Paul: In Defense of J.K. Rowling

2023/02/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

“Trans people need and deserve protection.”

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others but are vulnerable.”

“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.”

“I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.”

These statements were written by J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series, a human-rights activist and — according to a noisy fringe of the internet and a number of powerful transgender rights activists and L.G.B.T.Q. lobbying groups — a transphobe.

Even many of Rowling’s devoted fans have made this accusation. In 2020, The Leaky Cauldron, one of the biggest “Harry Potter” fan sites, claimed that Rowling had endorsed “harmful and disproven beliefs about what it means to be a transgender person,” letting members know it would avoid featuring quotes from and photos of the author.

Other critics have advocated that bookstores pull her books from the shelves, and some bookstores have done so. She has also been subjected to verbal abuse, doxxing and threats of sexual and other physical violence, including death threats.

Now,  in rare and wide-ranging interviews for the podcast series “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” which begins next week, Rowling is sharing her experiences. “I have had direct threats of violence, and I have had people coming to my house where my kids live, and I’ve had my address posted online,” she says in one of the interviews. “I’ve had what the police, anyway, would regard as credible threats.”

This campaign against Rowling is as dangerous as it is absurd. The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie last summer is a forceful reminder of what can happen when writers are demonized. And in Rowling’s case, the characterization of her as a transphobe doesn’t square with her actual views.

So why would anyone accuse her of transphobia? Surely, Rowling must have played some part, you might think.

The answer is straightforward: Because she has asserted the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons. Because she has insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is insufficient. Because she has expressed skepticism about phrases like “people who menstruate” in reference to biological women. Because she has defended herself and, far more important, supported others, including detransitioners and feminist scholars, who have come under attack from trans activists. And because she followed on Twitter and praised some of the work of Magdalen Berns, a lesbian feminist who had made incendiary comments about transgender people.

You might disagree — perhaps strongly — with Rowling’s views and actions here. You may believe that the prevalence of violence against transgender people means that airing any views contrary to those of vocal trans activists will aggravate animus toward a vulnerable population.

But nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic. She is not disputing the existence of gender dysphoria. She has never voiced opposition to allowing people to transition under evidence-based therapeutic and medical care. She is not denying transgender people equal pay or housing. There is no evidence that she is putting trans people “in danger,” as has been claimed, nor is she denying their right to exist.

Take it from one of her former critics. E.J. Rosetta, a journalist who once denounced Rowling for her supposed transphobia, was commissioned last year to write an article called “20 Transphobic J.K. Rowling Quotes We’re Done With.” After 12 weeks of reporting and reading, Rosetta wrote, “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message.” On Twitter she declared, “You’re burning the wrong witch.”

For the record, I, too, read all of Rowling’s books, including the crime novels written under the pen name Robert Galbraith, and came up empty-handed. Those who have parsed her work for transgressions have objected to the fact that in one of her Galbraith novels, she included a transgender character and that in another of these novels, a killer occasionally disguises himself by dressing as a woman. Needless to say, it takes a certain kind of person to see this as evidence of bigotry.

This isn’t the first time Rowling and her work have been condemned by ideologues. For years, books in the “Harry Potter” series were among the most banned in America. Many Christians denounced the books’ positive depiction of witchcraft and magic; some called Rowling a heretic. Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church and the author of “Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism,” says that she appreciated the novels as a child but, raised in a family notorious for its extremism and bigotry, she was taught to believe Rowling was going to hell over her support for gay rights.

Phelps-Roper has taken the time to rethink her biases. She is now the host of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” The podcast, based on nine hours of her interviews with Rowling — the first time Rowling has spoken at length about her advocacy — explores why Rowling has been subjected to such wide-ranging vitriol despite a body of work that embraces the virtues of being an outsider, the power of empathy toward one’s enemies and the primacy of loyalty toward one’s friends.

The podcast, which also includes interviews with critics of Rowling, delves into why Rowling has used her platform to challenge certain claims of so-called gender ideology — such as the idea that transgender women should be treated as indistinguishable from biological women in virtually every legal and social context. Why, both her fans and her fiercest critics have asked, would she bother to take such a stand, knowing that attacks would ensue?

“The pushback is often, ‘You are wealthy. You can afford security. You haven’t been silenced.’ All true. But I think that misses the point. The attempt to intimidate and silence me is meant to serve as a warning to other women” with similar views who may also wish to speak out, Rowling says in the podcast.

“And I say that because I have seen it used that way,” Rowling continues. She says other women have told her they’ve been warned: “Look at what happened to J.K. Rowling. Watch yourself.”

