Michael Higgins: Women assaulted in prison by trans inmates doesn’t violate Charter, Liberals say

The Edmonton Institution for Women. Photo by Larry Wong /Postmedia

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The word “female” is so objectionable to our federal government that it cannot even be used in a court case involving women being sexually abused in prison.

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“Cisgender woman” is the preferred term used by the Canadian government allegedly for reasons of “clarity and accuracy.”

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Cisgender woman, as opposed to female, is used “to refer to individuals whose gender identity corresponds to the gender assigned to them at birth based on observed sexual characteristics,” says the government in a recent statement of defence.”

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It adds that the “use of the term ‘female’ to refer solely to cisgender women risks mischaracterizing or misgendering gender diverse inmates, and this Defence avoids that usage for clarity and accuracy.”

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Having erased female as a category, is it any wonder that the government goes on to argue that putting biological males into women’s prisons is fine as long as they identify as women?

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Further, the government insists that if the women inmates — the biological females — are sexually assaulted by the “gender diverse” prisoners — the biological men — that it is not a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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This is not just madness, it is unhinged, demented and dangerous lunacy.

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Last year, Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, wrote a report condemning gender ideology because it was deleting women from society.

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“The erosion of women and sex specific language, the conflation of sex, gender and gender identity” was weakening protection for mothers, women and girls, she said in a speech before producing her report.

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She might have added that it has weakened protection for female prisoners in Canada.

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Only in Canada can we have a judge saying bike lanes are protected by the Charter but the federal government arguing that women at risk of being sexually abused in prison aren’t.

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“Canada’s accommodation of the needs of gender diverse inmates does not infringe the rights guaranteed to cisgender women under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Canadian Bill of Rights,” says the statement of defence.

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“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person,” says Section 7 of the Charter, but that doesn’t apply to female inmates, according to our Liberal government.

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The government was forced to file a defence after the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) helped launch a lawsuit challenging the Correctional Service of Canada’s policy of allowing “trans-identifying male inmates” to be housed in women’s prisons. The policy “exposes female inmates to physical and psychological harm and violates their Charter rights,” argues the JCCF.

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“The lawsuit claims that this practice is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the Charter rights of female inmates, including their right to be protected from mental, physical, and sexual abuse,” the JCCF says in a statement.