Congress Paper Abstract

Dis-Integrating Transgendered Women: Judicial Diminishment of Feminized Harm

UMNI KHAN, UNIVERSITY IF MICHIGAN

On December 19, 2003 the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that a women-only crisis centre for female victims of male violence, could exclude Kimberly Nixon as a volunteer on the basis of her transgenderism. This decision over-turned an earlier Tribunal decision that found that such exclusion of Ms. Nixon amounted to discrimination on the basis of sex and thus contravened sections 8 and 13 of the Human Rights Code, R.S.B.C., c. 210. In this paper, I will examine how the harm Ms. Nixon suffered is minimized and belittled by the court relying on arguments that have traditionally been used to obscure harm associated with women. Firstly, the harm Ms. Nixon suffers is constructed as a “private” harm that only became public because she “insisted” on making a human rights complaint. This “private” harm is deemed by the court to be less serious and less worthy of intervention by the courts than a “public” harm. Secondly, the dispute within women’s organizations regarding transgendered women is dismissed as an internal affair - read a family affair- and thus, the courts have no business intervening in these disputes. Finally, Ms. Nixon’s perception that her human dignity was compromised was constructed as being merely subjective but not “objectively” convincing. In other words, the harm is constructed as if it’s all in her head. Thus, discrimination against transgendered women is being justified by relying on a gender-biased understanding of harm that belittles the reality of all women.

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