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Transsexual Loses Fight with Women's Shelter
Complex case asked: What's discrimination?
Lawyer findlay: 'Where's the line?'
Kimberly Nixon's legal battle with Vancouver Rape Relief has finally come to an end after 12 years.
Thursday, Feb. 1, the Supreme Court of Canada denied the transsexual woman's appeal to have her case heard. Nixon launched a human rights complaint against the feminist-run non-profit society for excluding her as a volunteer peer counsellor for raped and battered women. The court awarded costs to Rape Relief.
The decision not to hear the case leaves the B.C. Court of Appeal's decision in December 2005 as the last word on the dispute, which began in August 1995.
The conflict was sparked when Nixon, who had a sex change operation in 1990, answered a Rape Relief ad for women interested in training to be volunteer counsellors. The woman leading the workshop asked Nixon if she had always been a woman, and when she confirmed she was transsexual she was asked to leave.
While it may appear that Rape Relief discriminated against Nixon because she was born with a penis, they have a different rationale. Rape Relief's collective belief is that far beyond a person's biological make-up, socialization and experience are what shapes individuals. It's part of their philosophy that women experience the male-dominated world differently than men. That was the 34-year-old organization's original argument for why they should be allowed to exclude men when their women-only policy was first challenged in the 1970s, and they feel it's relevant to whether they should admit transsexual women.
The law recognizes that drawing distinctions isn't necessarily discrimination, and considers a number of factors such as whether being denied access to an organization or service prevents a complainant "participating in the life of the community." Decisions are made within the context of where the complaint takes place. For example, if there is only one women's group in the community it might be discrimination, but if there are a number of groups serving different interests it may not be.
It also takes the complainant's real agenda into account. In a November 2006 decision, for example, the tribunal doubted that complainant Ralph G. Stopps had a genuine interest in attending the Just Ladies gym in Burnaby, which excludes men. They decided that he suffered no adverse effects from being excluded and his complaint was denied.
Protecting group rights
Groups can argue that they are exempt from charges of discrimination under Section 41 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which is designed to harmonize with section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in protecting group rights.
"If a charitable, philanthropic, educational, fraternal, religious or social organization or corporation that is not operated for profit has as a primary purpose the promotion of the interests and welfare of an identifiable group or class of persons characterized by a physical or mental disability or by a common race, religion, age, sex, marital status, political belief, colour, ancestry or place of origin, that organization or corporation must not be considered to be contravening this code because it is granting a preference to members of the identifiable group or class of persons."
Rape Relief attempted to defend itself under Section 41, but the tribunal didn't accept that. On hearing the evidence, which included Rape Relief's concern that Nixon's appearance -- which they found masculine -- would be disturbing for traumatized clients looking for a women-only refuge, they found in favour of Nixon and awarded her a record $7,500. They also referred the feminist collective for sensitivity training.
Despite that, they recognized that Rape Relief acted in good faith, according to their philosophy. Both parties agreed that Nixon was a woman and that gender existed on a continuum -- it wasn't binary, despite the social convention of dividing everyone into categories of male or female.
But that was Nixon's last legal victory.
'Vindicate her womanhood'
Rape Relief took the tribunal decision to review at the B.C. Supreme Court, which quashed it. In his decision, Justice E.R.A. Edwards wrote that "excluding Nixon based on her experience as a male is not discriminatory under the code."
Edwards pulled no punches. He noted that Nixon had left a position at another women's group, Battered Women's Support Services, which accepted trans-women, and he determined that Nixon was interested in Rape Relief specifically because of its women-only policy, which, he wrote, "would vindicate her womanhood."
(Both the tribunal and Rape Relief accept that Nixon has a genuine interest in counselling other women, and she has done so both before and after her filing the human rights complaint.)
Edwards also compared Rape Relief's philosophy to religious conviction and described their beliefs as "articles of faith" meaning "...matters of received or accepted wisdom, intuitively correct and not requiring logical or scientific demonstration for their validity."
In other words, this being a democracy, the Rape Relief Collective is entitled to their beliefs.
Nixon appealed Edward's judgment, but in December 2005, B.C. Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision.
'Where do we draw the line?'
Nixon wasn't available for comment on the Supreme Court of Canada's decision not to hear her case, but her lawyer barbara findlay said they were disappointed.
Findlay thinks that all Canadians should be concerned about the Supreme Court letting the B.C. Appeals Court decision stand because she believes it is granting some groups the right to discriminate. Findlay, who often champions gay and transgendered clients, notes that the protections for religious groups, particularly, often lead to discrimination based on sexual orientation.
"Where do we draw the line between accommodating differences and being free to discriminate? Those issues are becoming more pressing and controversial," findlay said.
But Christine Boyle, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, who represented Rape Relief, believes this case is good news for any member of a disadvantaged or equality-seeking group -- including Nixon.
