Why am I Blocked by BC Federation of Labour?
also who is Sussanne Skidmore and why do I need to care about her?
I had no idea nor did I care about a person named Sussanne Skidmore. I had no interest in the BC Federation of Labour. Then I discovered inadvertently that both had blocked me on Twitter, unprovoked. I have no recollection of interacting with either account. I remembered Glen Hansman and the BCTF had blocked myself and about 100 other women on Twitter in 2019, apparently having used a blocklist. I hadn’t interacted with the BC Teacher’s Federation at the time or ever, to my recollection. I had only dared to fight for #SexNotGender. Feminism: rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. How dare we fight for women’s rights? How dare we fight for anything that excludes men from our spaces? Yes, how dare we fight for our right as Persons Under the Law1? How dare we fight for our rights under the Charter and the Humans Rights laws in Canada2? We have a lot of nerve, don’t we?
So, who is Sussanne Skidmore, anyhow?
In 2022 Sussanne became the president of the BC Federation of Labour, the central organisation for labour in BC and a provincial affiliate of the the Canadian Labour Congress, Canada’s central labour body to which most unions belong. Prior to that she held the treasurer-secretary post from 2018. Sussanne happens to hold the treasurer position for the federal NDP party. Sussanne is the first out and queer president of the BC Federation of Labour.
A few days ago Sussanne made a Facebook post about Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe’s announcement that he would invoke Notwithstanding for his parental inclusion policy. “Sask. premier ready to use notwithstanding clause to protect new school pronoun and name rule: Clause would allow provincial government to pass laws that override certain Charter rights for up to 5 years” reads the lede. Says Sussanne:
This is shameful! The level of hate in our country is not acceptable! We need people to stand up and fight back against this hate!
There are rallies happening all over the country spewing hatred and transphobia. We need these rallies to be met by people who believe in human rights! We need you to show up even if you don’t think this impacts you it does!
Find out what’s happening in your community and find a way to show support for the queer communities across our county
Please do not stand idly by!
Comments under her post expressed extreme positions and unfounded irrational fears. Much of my family died in the Holocaust of Roma in Hungary. I know what this all leads to, reads one comment. Already, people are turning their backs on us, reads another. Admitting they know it's non compliant with human rights legislation, reads a third comment.
The BC Federation of Labour took a position in opposition to the peaceful parent protests organised for September 20, 2023 called NO SPACE FOR HATE. Yes, Sussanne Skidmore, parents hate their kids that is why they are fighting in the street for their right to go through puberty and grow up healthy! Sarcasm alert. Wow, are you okay, Sussanne? Do you want your kid to grow up? Is it just everyone else’s kid whom you want to stop from growing up healthy and well adjusted? Puberty Blockers are not harmless and reversible!
Sussanne posted an excerpt of the Federation’s statement on her Facebook page.
It is outrageous that these organizations use the well-being of children as a pretext for hate. They are notoriously silent when it comes to the real needs of children, including decent, affordable childcare; a well-funded public education system; living wages and higher income and disability assistance rates for parents; affordable housing for families; and action to ensure a livable world for future generations. And they show no concern for the mental health of the trans kids and teenagers harmed by their hateful portrayal of trans people.
NO SPACE FOR HATE, says the headline. While the organizations’ rhetoric invokes a range of alt-right conspiracies and talking points, the events in BC specifically target our SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity)-inclusive education, the BC Federation of Labour states. The statement makes no attempt to address the concerns, aka range of alt-right conspiracies and talking points, expressed by parents and all parties critical of the SOGI curriculum, instead preys upon emotions by using emotionally loaded language to drive fear and shame and stoke outrage.
NO SPACE FOR HATE, scold the public sector union federations across Canada. What hate? We hear progressive lobbyists and influencers bandy about that word a lot to describe anything or they find disagreeable. The far left does not mean criminal hate, the threshold for which remains quite high in Canada. When the far left uses the word hate, it does so to silence discussion, to shut down debate on vital issues. Authoritarianism remains the easiest way to coerce others to submit to the illiberal will of the far left.
