Women's Charter Rights Expendable in Favouring Transwomen's 'Rights'

"Perhaps not all men who claim a female gender identity are sexually motivated, but saying any man who claims a female gender identity can come in to women's changing rooms, the City has invited in sexually motivated men like him."

"It is a direct threat to women and girls for the city to say I have to see his penis and his fetish gear, let him look at me and my girl child if we change, and if we feel frightened our only alternative is to just stop using the facility."

"This denies us a public service on the basis of our female sex." 

Kathleen Lowrey, women's rights advocate

University of Alberta associate professor Kathleen Lowrey was dismissed as associate chair of undergraduate studies in the department of anthropology in March. Lowrey says she believes she was dismissed over her critical views of gender. jpg

 

In February 2025, Kathleen Lowrey, her 14-year-old daughter with her, entered the female changing room facility at the Bonnie Doon Leisure centre. There, they were confronted with the presence of a man deressed in sexual fetish gear, "a bald man wearing only a black thong outlining his penis, and a pair of artificial rubber breasts slung around his neck". On reporting the scene to the leisure centre staff, she was informed that the individual in the thong was entitled to his presence in the women's area, however he was accoutered.

 

That's when she called police. Who would, of course, do nothing, since it was the policy of the centre and others like it to allow the entry of men claiming to be women, into women-only areas. No questions asked, no 'proof' of gender required. Professor Lowrey then filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights commission (AHRC) a month later, claiming discrimination on the basis of sex. In turn the AHRC rejected her complaint in July 2025, as well as her request for an appeal of the rejection, in November of 2025.

 

They responded that Professor Lowrey had failed to demonstrate she had been discriminated against. That led to her filing for a judicial review in the hope that the AHRC would be forced to hear her case. The City of Edmonton had other plans. Lowrey's application for a judicial review was tossed by the city on the basis that the city was not named as a respondent, arguing that the city is "the entity directly affected by and implicated in the underlying human rights complaint"; moreover, that the six-month filing period for a judicial review had lapsed.  

"In 2020, the University of Alberta removed Kathleen Lowrey, a tenured professor, from her role as associate chair of the department of anthropology after she expressed “controversial academic views regarding transgendered people and the LGTBQ2S+ community” the court said."
"[The professor explained her views on feminism], a few key ideas: men cannot get pregnant, lesbians don’t have penises and that biological sex is real."
"The Association of Academic Staff of the University of Alberta, an academic staff union representing about 4,000 members, filed a grievance over Lowrey’s removal. Alleging that the university dismissed Lowrey for her “gender-critical” perspective, the union argued that the university breached their collective bargaining agreement by failing to “uphold and protect academic freedom and exercise its management rights in a fair, reasonable, equitable and non-arbitrary manner,” according to the court’s decision." 

Jessica Mach, Canadian Lawyer 

Professor Lowrey, in filing her application against the AHRC, stated she had wanted her original complaint only to be heard. She stated that the relief [she is] seeking in [her] originating application is not from Bonnie Doon Leisure Centre and/or the city of Edmonton, but rather for the AHRC to hear [her] arguments. The AHRC appeared to conflate 'sex' and 'gender' in dismissing Professor Lowrey's complaint, despite that sex is a biological reality; gender on the other hand reflects a social ideology of fluid gender self-assignment.

 

In Canada, theoretically, women are entitled through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to respect and equality and security of the person. Yet when Professor Lowrey called on her Charter rights, a legal technicality threw her case into contemptuous contention in favour of the fiction of transwomen's rights trampling all over those of genuine  women. Despite the fact that any woman who registers a complaint over her loss of privacy in favour of a man's whims is labelled a bigot and transphobic. A social curse.

 

The Edmonton Law Courts building. Photo By David Bloom

 

"It keeps going against women in legal case after legal case."

"It is an accumulating record of smug institutional disregard for women and girls in Canada, and everywhere we attempt to contest policies put in place by gender activists."

