language

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 22, 2018

Service Canada moves away from calling Canadians Mr., Mrs., or Ms.

Service Canada employees who interact with the public are being asked to stay away from terms like Mr., Mrs., father and mother, and to use gender-neutral terms in their place, CBC News has learned.

According to documents obtained by Radio Canada, the French-language arm of CBC, front-line staff must now “use gender-neutral language or gender-inclusive language.”

“This avoids portraying a perceived bias toward a particular sex or gender,” says a copy of speaking notes prepared for managers and team leaders.

“It is important that Service Canada, as an organization, reflects Canada’s diverse population and ensures that the views and interests of Canadians are taken into account when we develop policies, programs, services and initiatives,” says the directive.

The new guidelines also rule out using terms such as mother and father because they are “gender specific” and say the neutral word “parent” should be used instead.

The same goes for honorifics such as Mr., Mrs., and Ms., and in both languages. Instead, employees are being directed to address customers by their full names or ask them what they want to be called.

Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, whose department oversees Service Canada, took to Twitter Wednesday to clarify that agents can still call people Mr. or Ms. if that’s what the caller prefers.

“We are only confirming how people want to be addressed as a matter of respect,” he said. (Source: CBC News) 

---

Letter to the Editor (Hamilton Spectator – March 28, 2018)

Editorial cartoon was tone-deaf

I can’t begin to imagine what led not only Graeme MacKay, but a team of editors, to think the Service Canada this cartoon was anything other than ignorant, transphobic and hugely problematic.

I had to read it twice because I thought I was missing something. I hoped there was no way it could be as tone-deaf as it seemed at first reading.

Since Service Canada announced its new gender-neutral directive, I’ve read and heard a lot of opinions (wholly from people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) about how “ridiculous” they find the directive to ask Canadians if they identify as Mr./Mrs. or mother/father (by extension, male/female/non-binary).

Here’s the thing — this isn’t a measure taken in service of people who have no problem being referred to by the gender they appear to have been assigned at birth. This is a measure being taken in service of transgender and non-binary Canadians, many of whom have likely long felt uncomfortable being referred to incorrectly, and many of whom may have been too nervous or exhausted to explain (judging from the landslide of negative reactions in recent days, including the Spec’s own editorial comic, it’s easy to understand that anxiety).

I’ll never be able to get my head around people who want to oppose others’ rights to safety, inclusion and non-discrimination. Unless the Spec can speak to (and meaningfully apologize for) its decision to run this cartoon, that includes this paper.

Amy Kenny, Hamilton

---

Letter to the Editor (Hamilton Spectator – March 28, 2018)

Cartoon played to transphobia

I’m disappointed by this editorial cartoon, which relies on and reproduces transphobia. I’m gender non-binary and I assure you that, while I can be hilarious, being gender nonconforming is not, in itself, hilarious. The federal government has a strong role in shaping society, and its recent moves toward gender inclusive language, however small, are part of making Canada actually safer for people whose gender identities, like mine, don’t line up with the bodies they were born into. This cartoon is insulting and cheap, and doesn’t pass as humour for me.

Mx. Carla Borstad Klassen (they/them pronouns)

---

Commentary (Hamilton Spectator – March 26, 2018)

Tone-deaf cartoon made a mockery of LGBTQI2S+ community struggles

I finally had a chance to read my Spectator last Thursday on my bus ride home after a very long day at work. A day that had me listening on my headphones while working on my computer to fellow LGBTQI2S+ activists via Facebook Live. They held a news conference at The 519 Community Centre in the heart of Toronto’s Queer Village and demanded a public inquiry into the Toronto Police Service’s investigation of a serial killer who had targeted gay men.

They protested outside of Toronto Police headquarters and demanded the resignation of Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders for his mishandling of the investigation and victim blaming of the LGBTQI2S+ community. The message was clear, the lives of these murdered and missing gay men were not valued and hence the investigation into their deaths was not taken seriously until far too late.

On this same day I experienced a tone deaf, dismissive and damaging editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay making a mockery of those in the LGBTQI2S+ Community who self-identify as transgender, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, or non-binary. In the cartoon an individual who presents as female is asked by a clerk at a Service Canada desk how they would like to be addressed. The individual gives a glib and flippant answer ending with “In Ms. Chatsworth’s Gifted Class I went by Phil.” (Continued)

SaveSave