By Laura Stradiotto | Sudbury Star
An anonymous letter that aired on television earlier this month, complaining that a trans man was showering in the men’s washroom at a Vale mine site, is both inaccurate and harmful, says the person at the centre of the controversy and members of the local trans community who are reeling from the impact.
In an interview with The Sudbury Star, the man says he has never showered at the work site, only changed in the dry. Despite a trans person having the legal right to use gender-specific spaces that align with their gender identity, the anonymous letter writer said it made him uncomfortable and was “compromising our marriages.”
The trans man who is the focus of the letter is a college co-op student who spoke to The Sudbury Star on the condition of anonymity. He did not wish to be identified out of fear of further retaliation. After the broadcast aired on CTV, he said he was targeted by graffiti at work. He says the broadcast has left him shaken and exposed. At the same time, Rita OLink, a long-time trans advocate in the community, says the airing of the letter has legitimized discrimination, fueling those with anti-trans views — and the fallout is already being felt.
“The fallout is extreme,” said OLink. “We have transgendered community members who are afraid to go into gender-specific facilities that they need to access because of the negative comments that are out there.”
The story not only impacted the Sudbury community but transgendered people across the region, she said.
“It affects me as a transgendered person,” said OLink. “My individual life is affected. Just like every other transgender person’s life has been affected.”
OLink said the broadcasting of this anonymous letter has given people “permission” to discriminate and spread hatred.
Meanwhile, the college student says that for the most part, his time at the mine site has been uneventful. It was a week after the news broadcast that he realized the anonymous letter was about him – because he doesn’t use the shower.
He said he thinks his co-worker saw him changing – very discreetly – in the dry and assumed he was going to shower. But that is not the case.
“I’ve never even taken off my top in there,” he said. “This whole thing has been dehumanizing … It’s not the first time something like this has happened to me, it’s just the first time it’s been on the news.”
The college student says he doesn’t use the gender-neutral room because “it’s like putting a target on your back.”
“I understand they did it for inclusivity reasons, and there is other people who like using those dries, I’m sure there’s a time I would want to use those dries if I wanted to shower at work, but for a two-and-half month co-op where I just want to keep my head down, I don’t want to make it any more obvious that I’m different,” he said. “Just getting dressed at work and not showering there, that’s a happy medium. I use the change room I’m comfortable in. I know the North isn’t great for people like me.”
Despite management and his supervisor being supportive, he now looks over his shoulder at work and says he doesn’t know who to trust anymore.
What message does he have for the letter writer? “Find a bigger problem in life,” he said. “I’m just in there getting changed, like everyone else. I’m a co-op student trying to get an education, a career. I’m trying to help take care of my family.”
He says he won’t back down and change careers because of this experience. “There needs to be people like me here, and I’m not going to let them scare me off,” he said.
OLink has penned a letter to the television station, demanding an apology and an admission of wrongdoing for airing a story that was discriminatory.
OLink is also the founder of TG Innerselves, a community advocacy group that has worked for decades to build relationships in multiple sectors, from health care to policing, and to enact policies to benefit the trans community. The organization was instrumental in banning conversion therapy in Ontario in 2015 and then making the therapy criminal throughout Canada in 2022.
“TG Innerselves was responsible for the majority of education and training throughout northeastern Ontario,” she said. “We were there in schools and government institutions, we were there doing the education. The education is out there. We need champions to step up and say discrimination like this is wrong. Plain and simple. We need our rights to gender-specific spaces affirmed and confirmed.”
Both the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protect the rights of transgender individuals, including their right to access gender-specific spaces.
“Without that, I couldn’t function the way I need to in society,” she said.
