=AtG=

Content Notice: Everything that makes you sick about reading HB2 is present in one pundit discussed here.

We get a sense of deja vu when querying Canadian Conservative pundits on Bill C-16, which proposes to add gender identity & expression to the list of protected entities in the Human Rights Act, as well as to the targets of hate crime in the Criminal Code. In a debate on Bill C-16 hosted on CTV, we can see a range of arguments represented in favour and against the bill, including someone who might as well be reading from Governer McCrory’s public statements on HB2: Charles McVety. A transcript of McVety’s garbage opinion below. Ready your bingo cards:

Well first of all we agree that trans people are in need of care and assistance, and we all need to reach out to them. But, this Bill is a bad Bill. Why? Because first of all, it’s vague, and I believe unenforceable, because it puts into law, the Criminal Code of Canada, a vague term called ‘gender identity.’ Gender fluidity says that you can change your gender itself, it’s a self expression of gender, and it can be changed to not just male and female but many genders.

Facebook has 57 genders. Our curriculum now has 6 genders. So, how can you enforce something, and how can something this vague, be part of the Criminal Code of Canada? Because sending [someone] to prison for 2 years, it’s reckless because, this, I believe, will set up terrible scenarios where you have men who have a gender identity or a gender expression of being female using female spaces, like the shower at the local pool. Do we want male genitalia up against our little girls in the local pool?

And then, if you say anything about it, it could cause a breach of peace and you could be looking at 2 years in prison, according to Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada. This, I believe, is reckless, parents, I don’t believe want this, I don’t believe that there’s a big problem in our society about this, we should not be exposing our little girls especially, to especially the predators that we use this law. Because, remember that this is not just for the trans community, this would also be for–for, predators. You’d have people like Colonel Russel Williams, who was a cross-dresser, and do you want to give him the protection of law to go into female spaces, change rooms, showers, and bathrooms, and if anyone says anything against it, they’re up against 2 years in prison?! This is outrageous!

Okay, let’s get started…

Well first of all we agree that trans people are in need of care and assistance, and we all need to reach out to them. But,

“I’m not transphobic, but.” *stamps*

Because first of all, it’s vague

“I don’t have to know what I’m talking about, to talk about it.”

Literally none of the protected categories listed in the Criminal Code are defined further. Gender identity and expression would be no different from the rest of the Code.

Gender fluidity says that you can change your gender itself, it’s a self expression of gender, and it can be changed to not just male and female but many genders.

Facebook has 57 genders. Our curriculum now has 6 genders.

I’m not sure whose curriculum has 6 genders, as education is a provincial jurisdiction and not a federal one. So McVety is indulging in the time honoured tradition of Eastern Canadians conflating Ontario with the federal government. Anyways, even if Ontario does indeed teach 6 genders in its curriculum, all that means is that they have correctly identified the faults in the gender binary.

And I’m not sure what Facebook has to do with Canada.

Because sending [someone] to prison for 2 years, it’s reckless because, this, I believe, will set up terrible scenarios where you have men who have a gender identity or a gender expression of being female using female spaces, like the shower at the local pool. Do we want male genitalia up against our little girls in the local pool?

This right here is why I blast so-called allies who perpetuate the “born fe/male” idea. As I’ve said, many many times before, I’ve stopped giving a shit about intentions. No campaign built on a platform of the “born fe/male” distinction is a platform built for trans people. Saying trans women were “born male” still serves to undermine their agency by associating them with the coercive term they are precisely trying to escape. And here, we see the same rhetorical tactic being used by somebody openly opposing the recognition of trans rights: “men” with “female identities.” Not women.

A trans woman’s genitals are not fucking male, and she is not a “man” with a “female identity” anymore than she is a woman who was “born male.”

Fucking STOP. McVety’s protest is the same rhetorical brush used to paint some of these misguided attempts at trans support. Do NOT give transphobes ammunition by conceding on “born fe/male” distinctions.

I’ll repeat this until I’m blue in the face: human sex determination is not binary. So, in addition to perpetuating the coercion that trans people are protesting, insisting we are born fe/male also stubbornly extends the broken notion of bio sex being an on/off switch. Binary bio sex continues to be the hammer with which to bludgeon trans people. “You can be claim to be x all you want, you’re still y.” “Men, with female identities.”

