Evangelist Charles McVety is raising a fuss about Bill C-389, which would extend explicit human rights protection for gender identity and expression. Should people be concerned? After all, McVety’s interference led to funding being pulled from Pride parades just last summer. I spoke to NDP MP Bill Siksay about it after Question Period today.
Q: Our favourite evangelist, McVety, is spreading some things about your bill. I wanted to get your reaction about what he’s saying.
A: It’s just more of the same old alarmist line from Mr. McVety. Whenever there’s a human rights issue regarding a minority in Canada, he comes up with the same old stuff, and he’s just bringing it up one more time.
This bill won’t change what happens in public washrooms in Canada. Inappropriate behaviour will still be inappropriate behaviour, criminal activity will still be criminal activity, If people are harassing or intimidating someone in the washroom, that will still be a criminal activity, or an activity that demands sanction and appropriately so. But where people are behaving appropriately and using the facility for what it’s intended, then there will be no problem whatsoever.
The reality is that trans people are the ones that face danger in public washrooms. They’re the ones who are regularly assaulted, insulted or denied access, and that’s the real problem with washrooms in Canada. The real problem is the discrimination and violence that trans people face when they use a public washroom in Canada, and hopefully the bill will go some way to educating people about why that’s the problem, and why that’s inappropriate, and why that needs to be addressed.
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