Queermonton: Ch-ch-changes

VUE Weekly, Canada
Week of April 9, 2009, Issue #703
Queermonton: Ch-ch-changes
Tamara Gorzalka / tam@vueweekly.com

I woke up last week to a text from a friend excitedly asking if I’d
read the newspaper yet. I knew immediately the story she was referring
to: “Alberta’s law to embrace gay rights,” read the headline. I was
initially as excited about the announcement as my messaging friend,
but then, as often happens, reality set in.

For the uninitiated, provincial Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett
announced last week that the provincial government will be amending
Alberta’s Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act to
include sexual orientation. It’s an alteration that’s purely symbolic,
since a Supreme Court of Canada decision forced the
anti-discrimination protection into being more than a decade ago, but
Alberta’s government has been kicking and screaming its way out of
acknowledging it ever since.

When the federal decision came down, Alberta was the only province to
resist the ruling, merely “reading in” the decision rather than
ammending its legislation. It’s not simply that the government only
agreed (if a court order could be called agreeing) to make the change
in such an invisible way, it’s that they have denied any discussion
about it since, with the intervening years of rejection reminding
queers in Alberta that they don’t carry quite the same worth as
everyone else.

Blackett has called the upcoming change “long overdue,” “just common
sense” and said, “We’d look very, very foolish if we said ‘No, we
wouldn’t do that.’” Which is all fine and dandy except that this is
the same government that’s been denying the change for a decade.
Because 10 years is okay, but 11? Well, that would just be “foolish.”

Perhaps more troubling is there is still no mention of including
gender identity and expression as a protected right. If a person is
fired, denied housing or otherwise discriminated against in Alberta
because they are transgender, gender non-confirming or in any other
way perceived as gender-variant, they will still be without recourse.
Until a court case challenges this in the same way that Vriend
challenged the exclusion of sexual orientation, our trans brothers and
sisters are being abandoned well behind the fight.

Still, something is better than nothing, right? Oh, if only.
Unfortunately Blackett has decided to add some other changes along
with the anti-discrimination amendment, including a new “parent’s
choice” provision enshrining parental rights to have their children
opt out of classes that they don’t believe in—a right parents actually
already have under the provincial school act.

Both are symbolic changes. One enshrines a protection that’s a decade
old, finally giving value to Alberta’s queer community. The other
draws attention to a parent’s ability to pull their child out of a
class that they don’t agree with. It’s hard to say that one is more
worthy than the other, especially since both deal with rights that are
already there.

But I’m of the mind that kids should learn everything there is to
learn in the curriculum. Just because a child is taught something
doesn’t mean he or she will take it as the indesputable truth. A
parent should always be around to discuss and debrief what their child
has learned in school, and if they disagree, they have the perfect
opportunity to talk about it and give their kid both sides of the
issue.

Students still learn very little about sex, gender and health issues.
Do parents really need the right to deny their children the one class
of their entire schooling when they’re going to cover sexual
orientation or birth control?

Blackett says he doesn’t believe that “parent’s choice” will cause
some parents to pull their children out of classes about evolution and
things that are in opposition to their religious beliefs. “As a
parent,” opined Blackett, “most would say they can teach religious
beliefs based on what is taught at home.” It’s confusing then, to
wonder why he’s suggested the amendment. But that’s not as puzzling as
his other rationale behind the change, that a gay parent might not
want their children to attend a class about heterosexuality. That’s
just ... no.

Minister Balckett has also suggested a change to the Alberta Human
Rights Commission, removing their ability to adjudicate cases of free
speech, saying such cases are better handled by the laws in the
criminal code. This could be another blow to all minorities in Alberta
who are affected by hate literature, as affected groups will no longer
be able to file a complaint with the commission.

If any good has come from these omnibus changes, it’s that people are
talking about these issues again. We can celebrate our victories while
still looking at the road ahead, and without blindly accepting what’s
offered. Perhaps with these wins on our side, now we can pick up the
fight for the Ts in LGBTQ. We’ve still got a long way to go towards an
Alberta with protections and equality for everyone.


http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=11571

VUEPOINT: COLD CALCULATION

Week of April 9, 2009, Issue #703

FRONT
VUEPOINT: COLD CALCULATION
Scott Harris / scott@vueweekly.com

In the grand scheme of a wholly unremarkable $36 billion dollar
budget, the somewhat meagre sum of about $700 000 hardly seems like a
nit worth picking, but the decision by the province to end coverage
for new gender reassignment surgeries—more commonly known as
sex-change operations—just seems so mean-spirited that it deserves
comment.

On one level, the move seems like a simple case of cold calculation:
staring down at the barrel of a multi-year, multi-billion dollar
deficit—and still needing to find $215 million to cut this fiscal year
and $2 billion to cut in the next—there was no doubt a whole lot of
stone-turning going on in government buildings. From a political
standpoint, cutting a tiny program that 99.99 per cent of Albertans
will never use, which only directly benefits a handful of members of
the transgender community—not exactly one of the Tories’ key
constituencies—and is for a procedure that most Albertans either don’t
understand or are openly hostile about, makes good political sense.

On the other hand, when considering the lives of Albertans who will be
impacted by the decision, it seems less like cold calculation and more
simply cold. Until now the province has covered up to 16 gender
reassignment surgeries annually, surgeries which cost tens of
thousands of dollars (male-to-female surgeries costing in the range of
$16 000 - $20 000, and female-to-male surgeries costing roughly twice
that for “bottom surgery” and additional amounts for related
mastectomy and hysterectomy). When those costs are “socialized” it’s a
drop in the bucket (actually, a very small percentage of a drop), but
when the cost is borne by individuals, it becomes a much more daunting
sum.

It’s impossible for me as a straight male to imagine the emotional
tumult, discrimination and violence faced by individuals who don’t fit
into society’s tidy conceptions of sex and gender, but it’s not hard
to see that adding a major financial barrier to a recognized necessary
medical procedure that is already rife with hurdles has the very real
potential to literally destroy people’s lives. The move says a lot
about the government, and their willingness to save a few bucks at the
expense of one of the most marginalized groups in Alberta. It’s an
ugly way to make a budget and a sad way to run a province. V