Kirsten Doyle - Writer & Editor

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10 Tips For Staying Sane During A Global Pandemic

Kirsten Doyle

May 2, 2020

COVID-blues getting you down? No matter how difficult life was to begin with, the current pandemic has, for most of…

Election? Or Afterthought?

Kirsten Doyle

November 7, 2018

One of the things that frustrated me the most during my run for school board trustee in the recent municipal…

On My Soap Box: Have Some Respect For The Parkland Kids

Kirsten Doyle

March 27, 2018

I’m back on my soapbox, and I’m angry. And I’m sorry (not sorry), but the focus of my anger has…

Stop Equating White Nationalists With Black Lives Matter

This is a message for those who are equating white nationalists with Black Lives Matter. Stop it. Just stop. For you to draw any equivalency whatsoever between the two is disgraceful, disrespectful, and insulting. I really shouldn’t have to explain the difference, but here it is, just in case you really are that stupid. The…

Running After My Mojo

At some point during the month of January, I realized that I had lost my mojo. The me who had once been excited about lacing up her running shoes and hitting the road, even in the cold weather, had disappeared and been replaced by someone who was always making excuses not to run. It was…

Mental Health Awareness: Join The Conversation

Mental illness exists in the fabric of every society. It does not know geographic, educational, economic or cultural boundaries. Almost a quarter of deaths among Canadians aged 15 to 24 can be attributed to suicide. And yet people are afraid to talk about it. About half of those who believe they are going through depression…

The Dangers Of “Wait And See” In The Age Of Trump

So. Donald Trump is now the President of the United States. Very few people thought this would actually happen, including, I would venture to say, Mr. Trump himself. I think most of the world held onto an unrealistic hope, right up until the ninety ninth hour, that something would happen to prevent or delay him…

Open Letter To Friends Who Voted For Donald Trump

Dear friends who voted for Donald Trump, I’m going to start this letter with a disclaimer: I am not an American. I am a Canadian citizen who voted for Justin Trudeau in the last federal election. That should give you an idea of which way I lean politically. If you were to look up the…

Transgender Restrooms Are Not Going To Destroy The World

Last night a truly hateful video appeared on my Facebook timeline. It was originally posted by something called “Highways and Hedges Ministries”, and it is a rant about the evils of transgender restrooms. The man in the video makes several sweeping statements about members of the LGBT community. They are perverts. They are sinners. They…

5 Reasons Why Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Is A Bad Idea

Last year, I wrote web content for a facility called Addiction Rehab Toronto. I was working nights at the time, staying up long after the family had gone to bed, doing research, learning heartbreaking things about addiction and reading gut-wrenching real-life accounts written by addicts and their loved ones. Addiction is one of those subjects…

Why I Am Not Supporting The Black Dot Campaign

If you’ve spent any amount of time on Facebook over the last few months, you might have seen something called the Black Dot Campaign. The concept is simple: if you see a woman with a black dot in the palm of her hand, she is a victim of ongoing domestic violence and needs to be…

South Africa: Hope In Times Of Trouble

When I left South Africa in 2000, many people assumed that I was wanting to be part of the “brain drain”: a flood of disillusioned young professionals getting out of a troubled country before it was too late. Although there were undeniable problems plaguing the country, that is not why I left. My reason was…

Bravery Is Not A Competition

When Bruce Jenner became Caitlin Jenner earlier this year, Facebook erupted with judgmental posts. No surprise there – after all, Facebook has been the venue of many battles, including the Vaccine Wars, the Gay Marriage Wars, the Breastfeeding In Public Wars, and many more. People say all kinds of things from the safety of their…

Transgender Restrooms Are Not Going To Destroy The World

Kirsten Doyle

March 25, 2016

On the one hand, I am upset that I watched this video. I feel sullied by the fact that I spent three minutes of my life listening to this vile rhetoric. On the other hand, maybe it’s good for me to know that there are people out there who actually think this way. I cannot speak up against bigotry and injustice by hiding from it.

I am fortunate enough to live in a country where gay marriage is legal and members of the LGBT community have the same rights as everyone else. The Canadian attitude to LGBT people was highlighted by the fact that when Ontario elected its first openly gay premier, the fact that she is gay did not get more than a passing mention in the media. Nobody made a big deal of it, because we just don’t care whether someone is gay, straight, transgender or anything else. Most Canadians have a live-and-let-live approach to life.

But even here we are not completely immune to bigotry against the LGBT community. Many years ago – I believe I was pregnant with my now 12-year-old son – my husband and I were having lunch with a couple we were friends with. The man told us that as a college student, he and his friends had gone to gay bars to beat up on gay people.

“How do you feel about that now?” we asked, figuring that sometimes people do stupid things when they are young that they later regret.

“Great!” said our friend enthusiastically. “I f*cking hate queers.”

And that was the end of that friendship. Some people very near and dear to my heart are gay. I love them with every ounce of my being, and to my dying day I will defend their right to be treated equally, to live their lives in peace, and to not be targeted by bullies and haters.

The reality, which people like the guy in the video don’t seem to understand or care about, is that LBGT people are far more likely to be the victims of attacks than the perpetrators. According to an extensive study of students in schools across Canada, almost two thirds of LGBT students feel unsafe at school. The places in which they feel the most threatened, where attacks are most likely to happen, are in gender-segregated areas like locker rooms and restrooms.

At the same time, several studies have failed to find any link between child molestation and homosexuality or gender identity. The numbers simply do not bear out the idea that peoples’ kids are going to be molested in transgender restrooms (not to mention the fact that most transgender restrooms are single-occupancy).

In other words, gay and transgendered people have not been fighting for transgender restrooms in a quest to find places to molest children. All they want is a safe place to pee without being attacked themselves.

If you think that is unreasonable, it might be time for you to challenge your ideas about basic human rights.

Note: I deliberately chose not to post a link to the video that prompted this article, because I do not want my website to drive any traffic to it.

By Kirsten Doyle. Picture: Rusty Clark. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

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