Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Alberta Transgender Rights Tipping Point?

The abolitionist Frederick Douglass once stated in 1892, "Find out what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them."

It looks as though the Conservative dominated provincial government is learning that they've gone past the level of injustice that Alberta's transgender community will tolerate.

Sometimes the 'I've had it' tipping point can be something small. Other times it's something so blatantly egregious you just can't stomach it anymore. You decide to fight and it leads to not only an end to the problem that led you to mobilize to fight the injustice in the first place, but empowers people through your example to fight for greater civil rights protections.

While some Albertans decry their rep within Canada as 'Little Texas' (and I feel their pain being a progressive from Texas) there are times when the idiots in my birth state and the province of Alberta go out of their way to justify and live up to every stereotype assigned to them.

The recent delisting of SRS funding from Alberta's provincial health plans has galvanized the Albertan and Canadian transgender community and their allies into coordinated action to reverse this odious ruling.

Could it be that we south of the border peeps are witnessing the dawn of a 'mad as hell' moment in Wild Rose Country that will lead to the Canadian transgender community organizing on a national level and getting more visibly active to codify, protect and expand their civil rights coverage?

That's up to our Canadian cousins to analyze the conditions in their homeland and decide if such an option is feasible and warranted, but I support whatever decision they make once this current battle is concluded.

No comments: