Chief "Human Rights" Commissar Barbara Hall Reaffirms Official Victim Group Pecking Order

In an update to an update about the letter to the Toronto Star's "ethics columnist" re an unfortunate encounter in a women's locker room between an elderly woman and someone claiming to be a pre-op transsexual, Christina Blizzard notes that Ontario's chief "human rights" commissar Barbara Hall, peace be upon her, has now weighed in--and dissed the letter-writer:

In a letter on the OHRC website, Hall slams the woman who complained, saying there is no documented case of a heterosexual man gaining access to a women’s changeroom by “posing as a transgender.” 

In such situations, “transgender persons are more at risk than anyone else of being harassed, abused, assaulted, or even killed,” Hall said. 

“For more than 15 years, transgender people in Ontario have had the legal right to use the washroom — or changeroom — according to their lived gender identity,” she said. 

Hall slams those who call for segregation of transgender people into separate bathrooms and changing spaces. 

“This is a practice based on fear and stereotypes, and is exactly opposite the vision of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, which is to build an Ontario based on inclusion, where everyone feels a part of and is able to contribute to the community.” 

Oh, please. 

“Fear and stereotypes” have nothing to do with it. 

Modesty and the expectation that you’re sharing a changeroom with a person of the same gender is more realistic. 

I am sure we’re all sympthetic to transgendered people, but it’s unrealistic for them to expect to be accepted by the mainstream of women in a changeroom if they still have male parts.

Oh, Christina, you're such a "transphobe." Don't you know there's a pecking order of victim groups in Ontario, and at the moment "trans" is flavor of the month while chicks-from-birth just don't cut it (so to speak)?

Update: Re Ms. Blizzard's common sense about "men's" and "women's" facilities, the OHRC considers it decidedly hidebound and passé. Here's the skinny from an OHRC brochure on the subject (of gender, not changerooms):

Gender identity is linked to a person’s sense of self, and the sense of being male or female. A person’s gender identity is different from their sexual orientation, which is also protected under the Code. People’s gender identity may be different from their birth-assigned sex, and may include:  

Transgender: People whose life experience includes existing in more than one gender. This may include people who identify as transsexual, and people who describe themselves as being on a “gender spectrum” or as living outside the categories of “man” or “woman.”  

Transsexual: People who were identified at birth as one sex, but who identify themselves differently. They may seek or undergo one or more medical treatments to align their bodies with their internally felt identity, such as hormone therapy, sex-reassignment surgery or other procedures.  

Intersex: People who are not easily classified as “male” or “female,” based on their physical characteristics at birth or after puberty. This word replaces the inappropriate term “hermaphrodite.”  

Crossdresser: A person who, for emotional and psychological well-being, dresses in clothing usually associated with the “opposite” sex.  

Trans: An umbrella term used to describe individuals who, to varying degrees, do not conform to what society usually defines as a man or a woman.  

Gender expression refers to the external attributes, behaviour, appearance, dress, etc. by which people express themselves and through which others perceive that person’s gender. 

Good to know. The problem, of course, is that when some victim groups are more equal than other victim groups--and more equal than other ordinary folks who fail to make the victim grade--society as a whole is undermined, and common sense flies out the window.


Several VIPs--i.e. Ontario "human rights" commissars