Victoria city councillors voted unanimously Thursday to make city facilities more welcoming to transgender, gender non-binary and two-spirit people.
“People who are transgender face disproportionate levels of violence and discrimination — that’s a fact,” Coun. Jeremy Loveday said in an interview last week.
“It’s time for the city to develop specific policies to ensure the safety and inclusion of people of all gender identities and gender expressions.”
Loveday and Coun. Marianne Alto put forward a resolution to commit the city to making civic facilities safe, inclusive and equitable for people of all genders, gender identities and gender expressions.
Staff will report back with a plan to identify and change policies to make that happen, and to engage with transgender, gender non-binary and two-spirit communities as changes are made.
Loveday and Alto suggested the policy could affect signs, washrooms, change rooms, staff policies and forms, records and other data collection.
Loveday said he couldn’t think of any examples of current city literature or programs that are discriminatory.
But the policy proposal is based on best practices from cities and organizations elsewhere.
“We are not blazing a trail here. We are behind,” Loveday said. “In some ways, that makes creating a policy like this easier because we can learn from mistakes and best practices of others.”
Loveday said he didn’t want to presume what any of the city’s actions might look like. But he suggested all new facilities might have gender-inclusive washrooms and older facilities might be upgraded.
Councillors in June endorsed a policy of transgender human rights protection that called for development of a gender inclusion policy.
Victoria councillors committed this year to building universal-access change rooms at Crystal Pool. The cost was twice an original estimate, but city staff recommended the work, noting demand for such a change room is high.
Alto and Loveday also noted that the city is a signatory to the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination as well as the Vienna Declaration.
In June, the federal government adopted Bill C-16, which added protection of gender identity and expression in the Canadian Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code.
The federal changes will also prohibit discrimination against transgender and gender non-binary individuals and includes them in protections against hate speech and hate crimes.
— With a file from Richard Watts