NO SPACE FOR HATE means NO ROOM FOR DEBATE. It means NO TALKING BACK. It means SHUT UP UNTIL WE SAY YOU CAN SPEAK. NO SPACE FOR HATE equals the far left’s version of blasphemy rules for society. Just like in Iran, the regime state owns your child, you do not, and the regime can and will take your child from you any time it sees fit. The regime will kill your child if it decides that is necessary. The Supreme Leader decides and no one questions. That is where NO SPACE FOR HATE leads any nation — to torture and death for dissidents. In Canada we call dissidents hate groups or the far right.
What is Hate?
So, what does the far left mean when they use that word hate?
According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), hate is not a dislike of a person or a thing. It is the dehumanization or discrimination against specific groups on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and disability … white nationalist organizing can manifest without publicly mentioning race or religion, often using coded messaging to launder or disguise the true intention. CAHN expresses extreme and libellous claims about ordinary organizations, such as CAWSBAR, a feminist organization that promotes sex-based rights for women, attack[ing] the transgender community. According to the CAHN CAWSBAR meets the definition of hate group because it promotes sex-based rights. Sex-based rights exclude males who have a feminine gender expression from female spaces and therefore they equal hatred, according to the far left.
Pride Safety Toolkit, a publication written by Egale claims there is “technically” no such thing as a hate crime in Canada (see Hate Speech in Canada). Egale then goes on to cite examples of hate crime … acts intentionally target individuals or property based on the offender’s hate towards the “identifiable group” [which is] … race, nationality or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression. Egale then invents a “non-criminal hate act” called a hate incident. A hate incident is a non-criminal action or behaviour that is motivated by hate against an identifiable group. Examples of hate incidents include using racial, homophobic, transphobic or other discriminatory slurs, or insulting a person because of their ethnic or religious dress or how they identify. A hate incident sounds a bit like when you are a kid and you give your parents lip or back-talk by asking a question and they accuse you of impertinence. A hate incident sounds a bit like when someone challenges a progressive intellectually in a way that feels uncomfortable. A hate incidents sounds like unwelcome disagreement as opposed to an expression of the desire to harm.
No person shall be convicted of a hate offence for statements that are true, are relevant to public interest, express a religion argument or opinion, according to Sec. 319(3), Criminal Code (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46) on Criminal Hatred in Canada.
The BC Federation of Labour promotes material that encourages counterprotestors to engage in terrorism by using high decibel sound to harm protesters. We saw this strategy employed against Caryma Sa’ad this summer during her coverage of Pride Month protests and counter protests — “Pride Defenders” deliberately used whistles to intimidate and silence those whose message they did not like. Seeking to harm others for a political motive describes terrorism. What’s “Pride Defender”, you ask. The CAHN is glad you asked, they have the answer— yet another concept they invented. The CAHN Guide for Defenders says the following.
Pride Defence is the act of going to any Pride event to protect the 2SLGBTQ+community from far-right activists who show up.
Pride Defenders are the brave people who show up to counter the far-right, using many different tactics. Some have used spectacle and created a party-like atmosphere with dancing and music to keep the far-right out, while others have blocked them from accessing events using their bodies. (page 3)
Use loud music and whistles to disrupt the hate protestors’ verbal harassment. Bring and distribute earplugs to protect your hearing. (page 7)
Pride Defence describes a strategy of physical harassment and terrorising to subvert any cluster of peaceful protesters whose cause does not align with the principles of queer activism and therefore receives the label hate group. It involves physical intimidate and even attacks with high decibel sounds that register in the hearing loss range. Trans bodies and lives are on the line, and it’s up to all of us to take a stand, urges the BC Federation of Labour in its statement Standing up against anti-trans hate on September 20, and always, which referred to the rising concern over gender extremism via SOGI sex education in public schools and in paediatric care generally as a surge of anti-trans hate speech and actions across the country — ranging from regressive and harmful provincial education policy to resolutions passed at this month’s federal Conservative convention.
