Harassment and Discrimination

For participants in Central Canada, harassment and discrimination were the most frequently noted serious legal issues (13 of 25, or 52 percent); they were less common for Eastern Canada participants (4 of 17, or 23 percent). However, we found, after reviewing the responses to questions about harassment and discrimination more closely, that these issues are either very general – i.e., they are about the experiences of LGB as a group, not as individuals – or they actually constitute criminal violence. One Central Canada participant observed:

[A] lot of the discrimination that is directed at us, whether you’re queer, trans, 2-Spirit and so forth, a lot of it is not as public as it used to be. I feel like a lot of it is not on display, whereas now it’s more subtle and it’s there. It exists, but they have now found ways to perhaps make it a little bit more difficult to identify and to challenge (CC#18).

Another participant highlighted how normative harassment was, stating, “I have – like I say, being a 2-Spirited Métis woman walking around in this world, it’s every day. You’re going to get encountered with all kinds of things. Almost on a daily basis. Unless you’re like blind” (CC#18).

Participants noted that verbal harassment was a common experience:

“[S]ometimes it’s some people who are just really rude and stuff like that. Saying go kill yourself and stuff like that. They would make comments on my reputation” (CC#17).

Another participant described the ongoing homophobic verbal harassment they experienced during their teens, in their school and in their community, ranging from anti-gay slurs to death threats. Ultimately they were given an ultimatum by the high school principal, who said, “either you drop out or I kick you out. And tells me that she can’t protect me from me being gay and that she would rather me be able to go to a school again, somewhere else, but not here. I ended up running away from home to Toronto at the age of 15” (CC#8). Yet another described a pattern of verbal “gay bashing” perpetrated by a neighbour in their apartment building. Layered on top of that, according to the participant, was the landlord’s failure to address the issue directly. In fact, the participant said:

I’m the one being taken to court and is being looked at because I stopped paying my rent because they’re not addressing the issue. So then I’m the one who is being threatened with homelessness and everything else like that because they’re not addressing the issue and I’m taking it into my hands to force them to address the issue and they still won’t (CC#18).

Finally, two participants noted patterns of discrimination in the workplace and other professional spheres. An interesting trend noted by one Eastern Canada participant speaks to 2SLGBTQ+ people’s exclusion from professional networks. They had just relocated from a city in Central Canada and were having difficulty building the networks they needed to successfully integrate into their industry. They attributed this to their sexual orientation:

Well, I think that, let’s say for example that under normal circumstances, you see people being invited to go out for drinks in a networking environment. And I see it around me all the time. But most of my clients are heterosexual. They all have families. So to invite a gay man to go out for lunch in a small town can be perceived differently than if you do that in one of the big cities… I just know that if I had been straight, I would have been invited to go for beer. And it wouldn’t have been implied that it meant something more than just a beer. (EC#15).

Three more examples point to discrimination, even violence, within the participants’ own communities. Two of these featured negative experiences within the queer community. The first participant said that they:

[F]eel more sad about that because sometimes that happens by the queer community because I was like managing some space on the internet and sometimes when you don’t do what the people want or something, you have to pick some rules, people start to be really angry and starting rumours about you. For example one was kind of like saying to everyone that I was against sex workers and I never said anything against sex workers and I have lots of friends who do sex work so you know, that’s happened to me. And one time it was on a safe space and it wasn’t just virtual, the person like attacked me. So that was harassment (CC#17).

Another described a similar, albeit more violent “campaign” of retaliation from within what they referred to as the “sex-positive” community. When they went public about being raped by a “white supremacist, heterosexual (I think) man, who was very popular,” they were subject to what they referred to as a “bullying campaign,” and a “whisper campaign,” and characterized as a “lying bitch.” The participant felt:

[T]hey’re just out to assassinate my reputation and there’s nothing I can really do. Because any action I do, once I tried to enter an art competition and someone mentioned my mentor and told things about me. And then the mentor ended up dropping me (CC#1).

