Justice committee  Again, I'm not much use on legal issues, but I can tell you a little bit. While I was in the process of transitioning, I was taking an extra professional degree, and the bathroom issue was a big issue. Classes were three hours long. I can't last that long; I'm old. There weren'

Justice committee  That's a great term.

Justice committee  Yes. It's more.... I can't speak to the legal stuff. I just don't know it.

Justice committee  I'm certainly hoping that this legislation will lead rather directly to a complete change in the regulations for how people like me can have a passport that accurately represents their gender identity.

Justice committee  The current regulations state that you can change the gender on your health card: done. You can change the gender on your driver's licence with a doctor's letter: done. Those are both provincial. At the federal level, you are not permitted to change your gender identity on any

Justice committee  Correct.

Justice committee  We are caught in this no-man's land—no-person's land.

Justice committee  To have identity documents that don't match is a real problem for us. It means we can go through the kind of experiences I went through. We can have all kinds of difficulties with the police. It's a constant source of anxiety and difficulty for us. It's really big.

Justice committee  Could I just put in a word here? I'm thinking of a number of clients recently who have come out at work and been very anxious about what was going to happen. They've taken the piece of paper from Ontario law around gender identity and gender expression and they've taken it in to

Justice committee  Certainly diagnoses have changed a great deal over the years. I think it was Sara who pointed out that you were in the DSM with a disorder as someone gay, lesbian, or bisexual until 1973. Certainly every time the DSM has gone through a new version, there have been very intense de

Justice committee  That's what I do for a living. Off time, that's what I do for a living, mostly to health care professionals but also in educational institutions, government bureaucracies, etc. So no, the process of education is under way. There's lots more to do. Thank you: it's very important.

Justice committee  Because the medical system works like this, in order to get treatment you must have a diagnosis. If you don't have a diagnosis, you can't get treatment. That's just how the system works. For example, the ICD is the international compendium of diseases, published by the World Hea

Justice committee  Housing is an enormous issue. In both of the research studies, we have extraordinarily high numbers of people who have difficulty accessing housing simply because they are visibly trans. For employment, ditto. Something like 78% of trans people experience discrimination specific

Justice committee  Correct.

Justice committee  Not a medical doctor, correct.