Recently, for example, Joanna Cherry, a Scottish National Party lawmaker who is a lesbian and a feminist, publicly questioned Scotland’s passage of a “self-ID” law that would allow people to legally establish by mere declaration that they are women after living for only three months as a transgender woman — and without any need for a gender dysphoria diagnosis. She reported that she faced workplace bullying and death threats; she was also removed from her frontbench position in Parliament as spokeswoman for justice and home affairs. “I think some people are scared to speak out in this debate because when you do speak out, you’re often wrongly branded as a transphobe or a bigot,” she said.

Phelps-Roper told me that Rowling’s outspokenness is precisely in the service of this kind of cause. “A lot of people think that Rowling is using her privilege to attack a vulnerable group,” she said. “But she sees herself as standing up for the rights of a vulnerable group.”

Rowling, Phelps-Roper added, views speaking out as a responsibility and an obligation: “She’s looking around and realizing that other people are self-censoring because they cannot afford to speak up. But she felt she had to be honest and stand up against a movement that she saw as using authoritarian tactics.”

As Rowling herself notes on the podcast, she’s written books where “from the very first page, bullying and authoritarian behavior is held to be one of the worst of human ills.” Those who accuse Rowling of punching down against her critics ignore the fact that she is sticking up for those who have silenced themselves to avoid the job loss, public vilification and threats to physical safety that other critics of recent gender orthodoxies have suffered.

Social media is then leveraged to amplify those attacks. It’s a strategy Phelps-Roper recognizes from her days at Westboro. “We leaned into whatever would get us the most attention, and that was often the most outrageous and aggressive versions of what we believed,” she recalled.

It may be a sign of the tide turning that along with Phelps-Roper, several like-minded creative people — though generally those with the protection of wealth or strong backing from their employers — are finally braving the heat. In recent months and after silence or worse from some of the young actors whose careers Rowling’s work helped advance, several actors from the “Harry Potter” films, such as Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, have publicly defended the author.

In the words of Fiennes: “J.K. Rowling has written these great books about empowerment, about young children finding themselves as human beings. It’s about how you become a better, stronger, more morally centered human being,” he said. “The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting. It’s appalling.”

Despite media coverage that can be embarrassingly credulouswhen it comes to the charges against Rowling, a small number of influential journalists have also begun speaking out in her defense. Here in America, Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic tweeted last year, “Eventually, she will be proven right, and the high cost she’s paid for sticking to her beliefs will be seen as the choice of a principled person.”

In Britain the liberal columnist Hadley Freeman left The Guardian after, she said, the publication refused to allow her to interview Rowling. ​​She has since joined The Sunday Times, where her first column commended Rowling for her feminist positions. Another liberal columnist for The Guardian left for similar reasons; after decamping to The Telegraph, she defended Rowling, despite earlier threats of rape against her and her children for her work.

Millions of Rowling’s readers no doubt remain unaware of her demonization. But that doesn’t mean that — as with other outlandish claims, whether it’s the Big Lie or QAnon — the accusations aren’t insidious and tenacious. The seed has been planted in the culture that young people should feel that there’s something wrong with liking Rowling’s books, that her books are “problematic” and that appreciating her work is “complicated.” In recent weeks, an uproar ensued over a new “Harry Potter” video game. That is a terrible shame. Children would do well to read “Harry Potter” unreservedly and absorb its lessons.

Because what Rowling actually says matters. In 2016, when accepting the PEN/Allen Foundation award for literary service, Rowling referred to her support for feminism — and for the rights of transgender people. As she put it, “My critics are at liberty to claim that I’m trying to convert children to satanism, and I’m free to explain that I’m exploring human nature and morality or to say, ‘You’re an idiot,’ depending on which side of the bed I got out of that day.”

Rowling could have just stayed in bed. She could have taken refuge in her wealth and fandom. In her “Harry Potter” universe, heroes are marked by courage and compassion. Her best characters learn to stand up to bullies and expose false accusations. And that even when it seems the world is set against you, you have to stand firm in your core beliefs in what’s right.

Defending those who have been scorned isn’t easy, especially for young people. It’s scary to stand up to bullies, as any “Harry Potter” reader knows. Let the grown-ups in the room lead the way. If more people stood up for J.K. Rowling, they would not only be doing right by her; they’d also be standing up for human rights, specifically women’s rights, gay rights and, yes, transgender rights. They’d also be standing up for the truth.

Source: Paul: In Defense of J.K. Rowling

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He, She, They: Workplaces Adjust As Gender Identity Norms Change

2019/10/17 Leave a comment

Workplace changes both reflect and influence changes in attitudes:

It’s a pivotal time for LGBTQ people in the workplace. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in cases testing whether people in that community are protected by the country’s workplace anti-discrimination laws.

That’s happening at a time when more workplaces are adapting to an increasing number of people openly identifying as gender nonbinary — that is, they don’t consider themselves categorically male or female, and favor gender-neutral pronouns like “them,” instead of “he” or “she.”

Some employers are including those preferences on email signatures and name tags. But workers and employers are also navigating changing social norms around gender that can be confusing, and shifting workplace culture away from traditional gender identifiers can also be tricky.

