The chairman for transgender studies at the University of Victoria is concerned about participating in this year’s Moving Trans History Forward Conference, whereby the numbers are expected of 40 percent.
Aaron Devon says that potential US participants hesitate to cross the border – not because of what could happen if you enter Canada, but what could happen if you try to return to the USA.
He says that President Donald Trump’s US administration sent a shaking frost by the Trans -community in January, with an executive regulation that the federal government recognizes two genders, male and female who cannot change and that an “unchangeable biological classification” are from the conception.
According to Devon, the two -year trans history conference, which begins on Thursday, hoped for 500 participants based on previous events, but now only about 300 are expected.
“The difference, I almost exclusively reject the fact that Americans are afraid of leaving their own country,” said Devon, the founder and host of the conferences.
While US President Donald Trump runs back the transit rights in America, some families want to leave the country. Katie Nicholson from CBC speaks to people who are involved in the climate of fear, including parents who are considering claiming asylum in Canada.
According to Trump’s executive regulation, all identification issued by the government, including passports and visas, must “reflect the gender of the owner exactly”.
The US State Department has declared that it will hire the exhibition of travel documents with the “X” -gender marker, which is preferred by many non -binary persons, and it will only issue passports with an “M” or “F” sux marker that corresponds to the “biological sex” of the person at birth.
“In view of the Trump administration and the measures taken by the Trump government, what I see has changed that trans-plus people from the USA are very nervous to come to Canada to come to the conference because they have to return to the USA,” said Devon.
The conference, which runs until Sunday, includes activists, academics and artists from all over the world, according to the university, with more than 100 guests making presentations.
The organizers say that the event “both our history and the decisive topics that have an impact on us today and in the future – locally, national and global”.
Retired US colonel lieutenant to speak
The American Philanthrop Jennifer Pritzker, who gave a fundamental gift to set up the chairman for transgender studies at the University of Victoria, will be planned as a speaker on Thursday evening.
Prizker is a retirement as a lieutenant colonel of the Illinois Army National Guard, who identified himself as a transgender in 2013.
She criticized Trump’s attempts to ban transgender troops from the military and announced the Chicago PBS program this week that it would cause chaos and destroy morality.
On the island9:07What do the executive ordinance of US President Donald Trump officially mean in the United States two genders that mean potentially for transgender and gender volumers in Canada?
Gregor Craigie spoke to Aaron Devor, the chairman for transgender studies at the University of Victoria.
Adrienne Smith, lawyer of the social judiciary, who was invited at the conference as a spokesman for the panel, said that the Trump government had spread misinformation and transthobia and left the members of the trans community very unsafe.
“And I think it is important to note that trans people were always afraid. We always lived in the shade of the danger, but this danger is now much larger and now much closer,” said Smith.
Smith applauded the conference for permission to enable participation after video for the first time this year.
The first conference for Moving Trans History Forward took place in 2014 at the university, with around 100 activists and researchers participating in the event.
Diva said that the context of this year’s conference has shifted with “so much anti-trans-rhetoric and organization”.
“And we stand in front of the President of the most powerful nation in the world who tries to pretend that trans people do not exist at all, and do his best to delete evidence that trans people exist,” said Devon.
Legal center overwhelmed by immigration inquiries
Smith, the legal director of the Catherine White Holman Wellness Center, who offers free legal services all over BC, said that her office was overwhelmed by immigration inquiries from trans people who want to leave the United States and come to Canada.
But Smith said there are only a few immigration routes for them.
They said the Trump government wanted Trans -people to be afraid and withdraw from public life.
“And do not go to important things like a conference at which we talk about research and human rights, do not gather, do not let us know where to be and really separate us from our community,” said Smith.
“It is intended and works.”
Listen to you and us and us, an original podcast from CBC British Columbia, which examines the gender identity beyond binary date. Subscribe to cbc.ca/theyandus.