In the third case, a Two-Spirit individual described the discrimination they experienced within their Indigenous community. They sought to have a sacred Two-Spirit eagle staff included in their annual pow wow, motivated by the question, “What is it that we can do in our community to decolonize our communities and help to bring ourselves and our Two-Spirit brothers and sisters back into the circle of community care” (CC#12). However, they were told by the pow wow committee, in writing, that, because of their sexual orientation, the staff would not be included:

But now that I’ve advocated for myself and my family and my community in the context of welcoming Two-Spirit people back into the community, we’re being told no because of your sexual preference. Yeah, you’re okay, you can come here, as long as you stay in the closet, but don’t bring in the eagle staff and don’t bring the flags (CC#12).

In another context of discrimination, some participants transgressed boundaries by resisting or pushing back against their oppressive or otherwise negative experiences. One noted the likelihood of retaliation “because you’re a shit disturber, because of this case going forward” (CC#14). Another shared similar sentiments, stating, “Yeah, so especially the male staff, because once I came forward with this they started targeting me and making things uncomfortable for me, saying that I was a man hater and that I was just trying to get rid of men out of women’s institutions and what not” (EC#6). It is little wonder, then, that participants hesitated to report incidents of harassment or discrimination. Certainly fear of retaliation is one reason for this, since “the community is so small, so if you complain on one, you complain on multiple issues, to multiple people that you don’t even know. And so, I just feel like I’m blacklisted right now” (EC#16). Others fear being outed if they report incidents. In the following example, the participant was so reluctant to report a series of same-sex sexual assaults at the hands of a former partner that they waited 10 years:

My fear of being “outed,” my fear of not wanting to talk to police – we understand what the barriers are for women coming forward in sexual assault cases, but then to add another layer of discrimination around homophobia. That was why I didn’t seek justice originally (CC#6).

In contrast, two other participants failed to report being targeted, not to protect themselves, but to protect others. An especially poignant example follows:

One of the people who abused me and actually stole thousands of dollars from me was someone who was trying to immigrate to Canada. And I couldn’t report them, aside from them also being non-binary, was that if I reported them, they would potentially get kicked out of the country. And I still wouldn’t get my money back. But still, it’s like, within the queer community, there’s this need to protect those within the queer community because the state is so violent (CC#1).

However, as noted elsewhere, participants’ unwillingness to report incidents that cross into criminal offences can also be attributed to a lack of trust in police, since “you build a stigma based around them. Like for me, I hate the cops. And that’s because I’ve had so many bad interactions with them” (CC#8).

One person, who had been physically and sexually assaulted numerous times, had lost hope of pursuing any accountability for the rapes:

[Y]ou can’t go to the cops. You get sexually harassed by the cops… I don’t like the police, I don’t trust the police, I’ve been harassed by the police, I’ve been sexualized by the police. It’s a bad time. For queer people, for non-binary people it’s a bad time (CC#1).

Unfortunately, this distrust extends beyond police, reflecting a much broader lack of confidence in the justice system as a whole:

I experienced an assault with a friend of mine… But in the aftermath of that I didn’t tell many people but some of the people I did tell were trying to encourage me to pursue legal action. And yeah, I did consider it. I didn’t end up actually doing that and I can explain what happened there. So, I think the first step in interacting with the justice system is actually feeling like justice is possible in the system. And I had very little confidence in that… So, I have very little confidence in being believed I don’t have a great relationship with the police or the justice system. I think that’s pretty common among the queer community, like politically (CC#2).

One participant was particularly concerned about what they understood to be the criminal justice system’s lack of capacity to deal with same-sex sexual assault. They observed:

If you’re a person of colour, if you’re identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, Two Spirited, whatever or however you want to define that for yourself. So, it seems to me that we put people at further risk by not acknowledging that vulnerability and then further psychological risk when you run into a system that doesn’t know how to deal with sexual assault and it certainly doesn’t know how to deal with same-sex sexual assault (CC#6).