This is something Joshua Byron has thought about a great deal. As a child, Byron realized dressing up as Princess Leia was unconventional for a boy. It wasn’t until young adulthood that Byron first encountered the concept that someone could identify as something other than male or female. For Byron, the idea of being gender neutral — or part one, part the other — felt like it fit.

Byron, 24, came out as such to his inner circle of friends three years ago, requesting to be referred to as “they,” not as “he.” But they didn’t feel comfortable doing so at work.

“I had a very supportive friend group, and then I would go to work and not think about that part of myself,” Byron says.

That changed two years ago, after Byron applied for a teaching job in New York, and a reference outed them as nonbinary.

The new employer had no problem with it and hired Byron. But being out at work meant fielding endless questions from colleagues: Is this really a thing? How can a plural pronoun refer to one person? Byron feels caught in the middle of a culture war.

“I think people feel really intense about it … like this is breaking some rule,” Byron says.

This kind of scenario is playing out in many workplaces, especially as surveys show more people are identifying as gender nonbinary.

“Employers are going to be faced with an increasing percentage of employees over time who have nonbinary identities,” because there is greater prevalence of gender ambiguity among young people, says Jody Herman, a public policy scholar at the Williams Institute at UCLA law school, which researches sexual orientation and gender identity.

There is still not a lot of research quantifying this population, especially since there are so many diverse terms around gender identity. Two years ago, Herman’s study found 27% of youth in California aged 12 to 17 said their peers would identify them as gender nonconforming. Other studiesshow a much smaller prevalence of people who identify themselves as transgender or gender nonbinary.

Some employers are already shifting policies. United Airlines gives customers the option to identify as nonbinary when booking tickets. Retirement company TIAA instructed employees to introduce themselves to clients with their preferred pronouns.

The law firm Baker McKenzie earlier this year set its staffing targets to 40% men, 40% women and 20% flexible — including nonbinary people.

Anna Brown, the firm’s director of global diversity and inclusion, says the policy was designed to reflect the shifting demographics. “These are prospective policies. And as we go forward, we know we have nonbinary colleagues,” she says.

New York psychotherapist Laura Jacobs says most employers don’t know how to deal with the issue of gender-nonbinary identity in the workplace.

But New York psychotherapist Laura Jacobs, who counsels many transgender and nonbinary individuals, says that kind of openness is still new and somewhat rare. “How to handle nonbinary people is still something that I don’t think most employers really have a sense for how to handle,” Jacobs says.

Employment forms, for example, often include only male or female options. References from old jobs might have known someone before the person assumed a different name or identity. And often, employer health insurance requires a person to choose.

“You had to be binary in order to get care and that that was enforced by the medical community, the legal community and so on,” says Jacobs, who identifies as both transgender and nonbinary.

But on a day-to-day basis, some of the persistent challenge comes from coworker questions: “Everybody wonders what’s in our pants,” Jacobs says.

Nowhere does this feel more personal than the bathroom.

For transgender populations, bathrooms are places associated with uncomfortable staring, harassment and even violence. They’ve also been at the center of political controversy. Three years ago, North Carolina passed a law requiring people to use bathrooms corresponding to their assigned gender at birth. That law was struck down.

But Mark Marsen says bathrooms remain a hot-button issue for employers and for coworkers who don’t feel comfortable sharing bathrooms with transgender people. Marsen is director of human resources at Allies For Health + Wellbeing, a community health clinic. He recently participated in an online discussion with other HR executives about making the workplace gender neutral.

“A good 60% — at least — of the conversation was about bathrooms,” Marsen says.

At the time, Marsen says, he was re-thinking his company’s restroom policies. Marsen realized a bathroom is just a bathroom. He ended up re-labeling them simply, “restroom” and “restroom with urinals.”

For Joshua Byron, bathrooms are a central emotional issue.

For Byron, things like restrooms and dress codes become litmus tests for how their manager might react — how strictly masculinity might be enforced. It makes Byron wonder: “Will it be a thing that there is argument or stress over?”

But changing long-held gender paradigms isn’t easy. The terms used by nonbinary people can be difficult to understand.

In fact, it can still be confusing even for people who identify as nonbinary, like Mich Dopiro. Dopiro recently stumbled over pronouns for someone they just met.

“I don’t think they took offense, but it was an embarrassing moment for myself,” says Dopiro, 25, who works as a teacher in Seattle. Among middle school students, gender norms have already changed . One student recently called Dopiro by the wrong pronoun, then apologized.

“They felt like, ‘Oh this is something that I grew up with that I should know not to mess up,’ ” Dopiro says.

Source: He, She, They: Workplaces Adjust As Gender Identity Norms Change

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Canadian passport will have new marker for transgender travellers, justice minister says

2017/05/06 Leave a comment

As expected and good that this is being done government-wide to ensure consistency:

Transgender travellers will soon have another option to tick off on their passport other than “male” or “female.”

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the government is working to update its gender identity policies right across federal departments, and they will include a revamped travel document.

“The prime minister is very mindful of perhaps a third box or an ability to mark something other than male or female. This work is being undertaken at Passport Canada,” she said. “Individual ministers and (people) within their departments are recognizing that this bill has been introduced, that there is work that needs to continue to be taken.”

Wilson-Raybould was testifying before the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee, which is studying government legislation to protect the human rights and security of Canadians based on gender identity and gender expression.

She said the government has much work to do to ensure its own policies accord with the intent of C-16, including a recognition that “simply ticking a box of male or female” doesn’t comply.

A sex field is mandatory for travel documents under International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules. ICAO allows one of three markers: F for female, M for male or X for “unspecified.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has already removed a requirement for proof of sex reassignment surgery for persons requesting to change the sex marker on IRCC documents, and the department is taking further steps to change the sex marker on travel documents, citizenship certificates and documentation for temporary and permanent residents, according to a government official.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to make all government-issued documents more reflective of gender diversity.

Seven countries have issued identification documents, such as a passport, with a third-sex designation.

‘Where does that end?’

But Conservative Senator Don Plett said changing the passport could have implications on international travel.

“When you start putting other boxes in, where does that end? How many boxes are we going to put in? I don’t think it’s a workable solution,” he said.

Bill C-16 would update the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression and extending hate speech laws to include the two terms. Under the legislation, judges would also consider it an aggravating factor in sentencing when someone has been targeted for a hate crime based on gender identity or expression.

Wilson-Raybould said the protections are “long overdue” to end discrimination, lift barriers to employment and fill an important gap in the Criminal Code.

The bill has been praised by human rights and transgender advocates, but some senators on the committee raised concerns that there is no definition of the term, leaving it too vague for clear interpretation. Plett said the word “gender expression” could refer to what a person wears or how they comb their hair.

He asked what would happen if a person simply does not recognize more than two genders.

Personal pronouns

“For personal, scientific or faith-based reasons, do you believe they should have to refer to a person by a personal pronoun and should failure to do so constitute discrimination?” he asked.

Wilson-Raybould said Canadians should rest assured the bill will not infringe on freedom of expression, or compel anyone to refer to an individual by a certain personal pronoun.

Source: Canadian passport will have new marker for transgender travellers, justice minister says – Politics – CBC News

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Is your gender really necessary on a passport? | Toronto Star

2017/01/27 Leave a comment

Interesting to see where the government ends up on this but encouraging that the MP responsible for advising the PM, Randy Boissonault, on the issue recognizes the balance: “Any policy changes have to also ensure good policy making in the future … we want to make sure that we’re being respectful and inclusive, and yet not erasing what knowledge we have.”

There is also a need for federal-provincial consultation and likely coordination to avoid situations such as when Ontario removed gender from health cards, making it more difficult for some to get a passport (New gender-neutral Ontario health cards make it harder to get a … – CBC):

In what transgender rights activists are calling a “landmark” development, the Canadian government has settled a human rights case that could pave the way for gender markers to be scrubbed from passports, birth certificates and other identity documents.

Ottawa is also undertaking a government-wide review to assess how it collects and uses sex and gender information — a move that advocates for transgender rights are hailing as a major victory in the fight to remove “male” and “female” markers from identity documents.

“To my knowledge, this would be like a world first, for a government to proceed to review all of its gendering practices,” said barbara findlay, a lawyer and member of the Gender-Free ID Coalition, an advocacy group calling for gender-neutral identity documents.

“It’s a seismic shift in the way that we understand what gender means and how we should be using it.”

Wednesday’s announcement caps a five-year battle launched by findlay’s client, 32-year-old Torontonian Christin Milloy, who was repeatedly denied in her attempts to update the gender information associated with her social insurance number.

In January 2012, the transgender activist and web developer filed a human rights complaint against Employment and Social Development Canada (then known as Human Resources and Skills Development Canada), which oversees the SIN register.

A settlement was only reached last week, however. While its terms are confidential, an exception was made for some details to be publicized.

“As a government, we feel that this settlement is a step in the right direction,” said Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, in a statement posted online.

“My department is committed to reviewing its data collection to determine when it is justifiable to ask an individual for their gender as a condition of receiving a government service or for other legitimate purposes.”

In the settlement, ESDC acknowledged that personally-identifiable sex and gender information can only be collected from Canadians if there are “legitimate purposes” for doing so. It remains unclear how “legitimate purposes” will be defined, but Milloy believes the acknowledgement is “revolutionary.”

“Now the onus is on government to prove why they need the data,” she said.

Since Milloy filed her complaint, the ESDC has stopped requesting supporting documentation from people looking to change their gender associated with their SIN.

