Thank you, Chair, and I appreciate being able to be here today.
With regard to the issue of definitions, I think if you look at the Canadian Human Rights Act, you will find that most of the prohibited grounds of discrimination aren't defined in the act, and that's intentional. They're intended to be living definitions that look to common usage and to other jurisprudence. That's why there aren't per se definitions included in this private member's bill.
For the interest of Mr. Lee and others, there are a number of definitions of gender identity and gender expression. One that I use more often than not is that gender identity has been defined as an individual's self-conception as male or female or both or neither, as distinguished from one's birth-assigned sex. The Yogyakarta Principles, which is an international document, a United Nations document, that's well known in human rights circles, defines gender identity as referring to:
each person's deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms.
The definition I generally use for gender expression is that gender expression refers to how a person's gender identity is communicated to others through emphasizing, de-emphasizing, or changing behaviour, dress, speech and/or mannerisms.