While this was thought to be a problem across the board, participants were especially critical of the apparent “trepidation” of the Crown attorney to discuss same-sex sexual assault, recalling, “She could conceptualize the relationship, but she couldn’t the sex because she obviously had barriers in her own mind and she needed some education and so does that whole bloody Crown Attorney’s office” (CC#6). The participant went on to say that they felt that there was a need, not just across the justice system but also among the general public, for broader awareness and education about the specific dynamics of same-sex violence.

Similarly, another participant highlighted the importance of 2SLGBTQI+ – or at the very least 2SLGBTQI+-friendly – legal actors. They felt able to engage the criminal justice system only because they had the support of a friend who was a lawyer, who was also gay. They said, “I don’t know that I would have been able to convince myself to see somebody else” (CC#3). Rather than fear that they would be confronted by an unsympathetic justice system, they “knew that I would automatically be believed and supported. And then that person being queer too, like part of the community, understands my perspective about police and their perceptions of me. The interaction of gender and identity and all of that – it helped” (CC#2).

It seems that participants who experience non-criminal forms of harassment and discrimination are even less likely to pursue legal solutions. Very few said they had turned to the legal system to resolve their issues. One exception was the case noted above in which the pow wow committee refused to admit the two-spirit totem flag. The participant involved in that example did launch a human rights complaint against the tribal government. Two years later it has still not been resolved.

Most participants, however, have little desire to engage with the legal system. One participant described their sense that the 2SLGBTQI+ community was invisible to the legal system, so, although they had experienced numerous instances of discrimination, they felt that, regardless, the “legal structure itself is not – does not factor me into existence” (CC#1). Similarly, another participant referred to the “bullying and smear campaigns and all these nasty things going on that I can’t pursue. So like legal issues are happening, but the structure itself is just so inaccessible” (CC#2).

Interestingly, several participants noted that, even in the face of unsatisfactory outcomes, they refused to be silenced. They may opt not to go to court in future, but they would nonetheless continue to push back in the interests of justice and the recognition of their human rights. One in particular declared:

It makes me find solutions, so I think part of my being gay makes me want to fight for rights, especially for gay men because we’re getting lost in the shuffle… So the negative crap that I’ve dealt with and I’ve been dealing with has only motivated me to dig my heels in and to be part of the solution (EC#16).

As in other legal contexts, discriminatory experiences and unsatisfactory resolutions are not without consequences for the participants. Emotional and mental health problems were common, in that “it downgrades you on a whole. Your self-esteem is down so everything else is down. If you let it get to you” (CC#18). One participant said:

[T]here were mental issues, it caused my depression, anxiety. I was living by myself, not knowing anyone, not being able to talk to anyone gay, no one HIV positive. And also, lack of income, lack of housing, lack, lack, lack. I didn’t feel like there was anything of value to bring to the table either. So you just isolate more and it caused a mental breakdown (EC#16).

Others also noted isolation. The discriminatory experiences and the associated fear of being targeted again because of their sexuality caused one participant to distance themselves from anyone who attempted to befriend them: “Just that now if anyone tries to become friendly with me, male or female, they say hi, how are you? I say, fine, now keep away from me. I just shut it down” (CC#21). What is more disturbing, the problems they have experienced may also result in a break with their culture, as in the case of the Two-Spirit participant. For them, the damage was “far-reaching and significant” (CC#12). They no longer travel to their community or attend the pow wow because they now see it as a “toxic” and unsafe place. They sum up their estrangement as follows:

There’s many layers here, right? I’ve been dispossessed as an Indigenous woman of my land and my water and my home and all of these things, but from my family, my community, my traditional roles and responsibilities, that action of, no you can’t come here because of your sexual preference, has far reaching impacts in terms of our cultural and in terms of our way of life and our wellness is all holistically connected and it’s all about relationships (CC#12).