the Scottish courts  but they appealed to the British Supreme Court and won.

 

In Britain, this ruling will have major repercussions when it comes to women’s sports, the armed services, hospitals and health care, women’s shelters, women’s prisons, women-only charities, changing rooms, washrooms and women’s spaces in general, now that trans-women are no longer legally “women”.

 

ACROSS the pond, in Canada, we still uphold the rights of trans-women to self-identify and have access to all the above spaces once considered for women only. The Canadian Human Rights Act “...prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression”, while provincial and territorial legislatures have enacted their own anti-discrimination laws. In 2017, Bill C-16 made amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code to include "gender identity or expression as a prohibited ground of discrimination and in hate propaganda and sentencing.” The law recognizes the right of individuals to self-identify their gender, and that "misgendering" can be considered a form of discrimination. 😭

WHO KNOWS in the long run how the recent changes to Canada's Criminal Code will impact “transphobes” who, for example,  raise concerns about schools withholding information from parents of students under sixteen years of age who "socially transition" at school, adopt neutral or opposite sex pronouns and names, and gather information from guidance counselors and medical staff on hormone therapy, safe breast-binding, puberty blockers and surgeries that might become available to them on their transitioning journey.  

 

“Mature teens, aged 16 and 17, may choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes without the need for parental approval, but still the approval from a physician and psychological professional.” (Aristotle)

 

👉The 2024 Aurora, Ontario story of 10-year-old “Julie” who, unbeknownst to zirs parents,  adopted a “non-binary” persona at school before socially transitioning to a boy, is instructive. OF COURSE, ZIRS PARENTS WERE NOT NOTIFIED of Julie’s transition, allowing professional teaching staff to provide the pre-teen with counseling around their choice of pronouns, the use of male facilities, etc., and while many of their peers applauded them for coming out in such a demonstrable way, Julie would, over the course of grade six, de-transition back to a girl. Had it not been for the intervention of  their parents, “Julie” would be well on the way to their gender(s) of choice.

 

 From sad-sack...

To be sure, Julie’s story is a disappointment for advocates of trans-children’s rights. But the reader may take heart to know that transphobia still has no place in Canada, and that robust Hate Crime laws are now in place to protect the rights of transitioning persons, young and old alike.

 

    ...to melon-sack. "Kayla Lemieux"+

The Supreme Court ruling in Britain is a step back to the ‘Middle Ages’ when men were men and women were women. Period. Let’s hope the trans-advocacy court cases that will test the British High Court ruling in the near future will use the example of Canada's progressive trans-protections and our acceptance of "gender fluidity"  when crafting their legal briefs. Men are men, and women too! Canada, the True North Strong and Free!😬

 Cheers, Jake._________________________________

* The group is funded by children's author and transphobe, J.K. Rowling.

 

+ "Kayla" was a very brave wood shop teacher at an Oakville, Ontario high school who came 'busting out' all over in the spring of 2023! He She taught classes with special attention to safety, particularly around around buzz saws and drill presses. The student loved her. What's not to like? However, by 2024 she no longer taught and was transferred to another department at the school board. "Ma chère, tu vas beaucoup nous manquer!" 

 

 

 

 

 

RANT: "DADDY, WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE GENOCIDE?"

 

    Pro-Palestinian demonstration Parliament Hill, 12 April 2025

MY LAST POST discussed growing censorship regimes in the United States where constitutionally protected free speech rights are being trampled by authorities determined to muzzle critics of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The cases of campus crackdowns on student protests in support of Palestine have garnered considerable news coverage in the U.S. I also mentioned the recent campus protests at McGill University in Montreal and at the University of Toronto demanding divestment of stock portfolios with links to Israel and the Israeli military. Needless to say, student protestors face strong headwinds bringing about any change in their respective universities’ investment practices. Meanwhile, the censorship crisis continues apace, with new laws on the books in numerous Western countries regulating speech, for example, labeling pro-Palestinian social media posts as "Hate Speech" can bring the authorities to your door, as was the recent case of Montreal's Yves Engler*, who was arrested and detained for responding on an X-post thread to commentary by a strident Israel supporter whose distasteful posts  parrot the party line among hard-core Zionists and Israeli-apologists. But there are still instances when public protest (a demonstrable form of speech) challenges the status quo and sheds light on government malfeasance and things that should not be.