"Other groups in our province will be reassured to know that their right to organize has been confirmed and is under the protection of the law," Boyle said, adding that Nixon also won a significant point. "The court acknowledged that transsexualism is included in the category of sex discrimination."
Boyle points out that the decision on this case upholds the right of groups to fight the discrimination they feel, in the manner they see fit, without being expected to take on the burden of other disadvantaged groups.
"It's saying that just because someone has arthritis -- which is a disadvantage -- it doesn't give her the right to go to a group organized around helping people who, for example, might need wheelchairs. She can't insist they take address her problem too."
More cases predicted
The right to provide a narrowly focused service is significant for tiny not-for-profit groups like Rape Relief, which is run by a collective of about 20 women on a budget of about $600,000. Most of the money comes from fundraising. They serve about 100 women and 70 children a year in the shelter, and field thousands of crisis calls, 24 hours a day. About roughly 100 volunteers a year donate their time.
But findlay said that in allowing Rape Relief to determine who they will or will not serve, the courts have, in effect, given them the right to determine who is or isn't a woman.
Boyle disputes that reading of the case. "The legal issue wasn't how people are classified in terms of gender. I don't think the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has the right to decide what it means to women to be women -- that's a political issue. What all the courts have said is that Rape Relief is entitled to the protection of the Human Rights Code, just like anyone else."
Findlay, who often describes Nixon as the Rosa Parks of trans-women, said her case may have been the first of its kind, but it won't be the last.
"Ultimately, what is accessible to all women will be accessible to trans-women too," findlay said. "I think this just shows that achieving equality will take a long time for the transgendered. But there will be other cases."
Rape Relief spokesperson Suzanne Jay said that she was almost as surprised as she was relieved by the decision.
"As advocates for raped and battered women, we don't see the courts regularly making decisions that benefit women -- rape cases rarely even go to court," Jay said.
But she was relieved that they retained their right to run a women-only shelter and counselling service.
"We're just one option for women in the community and we're glad we can go on providing it."
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56
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zalm
5 years ago
Speaking as a privileged
Speaking as a privileged white male, I recognize the discrimination Nixon suffered, the pain it cause, and I note her reaction to it (over the years as I followd this case in the media) was a male one. Nixon may be femae in form, but her spirit is male. Rape Relief and the judges made the right call.
zalm
5 years ago
Proofreading
Phew! Atrocious spelling mistakes. I promise I will avail myself of the preview pane next time. Including for this message.
woody
5 years ago
colossal waste of money
Again our great useless charter at work . Who paid for this colossal waste of money and time?I bet, not Nixon. Here is our world going to hell in a hand basket with global warming and were wasting good money and resources on frivolous matters such as this. Wake up and smell the coffee
mcccarthy
5 years ago
I remember reading that
I remember reading that Kimberly Clark worked as a pilot and was let go as a result of being transgender. Why not take them to court for discrimination instead of a non-profit?
woody
5 years ago
OUR CHARTER HARD AT WORK,AGAIN
People when you have the chance check out the,Transsexual Loses Fight with Women's Shelter, story. Compliments of Pierres charter.
mcccarthy
5 years ago
who to sue
Kimberly Nixon stated she was discriminated against as a trans pilot when applying for work. This was her livelihood yet she didn't seem interested in taking them to court. Hmm?
mcccarthy
5 years ago
who to sue
Kimberly Nixon states that she was, as a trans pilot, discriminated against when applying for work in her profession (airline pilot). Why not take them to court for discrimination when her livelihood was at stake, instead of a non profit women's organization where she wanted to volunteer?
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
costs awarded to rape relief
Woody asks:
It says in the article that costs were awarded to rape relief. I believe that means Nixon paid her lawyer and the legal expenses of the shelter and any associated court costs. Generally, no one gets remunerated for his or her time in these things except the lawyers.
woody
5 years ago
they found in favour of Nixon
SharingIsGood take another look, the story says.
they found in favour of Nixon and awarded her a record $7,500. They also referred the feminist collective for sensitivity training.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Second paragraph
Maybe they found in favour of Nixon to the tune of $7500 for the defense's weak Section 41 argument, but still awarded costs to Rape Relief. In other words, the judge believed Nixon made a point that was worth something, but materially, it was not really worthy of using the court's time. She probably lost money in the end.
woody
5 years ago
Legal Aid
I doubt it cost Nixon a cent, more than likely received legal aid and or special interest group aid funding and possibly funding from Court Challenges Program of Canada.
G West
5 years ago
So what
Apparently a lot of battered women in shelters who are hiding and trying to get away from abusive men thought it was worthwhile to clarify their rights and entitlements.
Isn't that worth something woodrow?
Or are those 'kinds' of people just not worth anything in your eyes.
How much do you think BC Hydro is paying its highpriced legal help to appeal the decision of the Utilities Commission in the Alcan case?
I think there's a pretty obvious double standard at work here.
