[I don’t usually post things related to politics on this blog, because it’s not what it’s for. But this is important.]

So, I used to be proud to be a Canadian. As a child, as a teen, when we started to recognize what we as a country owed the indigenous/First Nations/original inhabitants of this land, and when we legalized homosexual marriage. These were all things to be proud of (even if we still have a ways to go on a number of them).

There are still a lot of problems within Canada, of course – there’s racism, there’s inequality, the rights of persons with disabilities are not given the full weight they should be, for some examples… but I never thought the country I have lived in my entire life would start to condone what is more or less a form of slavery.

No, I’m not exaggerating.

One of the most demeaning things about being a slave (as far as I’m aware, having never been one myself, thankfully), is the fact that you don’t own your body. Your master/owner does. You have no right to decide what to do with your body, and if you try, you are punished if you get caught.

And yes, I am in a number of ways equating what women have gone through in history with some form of slavery.

I’m not trying to downplay the horror of being a slave; that is one thing I would never do. What I am trying to point out is that there are some aspects of slavery that have existed outside the institution of slavery – and still do.

What right do other people have to tell you what to do with your body? By what right do governments tell you what to do with your body? It’s none of their business.

So, what right do you have to tell other people what to do with their bodies? What others choose to do with their own bodies has absolutely nothing to do with you.

The transphobia sweeping North America, and the rules that are being put into place both in the United States and here in Canada, are a form of slavery. Those rules are trying to tell people that they have no right to their own bodies, that they must do what others want with their bodies.

I am becoming more and more ashamed to be Canadian, and that is something that a younger me never thought I would say. But I have to. Because there is no other way I know of to get across just how wrong what these governments are doing is.

I don’t want to be ashamed of my country. But the way things are going… I am.

>:( tag0