Our Stories
These stories are experiences individual women have had in Canada.Each story tells of how the progression of policies after C-16 came into effect has personally affected each of them. While these are individual stories, it paints a collective story of how women's lives have been negatively impacted overall and highlights why things need to change. These submissions have not been edited, except to remove identifiable information to protect the privacy of the author. If you would like your own experience to be posted on here, you can submit it here.
February 11, 2023: Anonymous' Pressure to Conform in Canada
As a girl and adolescent growing up in the 1990s-2000s I was what many would refer to as a “tomboy.” I enjoyed wearing boyish clothes, I hated pink, I loved fishing and camping with my Dad (and mom). I loved reading and playing in the mud, I rarely played with the dozens of Barbie dolls people insisted on giving me but I adored my Ninja turtle action figures and my set of military jet funkiest. I liked skating and riding bikes. I had mostly male friends (mostly from lack of alternatives in the neighborhood and having a brother).
I was bullied. Hard. Called the male version of my female name. Told I was a boy. Told I was a freak. Told there was something wrong with me. That I was a tranny. That I was a dyke.
As an adolescent I had short hair and wore the stereotypical baggy pants and baseball hat style of the early 2000s. But my body developed to be very conventionally feminine and attractive to boys.
I never ever felt like I was a boy. I never had crushes on girls. My first “boyfriend” was at 9 years old (we held hands for a week).
At 14 I really discovered the joys of being a girl/almost woman. The thrill of a first kiss from a boy you like. The pleasure that can be derived from your own body.
I was still bullied and called a freak. The boys I liked and who liked me back eventually broke things off because they were bullied too. Until I met a boy who didn’t care and wanted to be my best friend and my boyfriend.
I am currently a heterosexual woman in her 30s who STILL likes fishing and camping and being outside. Who knows how to use tools and fix stuff. Who likes driving and cars. I also still love to read, and draw, and do crafts like cross stitch. I have long hair now but I still mostly wear jeans and t shirts. I wear dresses to work some days. Other days I wear pants and a blazer. Some days I put on make up. Some days I don’t.
The point of this story is that had the gender ideology hysteria currently gripping our society existed when I was a child and teen it is very possible that I WOULD NOT EXIST.
As a non gender stereotype conforming woman I would have been erased.
I don’t have children of my own but I have child family members I care for deeply. Including little girls. And I fear that they will not get the chance to grow up to be women unless they conform to some insane caricature of what a woman should be.
Woman exist. Men cannot be women. Not all girls and women who like “boy” things are gay/bi (although some are and they should be protected and allowed to grown into lesbians and bi women). Not all heterosexual women want to perform highly feminized versions of themselves all the time (or any of the time!).
Let WOMEN be WOMEN in any way that means to them! Stop indoctrinating children into thinking that they can only be themselves through body mutilation and a life time of medication.
December 23, 2022: City of Edmonton Changing Room Policy (LF's Experience)
My local swimming pool in Edmonton features a “WOMEN&GIRLS only” swim time with signage outside saying no males allowed at this time. It is popular amongst elderly, modest, and orthodox religious women, especially Muslim, who attend swim lessons with their children at the same time. It also declares that transgendered people of all ages are welcome to attend. When I requested clarification as to how they can be serious about appealing both to orthodox women as a safe single-sex space, as well as to men who say they are not, I was told that anyone who self identifies as a woman is a woman, by law, and would thus be allowed in the activity and the women’s change room. I politely requested that they direct any male-sexed persons away, or at least to a different change room (the men’s being empty at this time) as we have open shower areas; that these women are likely unaware and have not consented to a mixed-sex change room and swim; and that contrary to staff beliefs, these men are typically completely physically intact and represent a threat to women in their single sex spaces. They are strangers whose paraphilia and sexual mischief cannot be ruled out.
They told me it was not as if any trans woman could enter one day as a man, and the next as a woman - they would not allow that! I told them they had no power over that scenario and actually proved my point, that they are overseeing an impossible policy, a fallacy, that it fails in safeguarding women and children, and is actually dangerous in its false advertising. I was told that if I didn’t like it, I could use the bathroom next to their front desk - a ridiculous proposition as I am a woman and should not be mistreated in the activity explicitly set out to serve me. I followed up with a written and phone complaint to the Manager as well as to the City of Edmonton, from which I requested a written response, but have not, 1 month later, received it. I have since alerted women in every recreational center that the City is uninterested in safeguarding WOMEN&GIRLS in toilets and change rooms, preferring to ignore the proven danger WOMEN&GIRLS face by males who desire entrance into female spaces, and the biological reality of the fact that men are nearly twice as large, powerful, strong, and fast as average women, and it is men who have the proven record of having committed 99% of rapes and >90% of violent crimes. Every woman I have spoken to was shocked, appalled, and unaware (except one who didn’t believe me) that men, because of BillC-16 and it’s trickle down corollaries, now have free access to our female change rooms and activities. The women are now preparing themselves for resisting such men.
