we have a very quiet battle going on here in Edmonton as I have been informed.
Quiet because the organization trying to deal with it and find a solution is one of the biggest LGBTQ supporters in the city, which is the YMCA. You all would know the name via the
Village People song YMCA, which has been a gay (LGBTQ) friendly gym/organization long before it was trendy to be so.
We have a trans M/F who is not transitioning or taking hormones and identifies as a lesbian, and dresses female (if that is ok to say, lol) who insists on using the female change room which almost always includes mothers and daughters. So they are just 'declared' trans but are taking no other steps.
How much of this next part is true or just rhetoric or demonization to try and get them driven out, i do not know but the reports are that while they do not walk around naked they do get naked in front of their locker when changing. And more, that some other people have cited instances of this person showing signs of physical arousal while walking around the changeroom with only a towel wrapped around them which is countered with the argument 'so what, all lesbians get aroused, and because my body parts show it differently I should not be condemned'.
I've been told solutions such as a voluntary 'all gender change room' have been proposed which anyone can voluntarily use have been rejected if they make it mandatory for a trans person to use it. Meaning 'fine, create that option but if i want to use the other ones I shall not be prohibited'.
I've also been told what they seem to be moving to is a 'family only (parents with kids)' change room which won't make instances like this impossible but will make it much more difficult but that just gives one group (parents with kids) a safe space. It does nothing for the rest of the women, and it is actually lesbian women who are fighting this the most. It is lesbian women who seem to be the focus of most trans M/F ire as they want to force lesbian women to accept and f*ck them, despite the male equipment, and are outing them as phobic and discriminatory for not doing so.
Lesbian women, by far, are the group most challenged by this as they have had so few safe spaces they have been able to carve out historically and trans M/F want into those spaces the most.
You have Vancouver cases being fought by trans M/F activists who demands access to the battered women's shelters and feels if is discrimination by the women in those facilities who do not want to be left alone with them.
City shelters are being stripped of gov't funding in an 'allow them in... or else' mandate.
Canada's oldest rape crisis centre stripped of city funding for refusing to accept trans women