I think men as a 'class' have a lot more to account for - relative to the way women are frequently treated in relationships - than a court system which provides some way for marginalized people to have their voices heard does. No one should be embarrassed or upset by the circumstances surrounding this particular case. Not even Bob Edwards.
tessa
5 years ago
a male reaction?
Zalm, You think standing up for your rights is a male reaction? I think that's sad. Maybe that's a sign that more women should stand up for their rights; after all, isn't that what rape relief is supposed to do?
sickofrel
5 years ago
equality
She was born with a penis, so that disqualifies her.
If she is born with breasts, what does that disqualify her from?
What do we, as a society, lose from disqualifying people simply because their parts don't match?
nightbloom
5 years ago
It's a touchy issue, isn't
It's a touchy issue, isn't it.
I find it interesting that feminist and queer Gender Theory, which pivots on the assumption that gender is socially constructed, has come around to bite the feminists in the ass. As always, they want it both ways.
Whatever its ideological perversities, Rape Relief has one cardinal purpose in mind: to minister to female victims of sexual assault. The (alleged) victims are their Number One priority. They have a right to decide what works best in the context of their mandate, and to revisit those practices when they see fit, without court-mandated pressures. The women are their priority. Molding their organization into a post-modern paragon of pansexual equality is a distant second.
And much as I deplore their exclusion of male victims of sexual assault (far, far more numerous than feminist ideologues will ever admit, or are even capable of perceiving), I would defend the right of Vancouver Rape Relief to decide what's best for their organizations......The same way I would defend the right of Catholic adoption agencies to refer gay & lesbian parents-to-be to other organizations who would be willing to accomodate them, without having courts and legislators drive their organizations into extinction.
G West
5 years ago
Well put nightbloom
As Bob Edwards put it, this is an issue with religious overtones - don't expect it to be logical. If the centre weren't private and were the only such game in town - the outcome would have been otherwise.
And that's why our Charter, flawed though it may be, is far better than the alternative.
woody
5 years ago
USER PAYS
G West said ,
That is correct, Rape relief was established by females for females, not for guys who were born with a cock. You can cut the cock off, but how do you cut out the male brain.
If someone wants to challenge the charter ,sue their boss etc ,fine go ahead but, do with your own dime not mine. Same thing applies with these reversal operations and breast enlargements, user pays.
G West
5 years ago
I think you need to check the health plan
I have a strong suspicion that gender re-assignment procedures are at least partly covered by MSP woody. Sorry if that upsets you. All kinds of problems under the sun.
Obviously, we don't agree on who should be funding charter challenges.
But we didn't agree either when you tried to make the point that every lawyer doing legal aid work was receiving a king's ransom for their services either. Remember? DO you still have those schedules I posted for you?
It's the guys and gals at Van Fasken DuMoulin you should be screaming at, not the lawyers who take cases like Nixon's.
Bobb999
5 years ago
Nixon strikes me as a
Nixon strikes me as a self-centered creep who appears to have been unable to empathize with, or care about, the women he claimed to be wanting to help.
Why couldn't SHe see things from the point of view of the women, who have just been traumatized and victimized by men. That it would likely add to their trauma and anxiety to be assigned an ex-man to be their rape counselor?
Unfortunately, male to female transsexuals seem to often retain so many prominent physical male traits (voice, build and bone structure, adams apple, etc.), that it's often obvious they are ex-men, who did not grow up physically female, and may appear outwardly to be transvestites, instead of females at all.
There are a hundred other volunteer positions Nixon could have applied for where SHe could have been of real help to women, or people in general.
Why did SHe insist on this role, one where SHe was liable to cause more harm than good to the victims? SHe should have realized that HErself.
Nixon's volunteering as a rape counselor was all about validating HEr own self-image. The best interests of assault victims was the last thing SHe had in mind.
[I notice Shannon Rupp already covered this story in a Globe article this week. Now she's re-written another version for The Tyee.
It must be a hard hustle trying to make a living as a journalist: rewrite, recycle and hawk articles. She's also re-written/recycled the Christmas is a rip-off (appropriation) of
pagan observances around the winter solstice time theme two Decembers in a row for The Tyee. Worst though, is her seemingly written-to-order smear jobs against various victims,who deserve better, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake being a glaring example].
zalm
5 years ago
Tessa
This isn't about standing up for your rights. Nixon's reaction was a male one - a self-centred demand to volunteer (let's not forget that part, shall we?) her point of view to assist women who have had their rights and security of person taken away.
This project doesn't need more male ego. It needs big ears and an open mind - only one of which Nixon appeared to possess. Nixon could have volunteered for fundraising or office support services, both of which are exremely necessary to continue the work, but nooooooooo....she wanted to be on the line, talking to victims. That's a male perspective trying to help in a masculine way, and I should know, cause I ARE one.