The government department is also changing its procedures to let people opt out of responding to sex or gender questions. It will further provide at least three options — male, female, and a third option — when the question is asked.

“We are encouraged by this change, and we hope that all governments in Canada are inspired to remove gender markers (“male or female”) on documents wherever possible, and make any remaining markers more gender inclusive,” Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, said in a written statement.

“What it comes down to is the ability for people to choose how they define themselves and under what circumstances. There is nothing more unique or personal than our identity and gender.”

Gender markers can be fraught for people who are transgender, gender fluid or have a non-binary gender identity.

The wrong gender on a driver’s license can “out” someone as transgender — making them vulnerable to discrimination or transphobic violence — and the letters “m” and “f” fail to accurately represent people who identify as both or neither.

Current processes to change gender information can also be onerous, expensive or invasive.

While some have proposed adding an “X” option to identity documents, the Gender-Free ID Coalition argues that “in our transphobic society, a third option puts a target on the forehead” of people who are gender diverse. Furthermore, they don’t see how a government can verify someone’s sex (not only are some people intersex, biological sex is now understood to comprise a variety of factors, like chromosomes, genitalia and secondary sex characteristics) or gender identity (which can be fluid and reflects how someone feels inside).

They prefer a different solution: eliminating gender markers altogether.

“You wouldn’t be entitled to ask somebody’s race, sexual orientation or religion — and gender is exactly the same,” said findlay.

She said the routine practice of asking for gender information hearkens back to a time when “men and women had utterly different rights” — for example, when women were prohibited from owning property, voting, or marrying other women.

“But those legalized inequalities are gone,” she said. “There is no longer a reason to maintain that information.”

Transgender rights activists don’t oppose the collection of de-personalized gender information for census surveys and demographic research. Lawyer Nicole Nussbaum says the goal is to push for “deliberate and purposeful collection of information.”

The government-wide review is aimed at achieving just that, according to Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault, special advisor to the prime minister on LGBTQ2 issues.

He said that the review will try to understand how sex and gender data is collected and used, and where it might be necessary for informing policy and funding decisions. He said that Canadians with gender-diverse identities are also poorly represented in datasets, something he hopes to see fixed.

“If we’re going to, as a government, get to the point where we can have respectful gender markers on official documents, then we also need to know how we collect that information as a government,” he said.

“Any policy changes have to also ensure good policy making in the future … we want to make sure that we’re being respectful and inclusive, and yet not erasing what knowledge we have.”

Boissonnault doesn’t have a timeline yet for how long the government review process will take. But Milloy’s case is sure to have an immediate impact in courtrooms and tribunals across the country, where other battles over gender markers are still playing out.

Source: Is your gender really necessary on a passport? | Toronto Star

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Correctional Service flip-flops on transgender inmate placement policy – Politics – CBC News

2017/01/16 Leave a comment

That was a fast reversal. Town halls may prove more substantive in terms of policy development:

Canada’s prison service has abruptly reversed course on its new policy for transgender inmates, one day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to promote equality for all trans Canadians, including those behind bars.

Correctional Service Canada spokesman Jean-Paul Surette said trans inmates will now be considered for placement in prisons based on their gender identity rather than their genitalia.

“We are currently assessing — on a case-by-case basis — individual inmates’ placement and accommodation requests to ensure the most appropriate measures are taken to respect the dignity, rights and security of all inmates under our custody,” he told CBC News in an email.

That is a sharp departure from CSC’s revised policy directive on trans inmates that was released on Monday, which confirmed a previous rule that based placement on birth sex rather than gender identity.

“Pre-operative male to female offenders with gender dysphoria will be held in men’s institutions and pre-operative female to male offenders with gender dysphoria will be held in women’s institutions,” the Jan. 9 policy reads.

The change in course comes after Trudeau, during a town hall meeting in Kingston, Ont., made an off-the-cuff promise to ensure transgender inmates can serve their sentences in institutions based on their gender identity.

The pledge came in response to a question from a transgender woman and advocate who described Canada’s current placement policy as “torture.”

Trudeau said the issue hadn’t been on his radar, but would act now that it is.

“I will make sure we look at it and we address it and we do right in recognizing that trans rights are human rights and we need to make sure we are defending everyone’s dignity and rights in every way we can,” he said.

Source: Correctional Service flip-flops on transgender inmate placement policy – Politics – CBC News

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How to talk about cultural appropriation: Andray Domise

2016/09/24 Leave a comment

While the focus of Domise is with respect to transgender, the issues apply more broadly:

At Sunday’s Primetime Emmy Awards, Jeffrey Tamborpicked up his second win for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. On the Amazon series Transparent, Tambor plays Maura Pfefferman, a transgender woman whose transition forces her shallow, upper-class wife and adult children to grapple with their own shortcomings. Jeffrey Tambor is a cisgender man—which means someone who identifies with their sex at birth, or anyone who isn’t transgender—and when he accepted the award, he made an open plea to Hollywood to make him an anomaly. “Please give transgender talent a chance. Give them auditions. Give them their story . . . I would not be unhappy were I the last cisgender male to play a transgender character on television.” With his acceptance speech, Tambor was the first high-profile name in weeks to address the issue of cultural appropriation with any degree of tact. Up to that point, the mainstream response to claims of appropriation have been pleading childlike ignorance at best, and downright hostility at worst. It’s long past time for the conversation to evolve.