It is always preferable to use terms like AMAB or AFAB.

This, I believe, is reckless, parents, I don’t believe want this, I don’t believe that there’s a big problem in our society about this, we should not be exposing our little girls especially, to especially the predators that will use this law. Because, remember that this is not just for the trans community, this would also be for–for, predators. You’d have people like Colonel Russel Williams, who was a cross-dresser, and do you want to give him the protection of law to go into female spaces, change rooms, showers, and bathrooms, and if anyone says anything against it, they’re up against 2 years in prison?!

I keep hearing this argument, over and over again. Supposedly, claiming to be trans is suddenly a defence for assault, rape, and murder. Please provide a single example–just one–of someone who was let off the hook for assault, rape, or murder because they claimed they were trans.

I’ll wait. I wagered my nice boots, said I’ll eat them, if this ever succeeds. I’ll make a secondary bet, too: I bet a cis man will try to use this “defence” for his criminal charges before a trans woman does. If I win, you agree to unplug your internet for life. kthx

As for Colonel Russel Williams, all this law would do is prevent prosecutors from using his cross-dressing as evidence itself of criminal ideation. Shocking, that. We have to stick to using bonafide empirical forensics to convict people? Oh noes! Williams was found guilty because they found his boot treads, his vehicle treads, his finger prints, etc. at the various scenes of crime; plus his confession. His cross-dressing was relevant in the conviction (specifically of his breaking-and-entering charges) only because it proved he had been in his victim’s homes to steal their clothing, not because cross-dressing has any correlation with being a murderous raping monster.

What McVety is attempting to do is cite Williams’ cross-dressing as the cause of his criminal ideation in suggesting that all cross-dressers are as potentially dangerous as Williams. As cross-dressing is a form of gender expression, this would be prohibited under Bill C-16. And as far as I can tell from the sources I can find on the Williams case, he was not, in fact, convicted of cross-dressing, so Bill C-16 would not have changed the outcome of his trial BECAUSE HE WAS ON TRIAL FOR DOING THINGS THAT ARE ALREADY AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE CRIMES.

In the interview where McVety makes an ass of himself, his opponent Jan Buterman (the pro-trans representative) points out:

We aren’t aware of any criminal movement where people are claiming to be trans, because there aren’t any crimes that you’re ‘allowed’ to commit simply by being a protected group.

One more time for the people in the back:

We aren’t aware of any criminal movement where people are claiming to be trans, because there aren’t any crimes that you’re ‘allowed’ to commit simply by being a protected group.

I want to make sure you guys really, really, get it. One more time:

We aren’t aware of any criminal movement where people are claiming to be trans, because there aren’t any crimes that you’re ‘allowed’ to commit simply by being a protected group.

…I can’t believe this had to be said on TV.

So now that we’ve discussed McVety’s arguments, let’s share a few observations about him, courtesy of the Trans Equality Society of Alberta:

• His BA and MA are from the same college he founded;
• He claims to have a Doctorate of Ministry from the California State Christian University, which has the dubious distinction of being an “unaccredited and unregulated private institution that has shifted addresses at least four times within the last 10 years;”
• He was pulled off a talk show for being found in violation of hate speech laws;
• Thinks carbon taxes constitute a government of the anti-Christ;
• He has advocated for the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, as well as protested the Royal Ontario Museum for having a Darwinian evolution exhibit.

Just in case you need a reminder about crank magnetism. He can’t just be transphobic garbage, he has to be an anti-environmentalist, islamophobic, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, evolution-denying POS too.

At some point transphobic arguments hit “Point Refuted A Thousand Times” territory. I’m probably just going to keep linking back to this article every time they come up. Just so we’re clear, McVety spewed his refuse on television over the course of 5 ish minutes, and it took me almost 3 hours to research his blatantly incorrect claims, cite what I could find, and explain why he’s full of shit.

Take all the fucking seats, transphobes. Sit. The fuck. Down.

-Shiv