Bluenose
5 years ago
Heteronormative and Patriarchal
An absolutist philosophy influenced by an essentialist proposition that privileges the binary gender system and promotes the idea that all women everywhere experience everything in such a uniformly absolute manner that their life experience cannot possibly include the non-heteronormative experience of a transgendered individual.
Sickofrel wrote:
We, as a society, don't really care, so long as we can continue to cling to all our irrational belief systems, whatever form they might take.
Zalm wrote:
You speak for all men in the same way that Rape Relief on the one hand and Real Women of Canada on the other hand speak for all women. That is: not at all.
Nightbloom wrote:
You caricature modern gender theory but you neither understand it nor have any wish to engage with it other than as a foil for your withering dismissal of it.
They should be driven into extinction. In a rational society, they would have succumbed to their own superstitions long ago.
This decision constitutes nothing more than the conservative application of patriarchal norms in non-dominative drag. Congratulations to Rape Relief for failing to challenge the assumptions of the binary gender system, since these could not possibly have any relation to the women they seek to "minister" to, their "Number One" priority. The ironies of this case have already overwhelmed it.
Congratulations to Kimberly Nixon for being who SHE is in a wasteland of neanderthals. The struggle of transsexuals for rights, family, and acceptance is not about tolerance but inclusion. Hopefully that will happen before we gas ourselves to death with global warming. Que cera, cera.
zalm
5 years ago
Sorry...
The time for educating people on heteronoramtivism is in school, not on the other end of a phone line after a violent incident.
I hear what you say, Bluenose, even while I don't get it. Have mercy.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:You caricature modern
Oh really. There's only one withering dismissal here, and it happens to be your "absolutist" and "essentialist position" that anything and anyone not conforming to your ideology and worldview is a neaderthal which should be driven to extinction.
Nice worldview on ya. And it sounds pretty "binary" to me (bluenose = right ; anyone who disagrees = wrong)
I don't have anything against Nixon. Rape Relief should be given the space to determine its own policies in such an experimental and new area. I agree with Zalm - the last thing these women need is an indoctrination session on po-mo notions of heteronormatism and the "binary gender system". System. Puhleeeze.
G West
5 years ago
I hate to start an avalanche here...
Because it will probably go to your head nightbloom...(and Zalm too of course) but that's about the fifth time that you've posted something about which I don't have to hesitate even a moment before agreeing with you.
Maybe it's time to put some sort of mark on the wall.
As Bob Edwards said, if Rape Relief were the only game in town the answer might be different, it isn't; and the conclusion here is about right.
Tip of the hat to a Charter with enough suppleness and flexibility to deal with a range of real-world situations without getting doctrinaire and overly politically correct.
zalm
5 years ago
Hmmmm...all males, all one
Hmmmm...all males, all one opinion (I'm guessing of course). Sounds like heteronormatism to me. Is that what you meant, bluenose?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
heh, heh, heh
I'm sure that's what he meant Zalm - the guy was just on a roll and couldn't stop himself!
Hildy
5 years ago
Legal costs
The costs for both parties are on public record.
The Human Rights Tribunal funds complainants, so the cost of Nixon's initial HR complaint was covered by them. But Rape Relief, despite being a non-profit, was denied funding by the tribunal. Usually the defendant is a company, a corporation, or a government agency and has the funds to defend itself.
Each side estimates that they spent about $100,000, which was raised from donations. Both received some pro bono legal counsel.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:Sounds like
Except there's not a heteronormative bone in this gay boy's body.
Budd Campbell
5 years ago
Bobb999 1 day ago Nixon
Bobb999 1 day ago
Nixon strikes me as a self-centered creep who appears to have been unable to empathize with, or care about, the women he claimed to be wanting to help.
Bobb999 strikes me as likely an employee or collective board member of Rape Relief. Whether Bobb999 is male or female I don't know and don't care.
I think the court was right in describing some of Rape Relief's beliefs and precepts as being similar to that of a religion. Personally, I would have been happier if the court had rule in Nixon's favour, since I don't believe that this standard of intrusiveness is proper for any institution. It's as if a teacher applying to a Catholic or Adventist school had to prove they had been a member of that church at birth.
Tsolum
5 years ago
Time to Think
The Rape Relief organization has the right and the duty to make sure those that need there help are comfortable talking to the councilor.
Unfortunately, now days too many people have a cause they want to push and unfortunately they are willing to push it on members of the society who are suffering already. The way I see it is if the transsexual really believes that she thinks like a woman now she would have understood why the Rape Relief
organization turned her down instead of pushing her own cause onto this
organization.
goddessdaughter
5 years ago
How Very Sad
Sadly, all that has come of this is that we women have shown that we too can discriminate.
I have to laugh when I read comments like, if a person stands up and fights for their rights they must be male. What kind of nonsense is that? What woman is willing to just lie down and not fight for their rights?