Because there seems to be a bit of confusion over the term “cultural appropriation,” let’s be clear on what it isn’t. White rappers aren’t appropriating culture by dint of their whiteness. There’s a reason that accusations of cultural appropriation don’t stick to Eminem, for example, but leave a rancid cloud trailing in Iggy Azalea’s wake. A white author writing Indian characters into the story is not prima facie cultural appropriation. Neither is a white chef specializing in Vietnamese cuisine. Whenever the conversation on cultural appropriation resurfaces, it always begins with unnecessary theatrics over the definition of the term, and drifts into hurt feelings when appropriators feel they’ve been compared to racists. After these exercises are complete, the conversation goes unresolved anyway.

Some refer to cultural appropriation as “borrowing” from other cultures, which is about the same as your least favourite houseguest “borrowing” your silverware. In the creative industries, where touching off trends among receptive audiences can bring multimillion dollar rewards, cultural appropriation is theft. It is plunder. It is lifting cultural aspects from underrepresented groups of people, and not only offering nothing in return, but expecting their gratitude for the promotion. It is trying other people’s identities on as costumes, while people who live within their skin, hair, culture, and gender identity struggle for acceptance. Navneet Alang, a writer for Hazlitt, wrote a piece last year on the appropriation of South Asian culture and offered a most succinct explanation of the phrase:

“[For] a certain kind of person, the whole world is waiting to be mined, packaged, and sold, regardless of what the things in question mean to people, or whom such selling benefits.”

Cultural appropriation is when Marc Jacobs affixes ludicrous neon dreadlocks to the hair of white models during New York Fashion Week, while the fashion industry has fewer high-profile black designers and models now than it did in the 1970s. It’s Jacobs’s claim “I don’t see colour,” in response to criticism, while putting his name on a makeup line whose colour scheme runs from “bone china” to “paper lunch bag,” and then claiming that Black women straightening their hair is also cultural appropriation. Never mind that many Black women’s hair is naturally straight, and that many curly-haired white women also straighten theirs. At a time when Black children are being disciplined by schools for wearing their hair in natural afros, when a biracial Zara employee in Toronto was reprimanded by management for her box braids, and when a Black employee at a Toronto Jack Astor’s was sent home for wearing her hair in a bun, this should not be a talking point.

I spoke with April Reign, managing editor of Broadway Black, and the creator of the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag that shook up Hollywood in the lead-up to last year’s Academy Awards. “In movies,” Reign said, “they hire cops as consultants in films. So why wouldn’t you respect someone else’s culture in an area where you’re getting paid? If you’re going to make money off my culture through your book, your fashion line, your movie, or your TV show, but you’re not being considerate of it, that’s where I really have a problem.” I joked that an answer might be, for example, to hire “Blackness consultants.” But Reign said the idea wasn’t so far-fetched, because in order to properly respect a culture, entertainment creators need to engage with people who were born into and live within the culture. These exchanges need to be meaningful and mutually beneficial.

Put another way, cultural appropriation is what keeps scores of trans actors underemployed, while cisgender men like Jared Leto and Eddie Redmayne are hailed for their bravery in playing trans women on screen. It’s Matt Bomer, another cisgender man, refusing to answer to trans women who questioned his decision to accept the role of a trans woman in the upcoming film Anything. It’s his castmate Mark Ruffalo pleading for compassion and understanding because the film’s already been shot, rather than showing compassion and understanding to trans women fed up with seeing their identities simplified to men in drag by the film industry.

Yet, with less than 30 seconds of speaking, Jeffrey Tambor showed how easy the dialogue on cultural appropriation can be. If he can use his platform to do this so effortlessly, then his creative peers are out of excuses.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Feds face human rights complaint over SIN gender info

2016/05/18 Leave a comment

Expect that part of the issue is ensuring consistency with the provincial and territorial vital statistics agencies (births, deaths etc) and SIN for integrity issues, along with other identity documents.

There is also value in collection for gender-based analysis, although this will likely be broadened in the future to include transgender:

The federal government is staring down the possibility of being ordered to stop collecting gender information on Canadians as part of their social insurance number record.

The outcome is one possibility in an ongoing dispute in front of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal over a piece of information that internal documents show isn’t central to identifying the owner of a social insurance number, or critical for preventing fraud.

