What I would add, just to put a personal face to it, is when I was fleet commander in 2011 there was an individual in one of our ships. He was going through a gender reassignment to she. The deputy referred to configuration inside the ship; we're talking about living quarters. How did we approach that? We approached that by speaking to each of the individuals who was also sharing the mess deck as she moved into the female mess deck. How do you feel about that? We talked about where you would want to use what shower facilities. We particularized and personalized so that people understood. We asked the individuals to please speak to your spouses. Make sure your spouses or partners understand how they feel about that. Have that dialogue at home. We had regular discussions.
I did not meet with the individual because there could be a bit of stress when a senior person comes and talks to you. We wanted to make sure that this person identified and had a person assisting them so they could understand and vocalize any concerns they might have.
I would wrap up by saying that we talk about the culture in the military and we talk about the traditions and the challenges of evolving it. In a five-year span everyone has been promoted once and posted twice. Your frame of reference completely changes and the ability to evolve the culture in the Canadian Armed Forces is fluid.