Having read the Nixon case, I can see why she wanted to be in the position she worked hard to be in. As a rape survivor herself, she knew what it felt like to be abused and raped by men. She wanted to give back, to pass it forward, what was given to her.
I can say that because I myself have been in that very position in the past and I can understand the desire to make things better, to nurture and hold the hand of someone who needs it.
Some have said this is her desire to fix things, comparing that to how men act. I look at it as her nurturing nature, feeling the pain of others and wanting to help take on that pain, support that person and let them know the fault lies with others.
I am glad that most women’s organizations don’t hold such out dated, bigoted ideals as those held by those running Rape Relief.
I’d also like to comment about the funding of this case comment.
Legal Aid does not fund such cases, which means Ms Nixon would have to find the funding on her own, or that Ms findlay wrote her time off, as she has been known to do for cases she know are important.
You can also bet that RR also had funding support from people and groups who, like we have seen in the equal marriage fight, have their own agenda. Whether that agenda is to divide the queer community or is based on the hate of a minority, the money used for this case didn’t hurt any services being offered.
Never once, even though one would think they could based on the constant rhetoric, was a financial statement shown that proved any money being used was gained by reducing services. That’s just a typical ruse used to gain sympathy, and clearly, it worked on some of you. Go ahead; ask them to show you their operating budgets for years before and during that time.
I’m sure that Ms Nixon would have rather not fight the fight she did, after all in many cases it gained her hateful comments and put her life under a microscope. She did it, I suspect, because if she didn’t she would have been accepting what those at RR were saying, she wasn’t woman enough to do the job. Her experiences weren’t good enough.
Sure, she could have accepted the offer they made, but don’t we call that constructive dismissal in the corporate world? Move the person to a place they have no desire or experience to be in? Hide them?
And the idea that RR speaks for all abused women? NOT
How dare they suggest to know how all women will react? I have seen pictures of Ms Nixon, saw her and heard her being interviewed a number of years back too. She very much looked and sounded as female as most other women I run into daily, so the idea that the victims would be further traumatized by her is foolish at best.
The one thing I have not heard discussed by the people at RR is this fact. They say they support transsexual women at their shelters. However, how can they say they do that with true support when they have no living experience of how that woman might feel? I mean that is one of the reasons they excluded Nixon wasn’t it.
Truly, the harm caused by the actions of RR will continue until people get themselves completely educated. When people are educated, true equality happens much easier.
Bluenose
5 years ago
Very Sad Indeed
Nightbloom wrote:
You lack reading, comprehension, and spelling skills. Despite these inadequacies, you are correct in your assessment that my position is not one of illiberal intolerance, but of ideological warfare, especially against fifth columns. A self-described agnostic in a same-sex relationship who continually defends the heterosexist, homophobic ideology of the Catholic Church while constantly ridiculing modern gender theory serves as a case in point.
Truth is truth. It is a burden to bear it, but since few are willing, someone must. Religious institutions and secular agencies that actively promote heterosexism and homophobia are willfully evil; a distinction which has, apparently, been lost on you, a so-called "gay boy" without a "heteronormative bone" in his body. You and those who agree with you are simply perpetuating the patriarchal, heteronormative system that is responsible for your own oppression; and by doing so, you collude in the oppression of others. Clearly, it's safer than challenging the status quo, which is ever so much more rewarding. Good boys (and good girls) get rewarded.
Goddessdaughter wrote:
Absolutely. But as you can see from the comments above, there is active resistance to such education by individuals who claim to have no need of it. Education is not enough; there must be imposition and enforcement through force of legislation along with education. If young minds are not molded by the principles of rationalism and humanism, they will be molded by the superstitions of the past and the diversions of the present. The people who defend such things ought to be ashamed of themselves; if they had the slightest degree of genuine conscience, they would be. Clearly, they don't, so they aren't.
woody
5 years ago
goddessdaughter said, Having read the Nixon case
goddessdaughtersaid,
goddessdaughter
Where did you come by this information,? If unable to provide this information, then possibly you could enlighten.
After Nixon was abused and raped, by men, did Nixon lay a complaint to the police?
Additionally, did Nixon contact Rape Relief, regarding this alleged abuse and rapes?
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:especially against
Oh, Bluenose, you're such a programmed drone. 'Fifth column'...? Are you for real?
I've heard the whole "agree-with-us-or-you're-a-self-loathing-homo" schtick so many times on soooo many issues. It's time for the liberal-Left to find a new tactic to silence members of minorities who don't tow their doctrinaire party line.
The gay meth brigade tried the same tactic when I publicly criticised the drug-party profit mill that routinely turns queer youth into hiv+ drug addicts. Before that it was the "queer theorists" at my alma mater who couldn't explain why three decades of 'scholarship' had failed to produce anything ressembling a viable sexual ethic for gay men of this era, and for the total absence from the queer academic discourse of that peculiar thing which we're all about: L-O-V-E. Perverse abstract models of Power and Sex were all they were capable of discussing...and even then, not in terms any layman would ever understand or appreciate.