A ruling from the tribunal would have a precedent-setting effect for the federal government, even as it takes steps to extend human rights protections to transgender Canadians in the form of legislation to be tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons.

The bill would be the latest attempt to make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender identity and extend hate speech laws to include transgender persons.

But even on the eve of its introduction, the government appears no closer to making it easier to change the gender attached to a social insurance number without requiring the holder to go through a bureaucratic paperwork process.

Christin Milloy, the Toronto-based trans rights activist at the centre of the tribunal case, said there is no need for the federal government to collect and store information on sex and gender.

“It’s not necessary to identify an individual,” Milloy said of the gender field.

“Name and birthdate and mother’s maiden name – these things are enough and storing (gender) creates opportunities for discrimination and oppression of all transgender people and women.”

It has been almost five years since Milloy first downloaded a government form needed to make changes to a social insurance number record. The changes were simple: her address, legal name and an update to the gender field to female.

The sex or gender category on a social insurance number record is set at birth when a number is issued.

The department refused Milloy’s request, barring production of a new Ontario birth certificate.

Milloy launched a human rights complaint, saying that the department’s policy of using the sex designation at birth discriminated against transgender persons. She also noted that the information was not necessary to identify a number’s holder.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission agreed with Milloy, and sent the matter to the human rights tribunal for a hearing.

She and the department remain in mediation at the tribunal, although that process has been going on for more than a year. Milloy said she is confident there will be a resolution, but isn’t sure when that will happen.

“This is not just about me and my ID. This is about changing the system to be fair to everybody,” she said.

Confidentiality rules at the tribunal prevent her from discussing the details of the mediation.

Last year, Employment and Social Development Canada conducted a sweeping review of what would happen if it just dropped the “sex” requirement from the social insurance registry, consulting with at least a dozen other government departments, including Health Canada, the RCMP, and the Canada Revenue Agency.

The department has yet to respond to questions about the review.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show the sex field in the social insurance registry is “used for gender-based analysis and data analysis, not for integrity purposes.”

The notes – dated June 2, 2015, and prepared for a meeting with counterparts at Citizenship and Immigration Canada – said some provincial governments are moving towards allowing identity documents like health cards and birth certificates to reflect gender identity, meaning the data in the sex field “could more accurately be referred to as ‘gender.”’ That information then makes it into the social insurance registry.

Source: Feds face human rights complaint over SIN gender info – Macleans.ca

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StatsCan to unveil new ‘efficient’ long-form census for 2016

2016/01/08 Leave a comment

Good example of the public service doing its job and preparing for a possible change:

When the Liberals were sworn into office in November, one of their first orders of business was to announce the reinstatement of the long-form census.

The timeline seemed very tight — the first forms are to go out to residents in the North in February.

But Marc Hamel, the census program director general, says the agency had planned for risks associated with the 2016 census. One of those risks was if a new government decided to bring back the long questionnaire.

“It had already been in the public sphere that opposition parties last year were saying, if they were elected, they would bring back the mandatory long-form census, so we had started to look at how that would be possible,” Hamel said in an interview.

The agency decided to design the questionnaire in a more adaptable format.

Rather than sending selected households separate pieces of mail with the short form and then the National Household Survey, the questionnaires were integrated into one document.

“That design was going to be efficient and it was going to work for both approaches,” said Hamel. “From that perspective, no redesign was required. We were simply able to move ahead with the same questionnaires that we had already designed for 2016.”

Also, because most Canadians fill out the census online — 64 per cent in 2011 — changing details in a computer system was not a major overhaul.

The letter that accompanies the questionnaires will allow the agency to underline that the long part is mandatory again. Census staff will also drive home the message.

Fewer people will have to fill out the long form than last time, one in four households rather than one in three with the NHS. Statistics Canada has had to print more short-form questionnaires as a result of the change.

The agency doesn’t think it will save money with fewer people getting the bigger package. It expects it will have more responses to process because of the return to the mandatory format.

The main challenge will come from adjusting to the data logistics of bringing back the long-form census. Bar codes help the agency keep track of where they drop off which forms and some of that work will have to be rejigged.

There will also be a public awareness campaign to make sure that people realize they need to fill out the forms. Hamel says the agency never really emphasizes the penalties associated with not filling out the forms — a $500 fine or up to three months in jail, or both.

“Census information is really important, and that’s where we put the focus,” said Hamel.

“What do we use the census information for, why is it important for communities, and why is it important for people to participate.”

Source: StatsCan to unveil new ‘efficient’ long-form census for 2016 – The Globe and Mail

And one of the new challenges:

Quinn Nelson wants to be counted in the 2016 long-form census, but when it comes to the question of gender identity there’s a problem: Nelson is transgender and identifies as neither male nor female.

“As a non-binary person, often when I fill out forms there’s only two options given to me and that’s not enough for me,” Nelson said in an interview on CBC’s Power & Politics.

