I DIDN’T intend to spend my evening eavesdropping on one of Canada’s most prominent transgender rights activists. I was in Vancouver, attending a high-profile event featuring the country’s leading feminist journalist, and shortly after I took my seat I became aware of a running commentary from immediately behind me. I heard a nasal male voice pointing out “that poster woman” before issuing a barbed verdict: “She’s a lot more old and irrelevant than I thought.”
A lot of “old and irrelevant” women – by which I mean experienced, wise and inspiring adult females – had gathered to hear Meghan Murphy talk on Gender Identity Ideology and Women’s Rights. Joining Murphy on the panel was the old and irrelevant Lee Lakeman, who first opened her home to abused women in the 1970s and spent four decades providing frontline services to those fleeing violence; and the old and irrelevant Fay Blaney, an activist, educator and advocate for indigenous women who currently runs a project empowering marginalised women to create social change…
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Published in The National on January 18 2019.
Shona Craven 