TPOCC Needs Your Story

Calling all transmen of color, TPOCC, the Trans People Of Color Coalition needs you.

If you have a compelling story to tell please contact my friend and colleague, Kylar Broadus as soon as possible.  He's working on several projects of human rights importance to the community and needs your story.   You may e-mail him at  kylar@transpoc.org 

I know the last time I posted about TPOCC happenings they had been engaged in conducting a series of town hall meetings to talk about the issues of importance to trans persons of color in those areas..

And while you are doing your part to help advance the case of trans human rights in our community (and I thank you for that) you can hit the TPOCC website or follow them on Twitter and check out what's going on as this organization continues to build the critical mass we need to become the representative organization for the issues of trans people of color.

Game Changing Trans Document Decision In Canada

The positive momentum for trans rights issues continues in Canada

In what is seen as a game changing decision, on April 11 the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal struck down a rule that required gender reassignment surgery in order to change the gender code on birth certificates.

The 95 page decision was the result of a challenge filed by a trans woman who complained she was discriminated against because she could not change her legal documents unless she had surgery.

The transwoman in question later had SRS in 2008.   

“She had an orchiectomy (the removal of the testicles), at least in part to satisfy the requirement to change the sex designation,” explains lawyer N. Nicole Nussbaum to Xtra.ca.

“They completely knocked that out,” Nussbaum says. “The tribunal doesn’t have the authority to strike down a law, but they can say the law is not enforceable.”

The tribunal found that the Vital Statistics Act requirement of “transsexual surgery” prior to changing the sex designation on a birth certificate discriminates against trans people, she says. The provincial government has been ordered to remove this stipulation.  

Birth certificates are also used as foundation documents to change other federal level documents such as passports in Canada   

As a result of the precedent setting decision, the province of Ontario has 180 days to revise the criteria for a sex designation change.  

In addition, the decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal could potentially precipitate changes to similar laws in other provinces and territories and strike a major legal blow against the rule that only allows gender code changes on Canadian passports after SRS surgery

Looks like our Canadian trans cousins in Ontario are celebrating a major win that hopefully will be replicated across the Great White North.