The president of Transgender Studies at the University of Victoria is concerned with the assistance to the Forward Trans Forward conference this year, with expectations of a 40 percent drop in the numbers.
Aaron Devor says that possible American assistants are reluctant to cross the border, not because of what could happen when they enter Canada, but what could happen when they try to return to the United States.
He says that President Donald Trump’s US administration sent a chill through the trans community in January with an executive order that the federal government recognizes two sexes, men and women, who cannot change and are an “immutable biological classification” of conception.
Devor says that the Biennial Trans History Conference that begins on Thursday expected 500 attendees based on past events, but now only about 300 are expected.
“The difference, I almost completely attributed to Americans being afraid to leave their own country,” said Devor, who is the founder and host of the conferences.
While the president of the United States, Donald Trump, goes back traffic rights in the United States, some families seek to leave the country. Katie Nicholson de CBC talks to people trapped in the climate of fear, including parents who are considering claiming asylum in Canada.
Trump’s executive order says that all identification issued by the Government, including passports and visas, must “precisely reflect the sex of the holder.”
The United States Department of State has said that it will stop issuing travel documents with the “X” gender marker preferred by many non -binary people, and will only broadcast passports with a sexual marker “M” or “F” that coincides with the “biological sex” of the person at birth.
“What I see has changed in the light of the Trump administration and the actions taken by the Trump administration is that the trans-people of the United States are very nervous for crossing Canada to come to the conference because they have to return to the United States,” Devor said.
The conference, which runs until Sunday, involves activists, academics and artists from all over, says the university, with more than 100 guests making presentations.
The organizers say that the event addresses “both our history and the crucial problems that affect us today and to the future, local, nationally and globally.”
The lieutenant retired colonel to speak
The American philanthropic Jennifer Pritzker, who gave a fundamental gift to help start the chair in transgender studies at the University of Victoria, is scheduled as a speaker on Thursday night.
PRTIZKER is a retired colonel as Lieutenant of the Illinois Army National Guard who identified as a transgender in 2013.
She has criticized Trump’s attempts to ban transgender troops to serve in the army, telling the PBS Chicago program this week this week that would cause chaos and destroy morality.
On the island9:07What the president of the United States, Donald Trump, officially recognizes two potentially significant genres for transgender and gender people in Canada?
Gregor Craigie spoke with Aaron Devor, president of Transgender Studies of the University of Victoria.
The lawyer of the Social Justice Adrienne Smith, who has been invited as a speaker at the conference, said the Trump administration had disseminated erroneous information and transphobia, leaving members of the Trans community feeling very insecure.
“And I think it is important to keep in mind that trans people have always been afraid. We have always lived in the shadow of danger, but that danger is much bigger and much closer now,” said Smith.
Smith applauded the conference for allowing video assistance this year for the first time.
The First Trans History Conference of Moving was held at the University in 2014 with around 100 activists and researchers who attended the event.
Devor said that the context of this year’s conference had changed, with “so much rhetoric and anti-trans organization.”
“And we face the president of the most powerful nation in the world, who is trying to pretend that trans people do not exist at all, and doing everything possible to erase any evidence that there are trans people,” said Devor.
Legal Center overwhelmed with immigration applications
Smith, who is the director of Litigation of Catherine White Holman Wellness Center, who provides free legal services in Vancouver, said that his office has been overwhelmed by the immigration requests of trans people who hope to leave the United States and come to Canada.
But Smith said there are few immigration routes available to them.
They said the Trump administration wanted trans people been afraid and retired from public life.
“And not to go to important things as a conference in which we can talk about research and human rights, not get to meet, not let us know where they are on each other and really to separate from our community,” Smith said.
“It’s intentional and it’s working.”
Listen to They & Us, an original British Columbia podcast that explores gender identity beyond binary. Subscribe on cbc.ca/theyandus.
