Sask. human rights code could include gender identity

Miki Mappin had been waiting years for the phone call she received Tuesday from the Minister of Justice Gordon Wyant. He told Mappin the first official step had been taken in the legislature to include gender identity in the Saskatchewan human rights code.

“It’s hard to describe. It was a mixture of disbelief you know? What? Is this really happening? I’m getting a phone call from the minister saying, ‘We listened, we thought about it, and we decided to go ahead’,” Mappin said with a laugh.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have anyone at home to celebrate with.”

As the co-chair of the board of directors of Trans Sask Support Services, Mappin has been working on the front lines with the trans* community through awareness campaigns, petitions, and human rights complaints to have the change made for years.

Tuesday at the legislature, Wyant introduced the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code Amendment Act 2014 to “clarify that discrimination against transgender people is and has been against the law, as well as strengthen the rights of renters, regardless of sexual orientation.” For the first time gender identity will be a prohibited ground of discrimination, bringing Saskatchewan in line with other provinces and with Canadian human rights tribunals which have recognized gender identity for quite some time.

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“There have been a lot of different efforts actually by quite a few people over quite a few years. I wouldn’t even know when it started because there were efforts before I got involved,” Mappin explained.

She said that the momentum towards the change had been building with recent local and global cases coming to light. In Saskatoon the case of Rohit Singh, a transgender bride and FranForsberg, a mother of a transgender child made headlines. 

“We’ve been of course very lucky because it’s all been timely… we’ve had public figures coming out in the news around America,”Mappin said referencing Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox and the lead singer of popular band Against Me! Laura Jane Grace.

After Trans Sask Support Services submitted a petition to the provincial government and were turned down in the fall of 2013, Mappin said the environment began to change and interest from ministers and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (SHRC) grew.

“The seed had been sewn and the legislature was thinking about it,” Mappin said.

“The next big step we took was the organizing of the Time 4 Rights campaign… That merged with an effort we made in spring… to have Transgender Awareness week. In conjunction with that we did a whole series of activities.. that were basically aimed at raising public awareness about the issues.”

Among the issues that the trans* community faces are higher levels of unemployment , discrimination, homelessness, violence, and suicide. Mappin herself has faced many head-on in Saskatoon. In 2011 she was fired from her job when she began publicly living her true gender identity.

Subsequently, her case was dismissed from the SHRC she said because of a lack of legislation.

“Had the legislation been in place then, I wouldn’t have been fired at that time. There would have been a cautionary note from the legal team to the management saying ‘woah’,” Mappin said.

“That’s our hope that this legislation is going to send a clear message to employers, landlords, educators, health care providers. Its going to be so clear, there will be no ambiguity.”

Mappin doesn’t expect a sudden insurgence of cases to the SHRC if the Act passes instead she expects it to be preventative .

“What we hope is that the infractions become less and less because all of these people in a position of power are aware that society supports the fact that human rights protection should and has been extended explicitly to transgender people in the province,” she said.

“People will be more careful before getting into scenarios where they may be discriminating against somebody who is transgender.”

The work will not be over for Trans Sask Support Services and their advocacy arm Gender Equality Society of Saskatchewan. Mappin explained they still need to raise awareness about the vibrant trans* community and specifically about issues with attaining identification but changing the code is the right step forward.

“Once that is cleared up in the legislature I think it does make all those other battles a little bit easier. It’s clear that we have human rights, that we are recognized,” she said.

“If any of these other issues are seen to be infringing on our human rights then that’s a very powerful tool to have that legislation in place to help move along bureaucrats who are reluctant to move along on issues.”

The new Act would also repeal an exemption that allowed landlords to refuse a renter based on their sexual orientation. People will retain the ability to freely select their roommates or boarders. It will also raise the maximum damages the court can award from $10,000 to $20,000 and increase the maximum fines for those convicted of an offence to $10,000 for a first offence and $25,000 for each subsequent offence.

If the act passes it would take effect in spring 2015.

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