Thursday, June 06, 2013

Gwen Landolt Resurfaces ...

I have been somewhat surprised that we haven't heard more from Gwen Landolt during the debate on C-279.  Then she popped up with a bunch of comments on Lifesite...which really refers to a press release from Landolt's REAL Women Canada organization.

Frankly there isn't much new being said here.  The press release is fundamentally the usual set of deliberate misrepresentations that we've heard during the debate of C-389 and during the debate over C-279 as well. 

However, it does warrant taking a closer look just to see how Landolt and her bunch are twisting things:

“It’s all in how the word ‘gender identity’ is defined,” said Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of REAL Women of Canada, to LifeSiteNews.com.
The bill, put forward by NDP LGBTT Critic Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC), defines “gender identity” as an “individual’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth.”
Landolt explained that “gender identity” is a catch-all phrase that could be interpreted by activist courts to legitimize “any kind of sexual deviancy”.
“This could include pedophilia, if that’s their deeply felt experience of gender and if that’s their sexual preference.”
Landolt is, as one would expect, confusing sexual orientation with gender identity.  Whether she knows the difference or not is immaterial - she's lying.

Gender Identity is not Sexual Orientation.  Period.  End Of Statement.  The two intersect with each other in some interesting ways, but make no mistake - they are distinct.   The language of the bill is actually derived from the Yogyakarta Principles document which reads:

  1. 1)  sexual orientation is understood to refer to each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender.
  2. 2)  gender identity is understood to refer 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. 
 It doesn't take a genius to understand the distinction that is drawn between these two points.

So, turning back to Landolt's idiotic twisting of things, and we find her concluding that C-279 could be used to "legitimize" pedophilia.  Absolute nonsense.  This is nothing more than a transparent attempt at fear mongering on the part of REAL Women.

The press release goes on to discuss the Australian law's definition:

The phrase sex and or gender identity is used … as a broad term to refer to diverse sex and or gender identities and expressions.  It includes being transgender, trans, transsexual and intersex.  It also includes being androgynous, agender, a cross dresser, a drag queen, gender fluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, a third gender, and a third sex
The list that the Australians have used are predominantly gender identities.  The only one I question is the Pansexual, which according to wikipedia is more of an extremely broad sexual orientation.  That said, I can see how someone who is pansexual could well have a very fluid notion of gender and its expression.

REAL Women's press release then goes on to say:
It would seem, therefore, that this bill may have been brought before Parliament for purposes other than promoting sound public policy. Rather it will be used to extend legal protection to other questionable sexual activities without having these matters exposed to Parliamentary debate.  That is, this is an attempt to deliberately by-pass Parliament, where these changes may not be acceptable.
Since when was sexuality something that should be subject to "parliamentary debate"?  In writing this one paragraph, they have told us a great deal about their objectives.  Groups like REAL Women are all about regulating sexuality and everything that they perceive as related to it.

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