There's no "collosion" with oppression here. I'm simply baffled at the stupidity and blinkered egocentric ideology which has been force-fed to my generation of sexual minority simply because of who we are.
As for the family feud between Catholicism and the gay community, gay men are staring at their alter ego square in the mirror on that score. Every Catholic I know is so gay-positive it hurts. As for the sexual ethic promoted by the antiquarians in the hierarchy, it's hard on everyone. So it's out of touch. In terms of doctrine, gay people are no more persecuted by the orthodox R.C. position than are divorcees and unmarried couples. You of ALL people should know this, Bluenose.
Your position boils down to the same thing I heard from the campus queers: you're not a real gay unless you vote NDP and hand out flyers for the Spartacus Club. Get over yourself.
G West
5 years ago
Liberal-left - c'mon Nightbloom
Can you guys manage to debate queer theory without bringing the rest of us into it?
Puhleeeze. This is a minority issue and you guys are welcome to it. We won't judge you - you don't judge us.
The NDP has enough problems without getting into this one...god help them.
OKAY?
nightbloom
5 years ago
Butt outta this one,
Butt outta this one, Gwest.
The ideological Left has exploited queer alienation, appropriated the queer voice, and asserted ownership over gay issues long enough, much to the detriment of a truly mature gay movement. The only thing worse is the ideological neo-Right, and that's not saying much.
I'm fine with the whole "liberation" aspect of it, but that's been done, and we're ready for the next phase now. When conscientious objectors against the prevailing p.c. orthodoxies within minority communities are labelled as a 'self-loathing' "fifth column", then HOOOOOOOOL UP!
I've run the full gamut, from army boy to queer activist and back again, from pride float, to circuit dancefloor, then back to Gregorian Chant. So I think I know where it's at by now. And the only "fifth column" happening over here is the accumulated tallies off how many times I've had to put self-righteous po-mo drones like Bluenose in their place.
zalm
5 years ago
Good. Now when you're
Good. Now when you're finished straightening Bluenose out, maybe you could do the same to Haggard? He's confused again, poor boy...
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Feb06/0,4670,HaggardSexAllegations,00.html
The only problem I have is so soon after we put Glavin in the barrel and lined up over his comments about the "loony left", here you are saying what appears to be the same thing about us all over again.
Maybe I just need your definition of Ideological left. Only, be careful. We all have a cause, and that's a pretty big brush.
Care to straighten this out?
G West
5 years ago
avec plaisir mon ami
I leave the whole complicated business to you and bluenose, and Kimberly Nixon too for that matter. Just pretend I'm not part of that constant bugbear of yours and Glavin's - the ideological left or whatever you're calling it this week and we'll be fine.
You don't even have to explain Reverend Haggard, I think I have him figured out - although I agree with Zalm that Haggard could sure use some guidance after a couple weeks of re-education.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:Care to straighten
I've already addressed this, not only just above, but in nearly two years of Tyee threads. My points stand. Get with the program.
He's transparent enough. And not even Roman Catholic, btw, so I dunno why you & zalm are tossing that one out there. He's just another schizoid Evangelical televangelist profiteer. Or, conversely, just another hypocritical meth-snorting gay man with a head-full of issues who buys sex from boys. He'd fit right in, truth be told. Your garden variety Vancouver gay male is actually not so highly evolved from him, right down to all the value-added ideological pretensions in place of Haggard's religious dysphoria. The man was a hyprocrite....but really: who is anyone in the gay community to judge....?
In any case, my original points relating to the topic of this article stand.
Bobb999
5 years ago
Despite ongoing
Despite ongoing protestations by certain bitches, master debaters and brown nosers, this case is now settled, and justice has been served, IMO, by the Supreme Court of Canada decision (although it was too long in coming). This case angered me from the first I learned the details of it.
Hip hip hooray!
J.Moreau
5 years ago
The concept behind Rape
The concept behind Rape Relief's argument is relatively straightforward but it seems a few have missed it. Rape Relief volunteers offer battered and raped women peer counseling. In order to offer peer counseling you need to have a shared understanding of the experience of sexism. A trans male to female, who grew up as a man, is not in any position to empathize with the experience of growing up as a girl in a male-dominated world.
Basic feminism operates on the idea that gender has two parts, physical and social. You are born as a woman and socialized as a woman. (This of course includes sexism and sexual violence designed to relegate women to second-class status.) It's not about being essentialist and claiming all women are the same. However, all women face discrimination in a sexist society, where we have less political, social and economic power than men.
The oppression Nixon faces is because of she's a transsexual, it's a kind of discrimination reserved for men who have deviated from their assigned gender role.
Just because Rape Relief won the legal battle doesn't mean anyone should bash Nixon as a creep either.
And yes, Rape Relief puts the crisis caller above the personal needs of volunteers.
