Canada to Introduce Transgender Rights Bill

Canada will introduce a new bill to strengthen the rights of transgender people and protect them from discrimination, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday in Montreal.

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The legislation will be proposed today, fittingly on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the legislation would ensure "the full protection" of transgender Canadians.

"We must continue to demand true equality … we must carry on the legacy of those who fought for justice by being bold and ambitious in our actions, and we must work diligently to close the gap between our principles and our reality,” Trudeau said.

Similar transgender legislation has been repeatedly introduced for more than a decade but has stalled in the Canadian upper house. Currently Trudeau’s Liberal Party holds a majority in the house of commons and the bill is guaranteed to pass into law.

The legislation will be fulfilling one of Trudeau’s election promises. Currently seven provinces in Canada have laws that prevent gender-identity discrimination.

The legislation would add gender identity to Canada's Human Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination, along with adding gender identity to the list of distinguishing characteristics protected from hate speech under the criminal code.

Transgender rights have become part of a heated debate in the United States recently, however the issue is less controversial in Canada.

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North Carolina earlier this year passed a law that prohibits people from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to the gender assigned on transgender people's birth certificate. A legal battle followed when North Carolina and the U.S. Justice Department sued each other over the issue.

Since then, the Obama administration has told U.S. public schools that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, a non-binding guidance that has been met with protest from conservatives.