What does Sussanne Skidmore and the BC Federation of Labour call “regressive and harmful policy”?
Parental inclusion in the public school’s decisions to socially transition children.
Honouring the constitutional sex-based rights of women, including a return to sex-segregated sports and prisons and shelters.
Banning puberty suppression for children with no licensed clinical indication for GnRHa.
According to the Olson study on transgender youth, 94% of all children and youth who choose to socially transition end up chemically castrated and cross hormone sterilised. Social transitioning proves to be a powerful therapeutic treatment that sets a child on a path to a sex change, not a harmless affirming act that makes a child feel good about themselves.
It looks like Sussanne Skidmore is a queer activist who uses her position as leader of the largest public sector union conglomerate in British Columbia to promote an agenda of extreme GenderWang. After Skidmore became president of the BCFed, the Federation passed several motions at their Convention to announce THE FEDERATION WILL also … replace “women” with “Two Spirit, women, trans or gender diverse. Sussanne Skidmore just made women a subset in our own category. How progressive!
You can equip yourself for the illiberal authoritarian Sussanne Skidmores of this world by learning the arguments in favour of sex as opposed to gender and by learning the arguments in favour of banning puberty suppression in minors. See our recent Letter to the CMA below.
I recently launched a letter writing project at Missing From Me, my parenting advocacy and research non-profit. Letters For Puberty will engage professional associations and other important stakeholder organisations in order to raise awareness about the concerns parents, and many practitioners + allied professionals also, have regarding Gender Affirming Care, particularly the discussion trans activists have gone to extreme and illiberal lengths to suppress.
We oppos[e] the application of reasonable limits on paediatric social transitioning in schools thwarts parental inclusion, and strains rather than promotes the natural and necessary child-parent attachment. It creates conditions that increase the child’s risk of exposure to harm. Allowing schools to transition children in secret from parents places confused children at risk, the letter goes on to describe the story of Sage, whose secret transition sent her into the hands of traffickers.
The CMA Letter mentions Yaeli, a girl whom the state removed from her mother’s care, when the mother refused to affirm the identity. Removal from her mother sent Yaeli down a horrific path that ended with her suicide. Testosterone increases aggression and it can precipitate a violent episode and increase the risk of psychosis in young people with emotional instability. GnRHa can also have this effect and in fact AbbVie was ordered to add that warning to the product label.
You can read the full text of the letter below and you can download a PDF version of the letterhead version above. In the near future I will make available a boilerplate letter for the interested members of the public to send to their political representatives.
From the Senate of Canada website: Women had been allowed to run in federal elections beginning in 1921. Agnes Macphail, the Progressive candidate in Grey South East, a riding centred around Guelph, Ont., became Canada’s first female Member of Parliament.
But the government resisted pressure to appoint women to the Senate, arguing the British North America Act (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867 ) didn’t recognize women as “qualified persons” — the act used the word “persons” in the plural sense but when it referred to an individual person, it used the word “he.”
The prevailing attitude: men were the only “qualified persons” who could be appointed to the Senate.
Murphy was outraged. She had been subject to sexism since 1916. On her first day on the bench, a lawyer challenged one of her rulings. As a woman, Murphy wasn’t a “person,” so how could she be expected to be taken seriously as a judge? It was a recurring argument she heard throughout her legal career.
In 1927, Murphy and four other women leaders in Alberta (Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby) asked the Supreme Court of Canada whether the British North America Act’s (BNA) section 24 included women in its definition of “persons.” Five weeks later, the Supreme Court reached a verdict in Edwards v Canada, the official name of the case. Its conclusion? Under Canadian law, women were not “persons.”
The Famous Five (Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby) were undaunted. They took their case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England, which was then the last avenue of appeal. On October 18, 1929, it overruled Canada’s Supreme Court, clearing the way for women to serve on public bodies, including the Senate. October 18 has come to be known as Persons Day.
Both the Charter and the Humans Rights Acts (federal and provincial) include “sex” as a protected characteristic