Bluenose
5 years ago
Sure
Nightbloom wrote:
If it makes you feel comfortable to think that you have put me in my place ... I wish you luck in your comfortable pew. A predictable response from a conflicted perspective which offers nothing but the same hackneyed responses in defense of gendered power dynamics. You are the ultimate oxymoron.
If you really believe that I have simply parrotted the "schtick" you caricature above, then you have completely missed the point. Intentionally so, I suspect.
The ultimate delusion. You have collected experiences at the expense of comprehension. As I wrote earlier, you caricature and ridicule modern gender theory without ever having understood it or engaged with it. To you, it is just another "schtick" to be dismissed like a party trick you've become bored with. Understandably, you don't wish to understand it.
J. Moreau wrote:
This is only one working definition among many. In the first place, feminist theorists do not agree among themselves as to what constitutes "basic feminism." In the second place, as one gender theorist has pointed out, variation among men and among women is rendered insignificant in relation to variation between them. Indeed, the focus on difference as a result of sex may obscure how those differences flow from other sources. It could also be argued that Kimberly Nixon, as a transgendered woman, had less political, social, and economic power while she was a man than, say, Margaret Thatcher, who was born a woman.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:As I wrote earlier,
Like a lot of people, Bluenose, I've had to live out the contradictions between "modern gender theory" and Modern Gender Reality. Your 'theories' came up soarly lacking during crunch-time in the University of Life. From the gay perspective, they have failed to address every single REAL modern challenge they've encountered, from queer love to HIV to gay male drug-culture to same-sex families and gay parenting (both parenting gay kids, and gay adults being parents). All queer theory has done is side-lined a generation of gay thinkers from the real affairs of real people (including gays) in the real world.
We can take this a lot further, if you want to continue this line of discussion.
Bluenose
5 years ago
MGT
J. Moreau wrote:
Clearly this is not the case as the above article reports. Groups like Battered Women's Support Services and others accept transwomen as counsellors; the belief that transwomen are not in any position to empathize with the experience of battered women is not one that is universally held. It is a philosophical belief, not an ontological fact. There are some excellent resources on transfeminism available on the web; the article linked to below seems fairly representative.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=705_0_1_0_C
Nightbloom wrote:
Magisterial pronouncements do not qualify as statements of fact but as expressions of opinion -- something the obscurantists in the Vatican seem incapable of grasping. In your personal experience, for whatever reason, the theories I agree with and espouse (not "my" theories) came up sorely lacking for you. In my own experience, they have served me very well indeed, although I shudder to think what kind of a litmus test I would have to pass in order to meet your required criteria.
More quasi-magisterial pronouncements. From "the" gay perspective? Which gay perspective is "the" gay perspective? This is the kind of question that modern gender theory, honestly engaged with, teaches one to ask. There are many gay perspectives, some of which are congruent with gender theory, some of which are not.
In my experience, gender theory addresses issues of same-sex love and same-sex parenting far more honestly and humanely than Catholic theology can even imagine. The early Church rescued abandoned babies but tortured and murdered them once they grew up to become non-conformist heretics and homosexuals. Such an ethos profoundly betrays the human condition it claims to address.
Unfortunately, I don't have the time to explore any of these issues further, but I append the extract below for your consideration, if not your amusement:
"Let us remind ourselves what God is not. The world put to death the God who explains things, the Creator God who sewed up the Universe and had an explanation for every blessed mystery. The world put that God to death on Calvary. On Good Friday they said, the God of the Philosophers is dead. How can you reconcile a God of absolute power and a God of Love? You can't. To try is to insult the suffering of innocent humanity. That God is dead. To try to believe in Him is a blasphemy.
"And our faith went to the Garden in the darkness of dawn three days later. Our faith did not find explanations, nor did it find fake consolations. It found a new God. The new God was to be found not in control, but in loss of control; not in strength but in weakness. He was no longer an explanation for what happens, He was now a person -- a mysterious person who only the minute before had looked very much like the gardener sweeping the path. That has the profoundest implications for the human race and for human history for as long as it lasts. For we can no longer look to an imaginary God to hand out morality, to feed the poor, to heal the sick, to refashion the world along just and equitable lines. That is our responsibility now, and if it seems like a Godless world, we shall be judged -- we, not God."
nightbloom
5 years ago
Bluenose, you sweep aside my
Bluenose, you sweep aside my "magisterial pronouncements" on a full range of salient current issues, yet you issue your own carte-blanche without engaging any of the substantive elements of the theories you defend. In fact, summarising all your statements on Gender Theory, one could reasonably surmise that you possess only the most cursory knowledge of its most well-known themes (critique of binarism, the social construction of gender, the power dynamics underpinning conventional notions of licit sexual behaviours, yada-yada).