I predict the City will be foisting the much hated gender neutral change rooms, all without any discussion with taxpayers who will need to fund the multi-million dollar endeavour across the city, so that <.5% of the population can have their weak self identification validated by the very victims of their violence - WOMEN&GIRLS, while disrespecting the concerns and needs of WOMEN&GIRLS - the 52%! I am organizing my peaceful revolt and seek joiners.
July 7, 2021: Pressure to Declare Pronouns at Work
I work for a large multi-national chain retailer. Currently the location I work at is looking to have all staff publicly declare their pronouns on new updated name tags ("he/him" "they/them", or "she/her"). We have been asked to sign a sheet to write down a fun fact about ourselves and beside it to include our pronouns. They have moved to include inclusiveness in their company, including Trans Rights. I want to make this clear as I write this, I am a supporter of the Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual community, but I cannot support gender ideology, as I am concerned about women's sex-based rights. I'm not entirely sure if it is something you have to do, but it's part of a sheet that all employees are made to sign before the start or end of their shifts. I've heard certain staff members very loudly state being against trans people is bigotry. Even though I personally refused to sign the sheet on both the "fun facts about myself" and the pronouns, putting a dash through all boxes in protest, there is a lot of pressure to comply and who knows what will happen with anyone who refuses.
July 11, 2021: Government silencing women
I have heard so much about the pink recession that's happened because of COVID. The way that women have been the most affected by the expectation to choose taking care of kids or working in the industries most affected by the shutdowns. Then there is also the massive increase in domestic violence because women are trapped with their abusers at home more with the added affect of isolation. So when I heard about the Feminist Recovery Summit, hosted by the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality headed up by Minister Monsef. I decided I would attend and signed up for the two days of March 8 and 9 of this year. The sessions that I signed up for were women with disabilities on the first day, and then future of the feminist movement on the second day. What I expected would be forward-thinking and some room for discussion and questions after a panel spoke. Almost everything was completely different and expectations were not met at all.
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The first day I attended the disability forum. There was a lot about different technologies that could be used in white collar jobs. Yet that was about it. The next day I attended the Future of the Feminist Movement forum: it was enlightening. I believed that I could ask questions in the chat about what kind of policies and changes would help change issues women still have with respect to employment and health: women in their 20s and 30s being passed up for jobs or promotions because they could get pregnant at some point in the future. The fact that medical research is behind on women's health vs. men's health. Knowing there is now a different definition of woman used by the government I went with the word female in my questions. I wound up being told off for not being inclusive in using the word female and that biology doesn't matter. What was worse was there were two other women who were asking about the definition of female and woman that was being used so that they could understand what was happening. If we are unable to speak about issues in a government forum that was supposed to be meant for women, then when can we? How will any of these issues get fixed? Trans women do have issues that are unique to them and need to be dealt with. But so do women. And females need their obstacles fixed, too. All that is happening is sweeping problems under the rug. If you don't have a name for something and don't allow for discussion, then the people who can do something to help are putting their heads in the sand and things will just go downhill.
July 15, 2021: Policies are keeping me from participating fully in public life
For the longest time I thought my fear of going out places was fear of people...then I realised it is actually a fear of strange men. With the rise of gender ideology I find myself more afraid than ever, I’m scared for all women and especially afraid for girls. I remember the near constant sexual harassment and assault in school, boys touching and groping and following and making lewd comments - humiliating us. I imagine how terrified I would be if they could follow us into our toilets and changing rooms.
I think of women who have been raped and I think of them having to share their shelter with delusional men and their penises. I think of vulnerable female prisoners being housed with sex offenders and rapists and nobody listening or helping. The injustice of it all is horrific. It keeps me awake at night
July 25, 2021: AR's story
An acquaintance of mine, asked if I would anonymously write my story for WMC’s website “experiences” section, explaining why I have no intention of ever using any women’s spaces or services (including health services) since the Justin Trudeau government of Canada legislated that intact males, who simply “declare” themselves women, now have full access to females’ private, safe spaces and services. The government is also in the process of pushing forward a bill that will criminalize the right of females to sexual and bodily boundaries surrounding said spaces and services.
I am a female in my late 60’s. I am labelled “privileged” by the brainwashed “woke” faction of the population that has emerged from the political left and right in our western democracies worldwide only because I am caucasian and was born female and have lived my life as a woman. I am additionally labelled and verbally harassed by the same “woke” mob as a “bigot” because I refuse to share private spaces or services with fully intact male bodied strangers who “declare” themselves women.
