It is sad that this even needs to be said, but politicians need to protect women and girls unequivocally by ensuring there are safe spaces where no biological male may enter. This includes public changerooms, bathrooms, and women’s shelters. Spaces are safe for women and girls when, for example, they can change clothes without needing to worry that someone with male anatomy will enter the changeroom and see them naked and vulnerable. Women and girls in women’s changerooms should not have to worry about being exposed to male genitalia. Many parents are adamant about protecting their underage female daughters from the sight of naked grown men. Further, allowing a person with male genitalia (regardless of that person’s gender identity) into women’s spaces increases the risk of sexual assault.
Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the security of the person, which should include the right of women and girls to have their own safe spaces where biological males may not enter. Current federal and provincial laws jeopardize the physical and psychological safety of women and girls, thereby violating their Charter right to the security of the person.
The rights of transgender individuals should be recognized and protected in a manner that does not harm the safety or the mental and emotional well-being of women and girls. As was explained by Devyn Cousineau of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in the case of Yaniv v. Waxing Salons: “A scrotum is different than a vulva, regardless of the gender of the person it is attached to.” Women and girls have rights as well, which are being ignored and eroded as society rushes to prioritize the desires of certain men who identify (whether sincerely or opportunistically) as transwomen.
A convicted pedophile stands accused of spying on girls in a women’s changeroom in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Recently in Calgary, girls were reportedly traumatized by seeing a naked grown man in a female changeroom. Parents were in disbelief that public swimming pool staff knowingly allowed this to happen, further to the City’s position: “To meet the needs of all Calgarians and to be compliant with provincial Human Rights legislation, customers will have the use of the washroom and change room facilities congruent with their gender identity."
The Western Standard reported that a homeless man in Grande Prairie, Alberta, claimed to be transgender, shook his penis at pool staff, and entered the women’s changing room.
All that is now required in Canada to access women’s intimate spaces, including women’s shelters, is to claim to possess a female identity.
Trans-identified male Cody D’Entremont stands accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a women’s shelter in Windsor, Ontario, where Cody was also staying.
Likewise in Parry Sound, Ontario, a woman was allegedly raped at an emergency women’s shelter by Shane Jacob Green, who had been jailed for having previously assaulted a woman. Green allegedly declared that he was a woman to access the women’s shelter, and allegedly made sexually inappropriate comments to staff and residents before his behavior culminated in the sexual assault.
In Vancouver, trans activists pressured the city government to stop funding Canada’s oldest rape crisis shelter unless it allowed males to enter its premises. When Vancouver Rape Relief refused, its municipal funding was cut.
Unfortunately, to date most Canadian politicians would sooner expose women to a loss of privacy and to an increased risk of being sexually assaulted, than to be labelled “transphobic.”
Provincial and federal human rights legislation should no longer be interpreted so as to create a right for adults to expose their male anatomy in women’s washrooms and change rooms. Nothing stops MPs and MPPs (MLAs, etc.) from amending current human rights laws to protect women and girls, if politicians wish to do so.
At the provincial level, politicians can protect women and girls by amending the laws that govern cities and towns, to provide women and girls with female-only change-rooms at swimming pools and other public facilities, making it clear that biological men are prohibited from entering these safe spaces. For example, a new “Safe Spaces for Women and Girls” section can be added to local government legislation to indicate that “an adult with male genitals may not enter or use a bathroom or a changeroom at a public facility that is designated for women.”
Any politician who stands up for women and girls to have safe, female-only changerooms and shelters will be immediately and loudly denounced as “transphobic” and likely also as “hateful,” “bigoted,” “intolerant,” “ignorant” and even “anti-science.” It’s understandable for people to want to avoid being subjected to this unfair name-calling. But those who love and value truth and justice cannot allow themselves to be governed by insult-avoidance as the highest priority.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B. is President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