I don't know how Catholicism got dragged into this, let alone the evangelical Haggard...or God, for that matter. It's a red herring in the context of this discussion. I've always said that Catholic sexual ethics are stuck in a bygone century. So what else is new. But voluntary associations who happen to provide services to the public have to come to these new issues on their own, in their own way, and in a manner that is compatible with their mandate.
I'm all for Nixon's process of self-realization and self-validation, even if I don't subscribe to the po-mo Gender Theories of the academic Left. My only point here is that I think the courts and legislators need to sit this one out.
nightbloom
5 years ago
...One thing I'll grant you,
...One thing I'll grant you, Bluenose, which perhaps I haven't emphasized enough: we're both agree that Vancouver Rape Relief is behaving hypocritically in this instance, relative to the ideology they've always proselytized.
Forest
5 years ago
Thanks to the Courageous
I want to thank Kimberly Nixon who has courageously given of 12 years of her life to fight for the rights of trans-gendered people. I want to thank Barbara Findlay for being a lawyer who uses her skills to help the vulnerable. I am sorry Vancouver Rape Relief is so narrow minded and unable to recognize that by abusing Kimberly, they have hurt all women.
Bluenose
5 years ago
Fin
Nightbloom: I do not have the luxury of time today (or most days) so I have to limit my responses to one or two postings per day. This will be my last response in this forum. Take it for what you will.
You stated categorically: "From the gay perspective." That is what I was responding to: there is no such thing as "the gay perspective," so it is pointless to offer a critique of gender theory as if there were.
Nice try. However, one could reasonably surmise such knowledge only if one is bereft of reason. In this case, the absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. You insist that I offer detailed responses to cursory questions and strawman arguments; when I do not, you conclude that I lack the knowledge to do so. Now there's logic for you. Puhleeeeze indeeeed.
No they don't. Not if their mandate is deficient. They need to be driven into extinction. Sooner rather than later.
Forest wrote:
These women are real heroes. They should be the recipients of an outstanding community service award. They deserve the gratitude of everyone who has ever been discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation, sexual identity, or sexual expression. That Kimberly Nixon is described in this forum as a "self-centered creep" is offensive and repellent in the extreme. She is a role model for an inclusive and post-modern society that is still being built, but will eventually come to be.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Quote:Not if their mandate
Wow. Sounds like Stalinism to me. No wonder you're a proponent of gender deconstruction.
Yes, it is possible to talk in general terms about a 'gay perspective', based on the common denominators of same sex attraction, exclusion from traditional social frameworks and common collective experiences (the AIDS epidemic, discrimination, etc.). As more gays become more normative, the unifying denominators are slowly receding, but that still leaves same sex attraction, the sine qua non of gayness no matter which way to cut it. The specific context in which I used "gay perspective" was in noting the breathtaking lack of relevance of almost the entire corpus of Queer Theory. It's an embarassing dinosaur. The campus mandarins of Q.T. have been M.I.A. on every major issue to confront the community. Q.T. was only really an ideological satellite of marxist-feminist gender theory, and hence by entension just another intellectual prop of the New Left. It has no bearing on the real lives of real gay people. Q.T. has been a great failure, and this absence of relevant critical thought within gay communities has translated - in very real and destructive ways - into modern gay communities becoming the wholesale indentured clients of the social welfare and pharmaceutical sectors (complimented by the opportunistic depredations of commercialized sex and illegal drug ventures of one sort or another).
Alcibiades
5 years ago
They need to be driven into extinction. Sooner rather than later
Sounds like George Bush to me
nightbloom
5 years ago
No - Queer Theory is the New
No - Queer Theory is the New Left's albatross.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I was talking about the statement
Which was bolded in the subject line...it has the same resonance as Bush's mantras about evildoers...I don't even know if there is a New Left anymore. I think it may have died with Michel Foucault.
On another note, have you ever been to Terry Glavin's blog?
http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/
Here's what he says when someone disagrees with him:
Great advocate of free speech dontcha think?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
And you should see how mild and insipid
And you should see how mild and insipid the remark which occasioned that particular instance of 'blowing chunks' actually was.
apathysux
5 years ago
As a woman...
...who has been sexually abused by the male gender (and a lesbian who is now a male BTW) numerous times in various ways would not be comfortable discussing my hetero female perspective regarding this abuse with a transgender anybody.
So please those of you who felt they could speak for 'womanhood' please do not speak for me, I can speak for myself, thank you very much!!!
apathysux
5 years ago
BTW..Forest
As a woman I don't feel in the least bit hurt. I am sure there are plenty of other organizations who would be happy to employ a person of her experience/gender.
woody
5 years ago
Youuu- whooo goddessdaughter where are you?
goddessdaughter said,
Goddessdaughter could you explain where
you come by this information,? If unable to provide this information, then possibly you could enlighten.
After Nixon was abused and raped, by men, did Nixon lay a complaint to the police?
Additionally, did Nixon contact Rape Relief, regarding this alleged abuse and rapes?