The Wall Of Shame

Michael Coren is a columnist for the Toronto Sun and a TV talkshow host. In an article to the Toronto Sun, Michael wrote:

Some fundamental points. There is no such thing as a transsexual. There is no such thing as a man in a women s body or a woman in a man s body. There are, however, some very sick people whose deep mental illness deserves our compassion and care. Any man who wants to have his genitals surgically removed and some grotesque imitation of a female organ put in its place requires years of therapy and medication. Or, frankly, needs to put in hard weeks work fifty times a year so that he stops concocting neurotic nightmares and gets with leading a meaningful life.

[...]

The handful of men and women I have met who are convinced that they were in the wrong bodies have been profoundly messed up and have had a legion of painful issues with which to deal.

The complete article can be found here.

Randy Taylor is an on-air host for CFRB 1010. Taylor appears on this page of shame because of his on-air comments regarding a child custody case involving a transsexual woman. The court ruled that "the applicant's transsexuality, in itself, without further evidence, would not constitute a material change in circumstances, nor would it be considered a negative factor in custody determination." According to an article by Renee King:

CFRB's Randy Taylor opened his on-air discussion of the issue by giving a brief summary of the aforementioned article and continued on to express his disgust with Justice Wolder's ruling, questioning the justice of a transsexual woman being granted any child custodial rights whatsoever. Ironically, Taylor supported his argument by lamenting the large number of fathers who fall through the cracks of the Ontario Family Court System and lose custody of their children.

Although Leslie has legally changed her name and lives her life as a woman, Mr. Taylor repeatedly mentioned her birth name when making reference to her and referred to her as "nothing more than a man in a dress." After discovering that the show was in process, Leslie called in to confront Mr. Taylor and subsequently became the victim of a vicious verbal attack. The host accused Leslie of having psychiatric problems and said that she would have a negative and adverse affect on the well being of her daughter.

A complaint was made to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), but the CRTC cleared CFRB of wrongdoing.

Marcel Beaubien is a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for (my birthplace) Lambton-Kent-Middlesex for the 37th Parliament and was the member for Lambton in the 36th Parliament. He is a member of the Progressive Conservative (PC) party. He appears on this Wall of Shame because, according to Transsexual Menace Toronto:

On October 02 1998, the Ontario Ministry of Health, headed by The Honorable Elizabeth Witmer of the Conservative Party of Ontario, announced that Male to Female Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) would no longer be in the schedule of benefits under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (in the province of Ontario, Canada). For the past year, OHIP has stalled, without explanation, the payment of benefits for patients approved by the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry’s Gender Identity Clinic.

The most confusing part of this lack of response was that they were still funding, without hesitation, Female to Male surgeries.

This outrageous decision was spear-headed by two Conservative backbenchers Marcel Beaubien and Frank Sheehan who, for a number of years, have being lobbying to end funding of what they called a " Life Style " Operation.

Frank Sheehan was a Member of Provincial Parliament for Lincoln in the 36th Parliament. He was appointed by former Ontario Premier Mike Harris to head the Red Tape Commission. He appears on this Wall of Shame because, according to Transsexual Menace Toronto:

On October 02 1998, the Ontario Ministry of Health, headed by The Honorable Elizabeth Witmer of the Conservative Party of Ontario, announced that Male to Female Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) would no longer be in the schedule of benefits under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (in the province of Ontario, Canada). For the past year, OHIP has stalled, without explanation, the payment of benefits for patients approved by the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry’s Gender Identity Clinic.

The most confusing part of this lack of response was that they were still funding, without hesitation, Female to Male surgeries.

This outrageous decision was spear-headed by two Conservative backbenchers Marcel Beaubien and Frank Sheehan who, for a number of years, have being lobbying to end funding of what they called a " Life Style " Operation.

Michele Landsberg a columnist for the Toronto Star; unlike many of the other people on this Wall of Shame, Landsberg is a left-wing, feminist columnist, whose writings I usually agree with. She appears on this list because of her column about Kimberley Nixon's court case involving the Vancouver Rape Relief, in which she wrote:

What makes a woman? If a man cuts off his penis, pumps himself full of hormones, gets silicone breasts and electrolysis, and stuffs his feet into high heels, is he/she a woman?

To me, that surgically and chemically altered person is a walking testament to the craziness of our cultural rigidity. If all children weren't crammed into pink or blue categories, with prescribed sets of feelings, beliefs and behaviours, maybe the gender-ambiguous wouldn't be driven to such painfully harsh medical extremes. Would that everyone could live freely, in freely chosen sexual modes, without mutilations and lifelong chemicals.

Being female is a complicated mixture of physiology, cultural conditioning and lived experience - or even, as one academic thesis would have it, "a political category created through oppression.'' Out of politeness, I'd be willing to call that surgically altered person a woman and use the feminine pronoun. But a part of me will always feel outraged that "woman'' could be defined as an outward set of physical characteristics - lack of penis, fake breasts - along with an ultra-sexist "female impersonator'' style of clothing and gesture.

Christina Cherneskey is a talk radio host for CFRB 1010. She appears on this Wall of Shame because of her show talking about Michelle Dumaresq, the Transsexual Female cyclist who recently won the right to compete in the Canadian Women's Downhill Mountain Biking Team. In correspondence between CFRB and Renee King (relating to a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission complaint), her comments were characterized as "defamatory and serve to promote transphobia in society". She was quoted as saying:

I mean what happens now that this becomes a little bit more common place to some countries who are so hungry for medals in women's sports .... they actually have some of their male athletes undergo a sex change to become transsexuals in order to win?"