Recalling my experiences with males throughout my life has not been pleasant. I know that at minimum 50% of my female acquaintances and girlfriends have had similar experiences and in many cases, worse experiences. From puberty on and throughout my life I have been sexually and physically tormented, humiliated, degraded, coerced and threatened by the male of our species — in school, in several places of employment, places where men and women gather together socially and in my personal life. I have been physically threatened, assaulted, strangled, raped, groped and sexually tortured by males. As a young woman, I was even sexually assaulted by my family’s male doctor during a physical exam and I know other women who experienced the same at the hands of their male doctors. I have since only chosen female doctors for necessary exams and when unable to find a female doctor have foregone the exams. I have not had a pap test for 15 years. The one assault I have been able to avoid throughout my life is “indecent exposure” by a male stranger and I have no intention of creating such an opportunity for that to happen.
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The reality, that no one seems to want to hear or even acknowledge, is that a great many males live their lives according to the patriarchal and abusive ideology that because they are bigger, stronger, louder and more violent, they have the right to treat females as though we exist only for their use. Additionally, studies have established that 62% of males are sexually aroused by paraphilia (fantasies of sexual perversions) and believe that we females exist to validate those fantasies.
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There is absolutely no way, ever and under any circumstances, I will, by choice, share women’s private spaces or services, where we are at our most vulnerable, with fully intact male bodied strangers who “declare” themselves women. If that means I never use a public swimming pool, or a spa, or a gym or a woman’s medical service or even a public washroom for the rest of my life — if it means that the only place I feel safe is my own home — that is a price I am willing to pay to no longer have to endure the worst of the male half of our dimorphic species. The female half of our race existed for centuries on a urinary leash and didn’t contribute to the economy because of it and I am willing to live on that urinary leash and contribute little or nothing to the economy to avoid any further dehumanization in my life from males — and I am not alone.
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I am currently sharing my life with a wonderful man. He is a kind, gentle and loving man who actually believes I’m worthy of being treated like an intelligent human being with basic human rights. We have been together for 11 years. He absolutely agrees with and supports fervently, my decision never to use women’s spaces again and would even willingly clear a men's washroom and stand guard while I used it if necessary, in a public space. He also finds the emergence in public of the “queer” ideology over the top and a huge danger to, and assault on, females and girls’ rights to bodily privacy, dignity and safety. Everyone has the right to their preferences in the privacy of their lives and their homes as long as those preferences do not create victims. They do not however, have the right, with utter disrespect, to force their personal preferences onto the public in general and particularly the vulnerable public
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As a society we must question the “motives” of the politicians in our western democracies who have bowed to the “queer” lobby, in the name of an ideology of “inclusiveness” and who are surreptitiously pushing through laws and legislation, that are criminalizing discussion and consultation, erasing all language that identifies and qualifies females as half of the human race, and that are erasing existing female human rights to bodily privacy, human dignity and safety from verbal, psychological and physical assault by males.
August 14, 2021: Media blackout exists even in the smallest papers
I posted an ad in a small town newspaper listing 7 issues pertaining to sex-based rights printed off the caWsbar.ca website for International Women's Day. The editor who published it was subsequently verbally attacked for transphobia etc while taking his kids to school. For four weeks the newspaper was threatened with closure by pulling ads. People gathered in a park and made speeches against me for running the ad and threatened to march on my house. One person did come to my house to threaten us. For a month Social media erupted in a "firehose of venom" according to the publisher. Newspaper editor and publisher were required to make grovelling apologies and donate multiple weeks of free ad space to activists. Legal threats were made repeatedly and we sought police protection. The fallout is ongoing as is still under investigation. I am 75 years old and have never been politically active before.
September 8, 2021: Parents and jobs are forcing adults to silence concerns
In my work, I have contact with a half dozen transgender teenagers. I have to use their pronouns of choice and appear to support their identity. I do that, to keep my job.
Meanwhile, I have a friend whose teen decided, along with most of the teen's social group, to transition. The friend talks about the difficulty of trying not to argue with her child but at the same time to not encourage transition. Meanwhile all the adults paid to be in the child's life - teachers, coaches, etc - appear to wholeheartedly embrace the teen transitioning. All those adults.... would be in the same position I am, having to pretend support whether they believe it or not, in order to keep their jobs.
And I get, that a transgender child or teen doesn't want to have to rehash the whole issue with all the adults in their life. It isn't the paid people's job to argue this stuff. Yet at the same time, the teens end up believing it is because these paid people support them more, believe their identity, etc. They think their parents are the outliers, the ones who don't really care about them or accept them as who they are. Even when their parents are the only ones who can respond based on love for the teen rather than self-interest.