In November, Nelson wrote an email to Navdeep Bains, the minister responsible for Statistics Canada and the census. Nelson didn’t want to violate the law by not filling out the questionnaire.

The University of Calgary sociology student also wanted to make sure Statistics Canada was going to provide an accurate reflection of the country.

The census assumes that 100 per cent of the respondents can answer that they are either male or female, “and that’s not accurate,” Nelson said.

“The census is used by a lot of policy makers, sociologists and government officials to make decisions. They really need to know what their population is. That’s the point of the census.”

….Bains hasn’t responded to Nelson, but Statistics Canada did. Deputy chief statistician Connie Graziadei said the 2016 census questionnaire had already been approved and published, but there is an option for Nelson.

“I was told to answer neither, to leave the question blank; also to answer in the comments why I found the question inadequate.”

Transgender student says some Canadians need 3rd option for gender on census

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

An Alberta MLA on battling gender identity

2015/12/03 Leave a comment

A reminder of the value of having diversity among Parliamentarians:

The Alberta legislature has lately become a place for remarkable confessionals, courtesy of the governing New Democrats. Last month, it was a member from Lethbridge who told of the brutal abuse her ex-husband inflicted on her, to bring clarity to a debate on reforms making it easier for Albertans to escape domestic violence.

On Tuesday, an Edmonton-area New Democrat personalized transgender issues, as the legislature debated—and would unanimously support—explicitly adding gender identity and expression to the Alberta Human Rights Act. Estefania Cortes-Vargas, a former office aide to Premier Rachel Notley, had previously been public about being one of the first openly gay MLAs in Alberta history. Tuesday, Cortes-Vargas opened up about gender identity, and started with frustration that assembly Hansard traditionally records members with gender-specific honorifics like Mr. or Ms.

From the Hansard, here is the member recorded simply as Cortes-Vargas:

As I wrote my notes, Speaker, I started off by asking myself why I need to include in that your gender in order to identify you. I asked myself this question before I even came into this Legislature and was asked to identify my gender so Hansard could put that into the transcription.

I have always battled with gender identity, gender expression, and I continue to do so. A lot of the time I don’t have the answers to who I am, why I act this way, why I dress this way, but I do know this: I do know that I’m a person, that I deserve rights, and that anything less than that is unacceptable. Gender, Speaker, plays a role in everyone’s life, but for the trans community and for the gender-variant community it’s magnified to a level that creates high suicide rates, high unemployment rates, high levels of work in the sex trade because people are shunned.

People feel like they cannot be themselves without continuously having to explain to people that, hey, maybe I’m a boy and maybe I’m a girl. It shouldn’t matter. If the way I look confuses people, I love it. I will always continue to challenge that the way I look needs to define anything about me, because at the end of the day, when I look in the mirror, I say: “For the first time in my life, when I cut my hair, when I chose different wardrobes, when I challenged my cultural identity as a Hispanic woman, hey, maybe I don’t need to wear heels, and maybe I don’t need to have long hair just because that’s what is expected and that’s what’s considered beautiful. I think I’m a beautiful person.”

Source: An Alberta MLA on battling gender identity – Macleans.ca

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Inside Indonesia’s Islamic Boarding School for Transgender People

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

Reminder of the diversity among Islamic countries:

When Shinta Ratri visits her family in Yogyakarta, the Indonesian city where she still lives, she sits outside her family’s home and waits. She hasn’t been allowed inside since she was 16, when as a young boy she told her family she identified as a girl.

Today, Shinta, 53, is one of the leading transgender activists in the country. She runs Pondok Pesantren Waria, an Islamic boarding school for Indonesia’s so-called waria, a portmanteau of the Indonesian words for woman (wanita) and man (pria). The school, in Shinta’s own home in Yogyakarta on the island of Java, provides a tight-knit community for transgender women from across the country who may face discrimination at home.

“They come to Yogyakarta just because they know about this school,” says Fulvio Bugani, an Italian photographer who spent nearly three weeks living with the waria community at the school. “They know that there they can pray and live like a woman in a good atmosphere.”

Bugani’s powerful images depict the daily lives of the school’s diverse waria community, and one of his shots was awarded third prize in the World Press Photo’s Contemporary Issues category this year.

About 10 women live at the school, according to Bugani, though the numbers fluctuate. Many of them make a living as sex workers or street performers, unable to find work in other areas, but the school offers a comfortable environment where, Bugani says, they can be themselves.

It also provides a unique place for the waria to pray. In Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, mosques are typically segregated by gender and the transgender women are reluctant to join or barred from participating in either group. But Shinta has ensured that the women can pray together at the school.

“She is very proud to be a woman and also to be a Muslim,” Bugani says. “She wants to help the other waria to become like her.”

Inside Indonesia’s Islamic Boarding School for Transgender People | TIME.

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