Whatever happened to the Status of Women?

When the Canadian government changed Status of Women to Women and Gender Equality in 2017, it erased women from the very departmental agency created for them. This was less than 50 years since the word “woman” first appeared in the name of a departmental agency.

The Office of the Coordinator, Status of Women, was created in 1971 within the Privy Council Office. It became a departmental agency of the federal government on April 1, 1976, when it became known as Status of Women Canada (SWC). This was a timely move — women were becoming more visible as they moved from the home into the universities and careers.

SWC was responsible for providing strategic policy advice, championing and mentoring, commemorating, and funding women’s programs. The goal was to increase their economic security and prosperity, end violence against women and girls, empower women for political and community action, and encourage women’s leadership and democratic participation.

During the last year of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, in the 2014 – 2015 Departmental Performance Report, Minister Patricia Hajdu summed up the raison d’être and responsibilities of SWC to advance equality for women in three priority areas:

• improving women’s economic security and prosperity;
• ending violence against women and girls; and
• supporting the advancement and increased representation of women and girls in leadership and decision-making roles

It doesn’t even provide a definition of women for the purposes of the report. Back in 2014-2015, everyone knew a woman was an adult human female. It wasn’t even a contentious issue.

Interestingly, this report states:

To raise awareness of the key milestones in the history of women, SWC promotes commemorative dates such as: International Women’s Day (March 8), Women’s History Month (October), the International Day of the Girl (Oct 11), Persons Day (October 18) and the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women (December 6).

Eight years later all of these days to commemorate women have come to be high jacked by the gender ideology cult’s worship of “transwomen” who are invited to speak to women as women. More on this later.

The raison d’être of Status of Women would change after the federal Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau won the election. Within six months of his appointment as Prime Minister, he pushed his Attorney General (Jodie Wilson-Raybould) to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (Bill C-16 (2017)) to include gender identity and gender expression. He led this legislative change, even though he never mentioned it during his campaign stops nor in his party’s election platform. Regardless, he ensured it was included as a part of the Minister of Justice’s mandate letter.

This legislative change had never been broadly discussed or debated by the Canadian population and it wasn’t until Dr. Jordan Peterson publicly spoke out against the legislation at a Senate hearing, that it was even discussed in any terms other than glowingly by the Canadian media or Canadians at large. No one really understood what was at stake, but Dr. Peterson, as well as a few other Canadians like Meghan Murphy, could see the consequences.

Those consequences arrived the following year, when the Liberal government changed SWC to Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) on December 13, 2018.

Now the WAGE mandate states:

In conjunction with this status change to the federal organization, the Government of Canada also updated the definition of the term “women.” It is now a subjective gender identity instead of a biological reality. The same is true for the term ‘men’.

Why weren’t Canadians asked about this changing definition? I do not believe most Canadians would be happy to know this has occurred — without any public input.

The language around adult human females (menstruator, chest feeder, birthing parent) is changing around the world, and within Canada, this change is being lead by the federal Liberal government and backed up by the NDP.

When creating policies and legislation around gender diverse Canadians, the federal government has chosen to use the terminology used by LGBTQ+ advocates and allies, and in doing so, erases the language around women and girls in order to “be kind” and “affirm” the gender identity of trans-identified people. No one is taking into consideration how this change in language is affecting women and girls.

Regardless of the impact to the sex-based rights of female Canadians, after implementing Bill C-16, the federal government developed the Modernizing the Government of Canada’s sex and gender information practices policy and are not turning back.

According to the Canadian federal government, “cis” gendered women need to identify as something they already are, because everyone has a gender identity, even if their gender aligns with their biology. They say it’s necessary for women to take the prefix “cis” to affirm trans identified people in the gender of their choice. Bill C-16 forces us to use pronouns and language we would not normally use, in order to affirm someone else’s personal identity choices. WAGE itself seems loathe to use the word “woman” to describe adult human females anywhere on their website, other than in a title (or in its own name).

In 2021 the 2SLGBTQQI+ Secretariat was moved from the Heritage Department to WAGE. The entire focus of WAGE appears to be on trans-identified Canadians, rendering the word “woman” in WAGE’s title meaningless.

Women and Violence Against Women

What is really concerning is how WAGE has turned sex-based violence into gender-based violence. While sex-based violence is obviously violence that is committed against a woman or girl because of her biological sex, Gender-based violence is defined as violence that is committed against someone based on their gender identity, gender expression or perceived gender.

Now that a woman is just a gender identity, the government can get away with using terminology like gender-based violence, when we all know the REALITY is that women are abused because of their SEX, not their gender.

The Government of Canada’s PDF on Sexual Violence: It’s not just “how things are” states that “sexual violence is a form of gender-based violence”, which is an obfuscation. Sexual violence is based on sex…it is right there in the title.

The following screenshots come from another WAGE webpage on Gender-Based Violence: It’s Not Just.

Please keep in mind that none of the statistics used in the following images is meaningful because the federal government includes men who identify as women in their statistics for women. Interestingly, all the images they use seem to be of biological females.

These graphics raise some questions. Why do the Liberals need to divide “women” into eight different groups of people affected by gender based violence?

Why do they have three separate categories for:

• LBG+ people and people of sexual orientations other than heterosexual;
• transgender or gender diverse people and
• Indigenous women, girls and Two Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex and Asexual Plus (2SLGBTQQIA+) people.

Why are Indigenous Women now looped in with the 2SLGBTQQIA+ people and no longer their own distinct category?

Let us take a moment to compare the sex-based violent crime statistics against female Canadians and the gender-based violent crimes against trans identified males (transwomen).

The Statistics Canada website lists the following statistics for homicides in Canada in 2021.

Total homicides: 788 (an increase of 29 homicides from 2020).

• Gang related victims: 184
• Indigenous victims: 190
• Racialized victims: 247 (49% Black, 19% South Asian)
• Women: 167

No statistics are provided for any LGBTQ+ homicides for 2021. This is very odd considering the most common refrain when asking politicians about the conflicting rights between trans-identified males (“transwomen”) and biological females, is that “transwomen” are victimized the most, which is why they need special laws and language. Yet, the government’s own statistics disprove that argument.

The following excerpt seems to be very clear:

But it is not. This page provides the following note to readers for clarity.

The following excerpt is from Some of the highlights from the Gender-based violence and unwanted sexual behaviour in Canada, 2018: Initial Findings from the Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces: (December 2019)

This entire page ONLY mentions women and men. No LGBTQ+ statistics are provided, which again illustrates that “transwomen” and “transmen” are not their own statistical category, but are listed under the gender they identify as.

Still, the government can make a claim (shown on the sexual violence infographic) that LBG+ people are almost 3x more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted. How can they know? Does the shortened acronym mean this figure relates only to the LGB? Also, most of these assaults are indicated on surveys, not in crime statistics, which clearly show that female Canadians are at a much higher risk of violence, than LGBTQ+ people are.

The 2020 State of the Criminal Justice System: Focus on Women written by the Department of Justice states (on pages 12 and 13) the following about how gender and sex statistics are gathered in the federal government:

And here are graphics showing rates of violence:

The Trudeau government’s own statistics show that males are violent towards females. Approximately 4.7 million women in Canada have been sexually assaulted since the age of 15. (That’s roughly one in eight). If biological females make up 50% of the 38.25 million Canadian population, that’s just over 19 million. In 2018, the Institut nationale de santé du Québec indicated that across Canada 33% of women reported being sexually assaulted. That’s 6,311,250 Canadian women!

Yet they are allowing males who identify as women, by SELF ID alone, with no medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria nor “bottom surgery” legally required, to have full unfettered access to female same sex spaces. Not only are men who self-identify as women allowed access to our bathrooms, change rooms, hospital wards, gyms, and rape crisis centres, but they have also been allowed to join sports teams, and receive women’s awards, grants and accolades.

The Minister’s Message in The 2020 State of the Criminal Justice System – Focus on Women pdf created by the Department of Justice Canada states:

This report is an important part of our efforts to report publicly on the performance of Canada’s criminal justice system. The special focus of this report is an example of how we are modernizing the use of data to inform decisions and to serve all Canadians.

This year’s report focuses on women’s perceptions of the criminal justice system, as well as their interactions with it as victims, survivors, accused and/or offenders. We know that women make up the overwhelming majority of victims of certain types of crimes and represent a growing proportion of the prison population. We also know that victimization plays an important role in many women’s experiences as offenders.

What does the Minister mean when he says “women?” What does the report mean when it indicates that “woman” is a “reference category”? Why is “man” not a reference category?

Females are currently being forced to share their living quarters with males who identify as women in federal and provincial jails and prisons across Canada, yet this government doesn’t care. In fact it was Justin Trudeau’s idea. Their modernized data is being used to obscure the many challenges faced by female Canadians. The best example of this is the following screenshot. We are just one identity of many, and the word woman is a mere reference category.

Under Annex II – Definitions (Page 65) they list the following:

Gender Dissent has already documented the “lived experiences” of incarcerated females who are forced into being housed with males who identify as women.

Men Invited to Appropriate Women’s Voices

In what seems to Canadian women like a final and surely gratuitous insult, men are now invited to speak on those days designated by the old SWC for remembrance and celebration of women.

Prime Minister Trudeau, whose government is well known for saying things like, “trans women are women” and “trans rights are human rights”, cannot even dedicate International Women’s Day (March 8) to females, as he likes to say that “everyone has the chance to reach their full potential, regardless of their gender identity, race, ethnicity or religion.” Every year on this day, he proves that women are just a gender identity to him. Well, most women. I am sure he recognizes his mother, wife and daughter as biological females, who most likely won’t have to share any of their same sex spaces with biological males due to his policies.

In fact, politicians from across Canada are hosting International Women’s Day Discussion Panels that include trans identified males, like Fae Johnstone, who Gender Dissent has written about previously. He is known for his run-ins with lesbians and women who don’t think he should be allowed to speak for women.

@JenniferAnne_s shared her interaction with Fae on Twitter after confronting him for speaking at an event meant to honour slain women, at Durham College on December 6, 2022.

October is Women’s History Month in Canada but the Women’s History Month page on the WAGE website last updated the Women In Canadian History: A timeline in 2019, even though 2022 was the 30 year anniversary of Women’s History Month. Does anyone remember hearing anything about the events celebrating this milestone?

After a google search looking for federal events commemorating the 30th anniversary of Women’s History Month, all I could find was the WAGE webpage (screenshot below) dedicated to this topic that contains very little information.

The opposite is true when it comes to the 2SLGBTQ+ community, although increasingly that just means “‘trans”, since lesbians and bisexual females are ignored. WAGE does not spare any expense to celebrate the host of transgender commemorations days. (November is Transgender Awareness Month, November 6 – Transgender Parent Day, November 8 – Intersex Day of Remembrance, November 13 – 19 – Transgender Awareness Week, November 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance).

With the help of important stakeholders such as BlackRock, and the various NDP and Liberal governments across Canada, especially the federal Liberal Party, this small fringe group has been elevated into primary stakeholder status. Now, according to our federal government the only important division between humans is “lgbtq+” and “cis”. As felicia rembrandt pointed out in a previous Gender Dissent article, “That means 99.7% of us are undifferentiated, without category or class, invisible and powerless.”

As @womankind posted on Twitter:

Imagine white people who identify as black people having more legal protections than black people.

Imagine able-bodied people who identify as disabled having more legal protections than disabled people.

Now imagine men who identify as women having more legal protections than women.

This week is International Women’s Day, and the theme this year is “Every Woman Counts” – non-controversial pablum that hides the reality that, in Canada, the only “women” who count are men masquerading in an assortment of queer identities.

This is a dangerous drug dished out by a department that now calls itself Women and Gender Equality and Youth (everywhere except in its title). We should take this as a signal that the department created to assist women to achieve full maturity as equal partners in public life is retooling itself to market regressive lies to the young.

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