Inevitably in any discussion of gender identity and expression issues, the subject of washrooms and change rooms arises.

On the surface, this would appear somewhat facile, a bit beside the point. I mean, really, when we are talking about serious issues affecting the emotional, mental, and physical health of some individuals seeking surgical remedies to a mistake of nature - namely being born with the wrong body and having sex organs that are mismatched to their gender - to raise the spectre of people with penises in women’s washrooms and change rooms (or, alternatively, people with vaginas in men’s) is a total trivialization.

Let’s be clear; a male-to-female (M2F) transsexual for instance, who is still pre-operative (pre-op) and so appears female but still retains a penis and testicles, is not about to march into the women’s change room, disrobe, shower, and reveal her "secret" to all and sundry. As for using the women’s washroom, which washroom would critics suggest she use? The men’s because she is anatomically still "male"? It doesn’t take much to grasp the level of risk such an individual places herself in if she were to enter and attempt to use the men’s facilities.

The same applies to F2M transsexuals who have yet to have what is commonly referred to as "bottom surgery"...for all intents and purposes, they appear to be what society perceives as male except they lack the external genitalia of males. Phalloplasty is not as "successful" as the surgery to create a vagina and is often far more expensive as well, so many F2M transsexuals opt to forego having it until the technology is in place to create a believable penis and testicles.

When biological females have used the men’s room (usually because they really have to "go" and the line-up for the women’s is going to make them wait too long), they usually post a friend outside to ensure men don’t enter. Barring that, at the very least they are met with various levels of verbal reaction by any men that are present, but generally that’s it; a sort of "what the hell are you doing in here?" type thing, however the potential for something far more serious, such as an assault, is always possible. I would suggest the level of probability increases if it was realized the "invader" was, in fact, trans. Who would be willing to place themselves in such a predicament? Using the women’s facilities lessens this considerably as the likelihood of being assaulted, physically and certainly sexually, are almost nil. Generally speaking, and there are always exceptions. Women in our culture tend not to act out physically when feeling threatened or encroached upon, whereas some men generally do...or at least have a tendency to do so. That is not to say men are violent and women aren’t, that’s too simplistic a position. Nor is it to suggest men are these insecure, evil creatures who will lash out at anything foreign or misunderstood, and I certainly do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes by suggesting that, especially in an article dealing with definitions of gender!

Now, admittedly, my only exposure to this particular phenomenon has been at gay clubs where a woman, for whatever reason, decided to use the men’s room. While gay men generally tend to not get as hung up on gender roles as straight guys, this sort of situation is still often perceived as an invasion of sorts. By both genders, actually, as there are certainly instances of men using whichever washroom they please in our clubs, yet it only seems to become an issue when a lesbian decides to use "ours".

Of course, it shouldn’t matter who is taking care of business in the stall next to you. There is a certain amount of privacy available in North American and most European public washrooms with cubicles having high walls and doors that (usually) lock, unlike some public washrooms in, say, Asia that are open spaces with little more than a hole in the floor. However, the use of these facilities involves what is a very personal function and so there is a visceral reaction to any real or perceived violation of the space.

What it comes down to is if one is living as a member of the opposite sex, regardless of what the genitalia might be, one should be able to fully live as a member of that gender. This includes choosing the appropriate public washroom, and the "appropriate" one is the one designated for the gender one is living as. It seems fairly straightforward to me.

Charles McVety, President of Canada Christian College and a well-known Evangelical and anti-GLBTQ activist, hit the media last month claiming the Conservative government has "cut a deal" with the NDP in order to pass a bill that would protect individuals on the basis of gender identity and expression, adding those characteristics to the existing ones of ethnicity, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation and yes, sex/gender, amongst others.

Putting aside the unlikely scenario of Harper’s Conservatives cutting any sort of deal with their nemesis the NDP, McVety’s rationale for opposing the legislation is...well...bizarre.

"Any man could self-identify as a woman and enter any female-specific space such as a bathroom, change rooms, and even showers at the local pool," he claimed. "I have a 13-year old daughter," he added, "[and] I don’t want her going in and showering with a grown man at the local pool, regardless of the man’s inner feelings."

Let’s examine his assumptions and claims. "Any man could self-identify as a woman and enter any female-specific space" suggests, first off, there would be this huge increase in creepy guys itching to view naked females showering and would of course go the gender reassignment route to accomplish that, wouldn’t they?

"I don’t want [my daughter] showering with a grown man at the local pool... ." This immediately sets up the image of a big burly hairy man leering at the nubile girls as he showers next to them. Come on! That is not the situation at all nor would it be. If a transsexual woman was showering at the local pool or gym, trust me, she’d be post-operative and nobody would know she wasn’t born with female genitalia. At best (or worst?), they might twig to "something" about her, but most people trust what they see and, what they would see is another woman with breasts and a vagina.

