Justin Trudeau’s government awards MEDAL to ‘champion of diversity’ trans activist who got Canada’s oldest rape shelter defunded for refusing to house transgender women

A transgender activist who was stripped of city funding for Canada’s oldest rape shelter has been awarded a medal as a “champion for diversity.”

On December 7, Governor General of Canada Mary Simon presented Morgan Auger, a transgender woman, with the Medal of Merit.

Official photos show her receiving the award along with dozens of other Canadians honored for their “exceptional deeds.”

Auger said she “feels very grateful” to receive the medal for “promoting legal protections for transgender Canadians.”

The award calls Auger a “champion of diversity” who has changed the landscape of LGBTQI+ rights and worked “tirelessly” to make them law.

“She created cross-party alliances that promoted changes to provincial and federal legislation protecting people from discrimination based on gender identity or expression,” the report said.

“Her courage, vision and tenacity have helped redefine the fundamental issue of equality and advance inclusivity for gender-diverse Canadians.”

Auger was selected to receive the award in 2018, and it was unclear why it took her five years to receive it.

“It’s really very nice. We don’t live in a time where medals are handed out very often and the equality campaign still has a long way to go,” she said at the time.

At the time, Auger was leading an effort to deprive Vancouver Rape Relief of city funding because it refused to accommodate transgender women.

Vancouver City Council in March 2019 withdrew a grant of C$34,000 a year from 2020 unless the shelter, Canada’s oldest, opened in 1974, changed its policies.

“Trans women are women and sex work is work. Trans women and sex workers deserve care and protection,” Councilwoman Christine Boyle said at the time.

“I cannot support organizations that exclude them, so I will not support city funding for Vancouver’s rape crisis program.”

Councilor Sarah Kirby-Yung added: “They have done a fantastic job and are a valuable service, but we wanted to make sure they extended it to everyone.” If we give public funds, we need to give them to inclusive organizations.

“I don’t want to live in a community that is not inclusive and turn people away, especially if someone is going through trauma.”

Auger told the council as it debated that the shelter violated the city’s transgender equality and inclusion criteria adopted in 2016 by arguing that transgender women are men, not women.

The shelter said the defunding was “discrimination against women in the name of inclusion” and accused the city of trying to “force us to change our position.”

A Vancouver anti-rape organization argued that the women it sheltered did not feel safe around those who were not “born female” after being abused by their male partners.

“Being born female still means being trained, socialized and forced to submit to male dominance. The fact that we are born female and raised as girls into adulthood as women shapes our lives in many ways,” the report says.

“We don’t have the expertise to offer services to people without the same life experiences… that’s not our job.”

It also states that city funding was used only for educational programs that were available to everyone.

The VRR has an annual budget of about $1 million, largely provided by the Province of British Columbia, and it makes up the city’s shortfalls through increased donations.

“Bites the hands that feed it: Vancouver’s tax-funded rape program stokes prejudice in outraged online rants about discrimination, despite a one-year grace period to catch up under Canada’s discrimination laws,” Auger wrote. after the council’s decision.

In 2005, the shelter won a long-running civil rights case brought by transgender woman Kimberly Nixon after she was denied a volunteer counselor training program.

It argued that because she had grown up with male privilege, she would not be able to provide effective counseling to women.

“Even deep voices and masculine insignia such as baseball caps and boots can make women nervous,” wrote Lee Lakeman, the center’s founder, in 2006.

The shelter was initially ordered to pay Nixon $7,500, but that decision was overturned by the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Months after funding was cut off, the shelter was vandalized multiple times in August 2019 and a dead rat was nailed to the front door.

“Kill TERFS, trans power” was written on the windows in reference to “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” who reject the concept of transgender identity.

Oger then made it clear that while the vandalism was unacceptable, the shelter itself was to blame for it.

“It is unfortunate but predictable that the VRR, which has chosen to ignore Canada’s civil rights laws, is causing a backlash,” she wrote.

“I sympathize that VRRs feel threatened by predictable reactions to their behavior. As I have previously offered, I am willing to help VRR get out of this mess if they wish.”