Senator Plett against transgender rights bill

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This article was published 16/10/2014 (3478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local Conservative senator has been at the forefront of a vocal opposition to a transgender rights bill meant to give equal rights to the minority group.

Landmark native Don Plett, a former Conservative Party of Canada president, has used a disturbing example of a convicted sexual predator to argue why he cannot support the bill, which would enshrine “gender identity” in human rights law, as it is presently written.

Bill C-279 has wallowed in the Senate since last fall.

In response to the senator’s charges, the bill’s creator, NDP MP Randall Garrison, and other transgender right activists have accused Plett of hurtful remarks that demonstrate the type of prejudice trans people face, such as assault and bullying.

Plett, who has often been leading questioning on the bill at the Senate committee level, said Bill C-279 has “unintended consequences” he cannot support, like allowing pedophiles to self-identify as different gender.

He cited Christopher Hambrook, a Toronto man who posed as a transgender woman in 2012 to gain access to two women’s shelters and sexually assaulted women.

“(The bill) allows the Christopher Hambrooks of the world to take advantage of our legislation,” he said.

Plett said he supports elements of the bill.

“They should not be discriminated against when it comes to employment or housing, but I’m always hesitant when people say that they should be able to change the gender, or they’re not happy with the gender, and the term they use is ‘assigned at birth,’ which gives it the connotation that we all kind of lined up at the table and were all assigned a certain something,” he said. “We are all born, either male or female; it’s that simple. You need to accept that fact.”

Plett said he is currently unsure whether he will reject the bill, propose changes himself or support amendments suggested by someone else.

More on this story in the Oct. 16 edition of The Carillon.