Gender politics and the whole idea of gender, especially in Western cultures, is complex. Transsexuality challenges that, it cuts right through our assumptions about what constitutes being male or female, it challenges the Western concept of gender duality (only two genders - male and female) in a world that doesn’t always fall so neatly into that paradigm. The complexity of it all cannot begin to be covered in a magazine column.

McVety typifies a reactionary response; a response that often occurs whenever rights are about to be extended to a particular group. Dire warnings of social upheaval, raising the spectre of rampaging members of the minority in question, imposing their twisted desires on the innocents of the majority. We saw it during the controversies surrounding equal marriage and we saw it during the civil rights and desegregation movement of the 1960’s.

Race reactionaries of the era were up in arms, sometimes literally, against allowing full access to public facilities (restaurants, lunch counters, schools, washrooms, etc.) by African-Americans, warning white women would be at risk if forced to share public space with "those people". Sitting at a lunch counter next to a black man would expose a white woman to untold indignities, they warned. Women and children (white women and children, of course) would be accosted in the street if blacks were allowed access to all schools, all coffee shops, all buses, and were able to - gasp - use the same washrooms as white folk. The arguments were ridiculous then in relation to race issues and they’re ridiculous now in relation to gender identity issues.

There is a rough history to having Bill C-389 come to Parliament. Transfolk have, over and over, been left out of the work behind bringing in legislation to protect on the basis of sexual orientation. Many saw the label ‘GLBT’ (gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans) as little more than lip-service, with all the effort focused on the GLB aspect and very little on the T.

It was a major issue within Egale Canada when I served as their Regional Co-director for the Prairies, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, with trans activists always in the position of pushing to be included in the work being done and in the legislation. There was a high level of frustration. I sat on the Trans Issues Committee of Egale Canada and I can attest to the often fractious, intense, even outright adversarial environment which existed at that time. Egale Canada was even, inaccurately and unfairly in my view, accused of transphobia for not doing enough for transfolk.

I believe the board of Egale Canada at the time was very concerned with trans rights and inclusion, but it seemed to me that no matter what it did, it wasn’t enough or good enough. That, of course, was a product of the frustration, isolation, sense of powerlessness, and anger that trans activists were feeling and we understood that. Certainly from their perspective, and I believe there was some truth to this, their support for "our" issues was constantly being sought and expected but somehow when it came time for settling the account, their issues were brushed aside. I don’t happen to think it was intentional but I do think, as one trans activist stated, there was a "hierarchy of rights" with gay, lesbian, and bi rights at the top and trans rights further down. It got so adversarial, we had good hardworking activists resign over the whole issue of language within Egale....they pushed for "transsexual", Egale continued to use "transgendered" and finally compromised by going with "trans-identified" in an attempt to include all and some felt that was a cop-out.

So, yes, gender politics and identity politics is a mine-field and more time is spent treading carefully than defusing the mines. The McVety’s of the world sit on the sidelines, lobbing hand grenades onto the field and sometimes they find their mark.

Bill Siskay, an NDP Member of Parliament has been, right from the start of his tenure as an MP after taking over from Svend Robinson, very pro-trans and has worked for many years to gain rights for transfolk. He has worked closely with Egale Canada on this, as well as various trans rights organizations. It is a complex minefield but Siskay appears to be able to speak to all factions and is certainly seen by many to be working on their behalf.

While the whole issue of gender identity and gender expression is complex and fraught with deep-rooted societal concepts about gender on the one hand, on the other it really is quite simple. A transsexual person, whether M2F or F2M, has gone to great and extraordinary lengths to be the gender they truly are, to undergo expensive and painful surgeries to align the physical body with the true gender. A pre-op transsexual, whether M2F or F2M, has to live constantly, day in and day out, with body parts that don’t belong.

Imagine being born with some appendage you shouldn’t have, some sort of growth; of course you’d seek a surgical solution to having it removed so that you could fully and freely participate in society. Now imagine if there was this whole cultural importance attached to that growth, that rather than the growth being the anomaly, your desire - your need - to correct it was seen as the anomaly. You are blocked at every turn, condemned, ridiculed, trivialized, painted as some sort of perverted opportunist freak by the McVety’s of the world, simply because you wish to appear as the person you are. It is inhumane and cruel.

As it stands now, every time an identifiably transsexual person tries to use a public washroom, he or she risks confrontation, harassment, even physical attack...and it has happened. With the legislation, such incidents will of course continue to happen, but at least the victim - and that would be the transsexual person for those still not getting this - would have some recourse under the law.