Unbelievable Moments in Trans Activism: Trudeau Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Rapists

Justin Trudeau promising that he will provide all men access to women’s prisons. Youtube / @CanadianPM

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will surely go down as one of the most stalwart trans activists in history. It is thanks in large part to this man that other men, like infant rapist Adam Laboucan, get to serve their sentence in a women’s prison with a Mother-Child Program.

Can so much blame be put on the Prime Minister alone? Yes, I believe it can, and it all goes back to a Kingston, Ontario town hall on January 12, 2017.

During the town hall, Trudeau took a question from a trans-identified man who asked, “will you do your best to ensure that trans women are put in a prison more appropriate to their gender identity?”

With absolutely zero hesitation, Trudeau responded, “The answer is yes.”

And he followed through on that promise at breakneck speed.

The very next day, a CBC News headline declared “Correctional Service flip-flops on transgender inmate placement policy.”

This startling change of heart came just days after Correctional Service Canada (CSC) released a policy that reaffirmed default inmate placement according to sex and stated that transfers would only be allowed after “sex reassignment surgery.”

Suddenly, CSC was singing a different tune, with spokesperson Jean-Paul Surette telling CBC, “We are currently assessing — on a case-by-case basis — individual inmates' placement and accommodation requests to ensure the most appropriate measures are taken to respect the dignity, rights and security of all inmates under our custody.”

These changes would bring CSC policy in line with Canada’s notorious Bill C-16, which was making its way through Parliament at the time.

Bill C-16 became law on June 19, 2017, amending the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to include protections for “gender identity” and “gender expression.”

In July of 2017, another CSC spokesperson Lori Halfper revealed that the policy was being updated to ensure that offenders would be treated according to their “self-identified gender or gender expression, regardless of their physical anatomy or the gender noted on their identification documents” [emphasis mine].

Under this new interim policy, CSC transferred Fallon Aubee, a male contract killer serving a life sentence, to the Fraser Valley Institution for Women.

"I think it's going to be a huge adjustment going to the prison for women,” Aubee told CBC, “not just for me but for the women who are there as well because I am pre-op so there's a stigma that's attached to 'there's a guy living here.’”

He continued, “I'm a woman and I'm going to be recognized as a woman and I'm going to live in a woman's prison.”

It should surprise absolutely no one that under Justrin Trudeau, Canada valued the feelings and comfort of a male contract killer over the feelings, comfort, and safety of female inmates.

And it has only gotten worse since then.

On December 27, 2017, CSC implemented its new transgender inmate policy, which stated that transgender inmates would be placed in institutions of their preference regardless of their sex.

The policy did add the caveat that transfers would not happen if there were “overriding health and safety concerns.” But this veneer of protection has turned out to be meaningless as all manner of male pedophiles, rapists, and murderers have been granted transfer to women’s prisons.

Matthew Harks. John Boulachanis. Tara Desousa. Frederick Radcliffe. These are just some of the many violent—often sexually violent—men who are serving their time around women and their children.

Thanks, Justin Trudeau.

It should be noted, as explained by former CSC Parole Officer and Correctional Program Officer April Kitzul, that the transfer of trans-identified male inmates to female prisons goes back to the 1980s. However, these transfers were very rare and came with the stipulation that the male inmates were fully transitioned (via hormones and surgeries) before incarceration.

Then, in the early 2000s, activist lawyer Barbara Findlay represented a man, convicted killer Synthia Kavanagh, who was seeking transfer to a women’s prison despite not having sex reassignment surgery. In 2001, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in Kavanagh’s favor, forcing CSC to update its Health Services policy to provide such inmates with hormones and surgery, paid for by taxpayers.

Now, these developments weren’t on Trudeau, and there is a conversation to be had about the fact that no amount of hormones and surgeries make a man a woman and that these men don’t belong in women’s prisons either. But, at the very least, these rules ensured that such transfers were few and far between.

However, as Kitzul writes:

Since the passage of Bill C-16, the ability for trans-identified male prisoners to transfer to women’s prisons has been made much easier. Now all that is required is self-identification, and self-identification is just based on the inmate’s say-so. No surgery or hormones are required.

The massive increase in these transfers at the direct expense of incarcerated women falls directly on Justin Trudeau’s head, and I will not let him forget it.