Libtards eating their own. Transgender rights bill threatens 'female-born' women's spaces, activists say

Two feminists are warning the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee that passing the federal transgender rights bill could threaten the existence of exclusively "female-born" women's spaces, like rape crisis centres, a controversial argument that has ignited a debate over who should call themselves a woman.

"We are worried that this well-intentioned legislation will be used to undermine the rights of women and the crucial work of women's groups," Hilla Kerner, a collective member of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, told the Red Chamber committee studying Bill C-16.

"What we are saying is: If you were born a female, you are doomed. You are doomed in our society to be second-class. You do not have the privilege of growing as a male and have a choice to choose to be a woman. Surely, you cannot say these are the same thing."

Bill C-16 would update the Canadian Humans Rights Act and the Criminal Code to include the terms "gender identity" and "gender expression." The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in favour of these protections for the trans community, and sent the bill to the Senate last November.

The idea that a transgender person "chooses" their identity is highly contentious. Groundbreaking research compiled by Greta Bauer, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University, found 59 per cent of trans people knew their gender identity did not match their body before the age of 10, and 80 per cent knew this by the age of 14.

"That's the underlying bias that really perpetuates this debate, that transgender women aren't truly women. That fact is I'm real," she said. "Let me assure you, somebody doesn't come out as a transgender woman for privilege. It comes at a great cost. I've lost my parents. I'm going through a divorce.

"I may have been assigned male at birth, and I was born with a penis, but I was born a woman."

Panas, 45, said transgender people often cannot live their true lives until they've gotten over the fear of how society will react to their transition. "You push that down. You have the internalized transphobia. But at the end of the day I didn't choose this life, it chose me."

More at link: [link to www.cbc.ca]