While a cliché, first columns of the year often are an opportunity to review the previous year and forecast the year to come.
2006 saw the defeat of Stephen Harper’s cynical motion to re-open the same-sex marriage debate. It would now appear equal marriage, as an issue, is behind us and we can all move on regardless of where we stand on the continuum,.
One of the key questions being asked by activists is what’s next? Some within the GBLTQ communities believe that with the legalization of same-sex marriage, coupled with past legal and legislative victories, the struggle for equality is over. It is not.
True, lesbians and gay men are now officially equal citizens with all other Canadians. However, legislation is only one aspect of equality; social equality is another breed of cat. Day-to-day reality is often quite different, and that is where the next battle lines will be drawn.
Most of the legislative advancements in recent years have centered on sexual orientation issues. Gender identity and expression issues have largely been left out of the equation. Issues affecting queer youth, while obtaining lip service, have never really received any sort of nationally coordinated attention.
In most provinces and territories of Canada, transsexual individuals seeking surgery are not covered by provincial or territorial health care, or are only covered for the actual genital reconstruction. Ironically, given that we are seen as the most reactionary province in Canada, Alberta has the most progressive health care for transsexual Albertans.
Medical coverage and concerns are not the only issues facing transfolk. Simple every day situations, such as popping into the loo while at a restaurant or out shopping, too often becomes an occasion for humiliation and confrontation by outraged patrons, staff, and management. Imagine having one of the most basic biological functions become a political football, with you as the ball….
The trans community, not surprisingly, is pushing for the same attention to be paid to trans issues as has been paid to gay and lesbian issues.
Homelessness is becoming a major issue not just at a municipal level but now at a federal level as well. One only needs to look to Alberta to see the glaring inequities. Alberta is a province basking in the glow of a booming economy, yet Calgary and Edmonton - along with other urban centres - are experiencing a major displacement of thousands of people because nobody is building affordable rental housing, and existing rents are out of control. The new cliché is that Alberta has lots of jobs but nowhere to house those seeking, or holding, those jobs.
Homelessness, I can assure you, is a devastating and emotionally draining situation to be in and is difficult enough for adults to deal with. Youths struggle even more, lacking many of the resources adults can access. Within that youth population, queer youth are a distinct sub-set.
While there are some services available to at risk and street-involved youth, there are less than a handful of shelters for them, and if you are identifiably gay, lesbian, bi, or trans, even these put you at risk.
The few studies that have been done on GLBTQ youth, indicate that they are at increased risk of violence and sexual assault in the very shelters that are designed to be safe havens. Compounding this is the fact that youth workers are too often unaware of GLBTQ resources or the issues faced by queer youth.
A year or so ago, an individual in Calgary was planning to open a GLBTQ youth safe house, with GLBTQ-affirmative staff. I have no idea what happened to that. I’m guessing Child Services collectively paled at the mere suggestion of a “gay safe house for street kids.” Official Alberta is not known for its progressive ideas when it comes to dealing with gay, lesbian, bi or trans community and issues.
One report I read several years ago talked about violence toward and sexual assault of queer youth in care. Several of those interviewed talked of being told they needed to ‘tone down’ or otherwise hide their sexual orientation (and, one assumes, their gender variance) as it was this “flaunting” that elicited negative reactions from the other clients. In at least one instance I can recall, an effeminate gay youth was removed from the shelter after being attacked and threatened. The perpetuators were not.
This is not an unfamiliar scenario for many of us within the GLBTQ community; we get attacked, harassed, and threatened and it is immediately assumed we did something to provoke it, that merely by being who we are, we somehow brought this on ourselves. While not as prevalent as it was years ago when the report was written (early 1990s), this blame-the-victim mentality is still too often applied to queers and trannies.
We have reached a point, culturally, where it is generally seen as inappropriate to blame a woman for being raped no matter how provocative her attire or how active her sexual history. So one has to wonder why it is still often seen as acceptable to blame a queer kid in care, or anywhere else for that matter, when some homophobic little shit decides it is just fine to beat the crap out of him or her for being a fag, lezzie or a trannie. Of course, the blame is often subtle but no less obvious for it.
One of the answers to this would seem to be to establish queer safe houses. It’s an idea I have long thought to be a positive one as it creates safety, affords an opportunity to expose youth at risk and street-involved to positive GLBTQ role models (staff and other caregivers), and help integrate such youth into the community.
However, one can just imagine the reaction of the religious Right to such an idea…we are indoctrinating youth, such houses are nothing more than recruitment centres (or worse!), and we would be reinforcing the “problem” (homosexuality and gender ‘confusion’) for impressionable youth.
Funding for such safe houses would likely be non-existent given the provincial government’s tendency to A) not support any GLBTQ initiatives and B) it’s concern over optics and how that translates into loss of votes from “severely normal” Albertans if the government were seen to “support” such an initiative.
Ted Morton would have a field day….
Stephen Lock is a long time gay activist in Alberta. He is also the Secretary and Regional Co-Director (Prairies/NWT/Nunavut) of Egale Canada, the national equality seeking organization for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans-identified people and our families. He is the producer and host of Speak Sebastian, a semi-monthly queer radio show broadcasting the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month at 9pm on CJSW FM 90.9, and a freelance writer. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Egale Canada, CJSW, or any other organization or publication unless specifically stated as such.