 

ON THAT FRONT, last Saturday there was a recent pro-Palestinian protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa condemning the recent sale of “artillery propellant” to the United States. Protestors claim the munitions shipment to the United States, worth over seventy-five million dollars, comes with an explicit provision that tags the propellant as being for Israel. In the past, Canada could hide behind the fig-leaf of 'third-party use' restrictions for weapons sales to United States. Recall, last year, how Global Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly, under considerable media scrutiny at the time, stopped sales of “high explosive mortar cartridges” to the U.S. as they were tagged to be re-exported by the Americans to Israel. Minister Joly promised that weapons sales to the United States were contingent on their not being sent to regimes that abuse human rights. And Ottawa, at the time, was uncharacteristically critical of Israel and its arguably genocidal actions in Gaza. You would think Canadian officials would be on their toes doing everything in their power to deny the Israeli military weaponry it then uses in Gaza, a setting for war crimes and as gross a violation of human rights as we’ve seen since the end of the second world war. Just sayin’. 

 

ANOTHER check to stop Canadian-made munitions from being used by Israel is (or should be) the fact that Canada is a signatory to the “Arms Trade Treaty” (2013) that seeks to put ‘guard rails’ on the global sales of conventional weaponry.

 

“The ATT, adopted in April 2013 and entering into force in December 2014, is the first international treaty to regulate the conventional arms trade. The treaty was realized after years of advocacy by civil society organizations from around the world, which celebrated it as a transformative multilateral framework that would address the humanitarian toll posed by the unchecked trade and transfer of military goods. Core obligations of States Parties to the ATT include ensuring that arms exports will not be used in human-rights violations, increasing transparency in the arms trade, and safeguarding against the diversion of conventional arms. At the time of this report’s publication, the treaty included 116 States Parties — more than half of the world’s countries.” (Ploughshares)

 

WHILE MINISTER JOLY CANCELLED the multi-million-dollar cartridge sale, it has recently come to light that Global Affairs Canada signed off on the sale to the United States of artillery propellant used in conjunction with the ever-popular 155-millimeter artillery shell. The sale agreement was clearly tagged as being “for Israel”, and the deal was brokered by the crown corporation, CCC (Canadian Commercial Corporation), between GD-OTS (General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical System-Canada) and the American DOD (Department of Defense). GDO-Canada, the subsidiary or evil stepchild of the giant American arms manufacturer produces the ammunition in Quebec at its idyll-sounding “Valleyfield” plant, which is “the sole source of this type of propellant for the US Army, which is responsible for supplying most munitions to US military aid recipients, including Israel.” (Ploughshares)  

AND this deal came only weeks after Joly stopped the cartridges sale in August of last year. Hence, last weekend’s protest on Parliament Hill.

 

Viet Nam protestor: Flowers, not bullets

The Ottawa protest highlights the lack of transparency governing the sale of munitions to the United States and the specific complaint of Canada being culpable, with its munitions sales via the U.S. to Israel, in the Gazan genocide.  

 

“This…reveals the flaws in the arms free-trade zone between Canada and the United States, which allows the provision of armaments to regimes that abuse human rights, without scrutiny from, or accountability on the part of, Canadian officials. Other examples include the more than $100 million in Canadian-made F-35 components that have been exported to Israel through the US DOD.” (Ploughshares)

 

Your tax dollars at work. Have a nice day.😯

 

 Cheers, Jake.____________________________

 

* I'll discuss Yves' case in a separate post.