Dear Editor: Re: New Westminster pastor behind anti-transgender rights posters.
The New West Pride Society would like to address Pastor Paul Dirks (New Westminster Community Church) and his campaign against adding gender identity and gender expression clauses to the Canadian Human Rights Act through Bill C-16. At best, his campaign is insensitive to the experience of trans persons. At worst, the campaign, and its associated website, convey thinly veiled fear mongering and transphobia.
While claiming to “value and respect all people,” Pastor Dirks does not believe it to be necessary to consider how denying Bill C-16 will affect the daily lives of trans persons and further marginalize their experience. For what reason would a man such as Pastor Dirks, purport to speak for women in arguing against Bill C-16? Women are quite capable of speaking for themselves, just as trans persons themselves carry the only moral weight in shaping policy which directly affects them.
Bill C-16 is important in that it adds gender expression and identity to the prohibited grounds for discrimination, would shore human rights for trans persons, and allow for crimes against trans people to be tracked. The language of the bill does not attack the definition of woman nor women’s rights. Advancing the rights and protections of trans persons does not diminish the rights and protections of any other Canadian citizen. The proposed bill is neither anti-women, nor anti-family as his campaign website would suggest.
Further, passing Bill C-16 would bring federal legislation in line with Bill 27, B.C.’s Human Rights Code Amendment Act (enacted July 25, 2016), which included “gender identity or expression” among the protected grounds covered by our provincial Human Rights Code.
The New West Pride Society believes we can assist Pastor Dirks with information and education about what it means to be trans, and what it means to deny a community – our very neighbours – the same rights most of us take for granted.
We welcome the opportunity to have a conversation about his campaign.
Kurt Knoblick, New Westminster Pride Society