"People should be able to express their gender in whatever manner they wish (but) I don’t agree with biological sex being irrelevant. I think treating biological sex as irrelevant has some really serious policy implications. As an example, housing trans-identified men in women’s prisons is not fair to women prisoners and I think it puts women at risk." 

"Contemporary gender ideology requires active affirmation of the proposition that men can become women and that women can become men. It further asserts that to refuse to assent to this proposition is to do active ‘harm’ to trans-identified individuals. The doctrine requires uncritical reverence for retrograde gender constructs, such as the idea that a little boy who likes tea parties and pretty dresses can be deemed to have been ‘born in the wrong body’ [and so is actually, in fact, a little girl]." 

"But we are learning from each kick in the teeth, and we are not giving up."

Kathleen Lowrey  

The University of Alberta's north campus sign in Edmonton. Photo by Ed Kaiser/Postmedia

 

"Men Punching Women"

"At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat."

"So. it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category."

"In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe."

Kirsty Coventry, IOC president

 

"We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female."

"It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology."

Seb Coe, president, World Athletics Organization 

 

"[Concerning the IOC's] decision regarding transgender women athletes, integrity and fairness [in sport concerns us, as well as] equal opportunities and respecting human rights [above all] empathy, respect and care [for all Canadians]."

"Our government believes in a sport system that provides opportunities for all Canadians, including the transgender community, to participate in sport and excel without discrimination."

"[The Liberal Carney government is reviewing] the impact of this decision on Canadian athletes."

Adam van Koeverden, Sports Minister, Canada 

University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas speaks to her coach after winning the 500 meter freestyle during an NCAA college swimming meet with Harvard on January 22, 2022.

Josh Reynolds/AP 

 

"The introduction of new rules restricting participation in women's sport categories to 'biological females', determined through mandatory genetic screening and testing, imposes exclusionary criteria."

Canadian Civil Liberties Association  

Somehow, women's rights got lost in the shuffle of transactivism's aggressive marketing propaganda that entitled biological males who declared their 'true' gender to be female, challenging women on the sports fields and through alpha competitions where those born female are told to just take a breath and carry on, faced with the prospect of going up against a male competitor called 'her'. All the physical attributes of biological males in strength and endurance though dressed in a skirt rallied against the less physical inheritance of females. Lap it up, kitten.

 

Finally, however, with the courage of a few elite female sport figures having the audacity to  point out the unfairness and degradation of women's rights that have been deleteriously impacted for much too long a period of public/social compliance with the assertions of a gender-compliant entitlement programs that victimize women, the tide is turning. It did help when a smattering of male sport coaches allied themselves with female competitors in their campaign for recognition of women's rights.

 

So now, the International Olympic Committee has made it legally binding in their declaration that only 'biological females' will  henceforth be permitted to compete in t he women's category. Trust the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to add its two-cents-worth opinion that the very term "biological females" represents a "problematical term". Much, one suspects, as does the mockery in all seriousness of speaking of "pregnant persons".

 

A "once-in-a-lifetime" sex test under the IOC's new policy would ensure that females only may now compete in the female category. Transgender women to be banned from female competition. As for those  in conditions of sexual development deviations, they too are outlawed from female competitions.  The field of female sports competition narrowed down to its most elemental and sensible condition of 'females-only', thank you very much.

 

A saliva cheek swab or blood sample test for the SRY gene is to be administered: "The presence of the SRY gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development", stated the IOC in explaining the reason for and the test thereof, of the vital new criteria. 

 

The World Athletics organization was first to introduce gene testing in the female category. When Algerian Imane Khelif won the women's welterweight gold medal for boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the controversy that erupted was telling, when a followup revelation reached the news that a DNA test revealed Khelif to be a biological male with XY chromosomes. 

 

Imane Khelif of Algeria (left) defeated Liu Yang of China to win Olympic gold in the women's 66-kilogram boxing event.  Maja Hitij/Getty Images

"I think it’s a shame that birth sex, or the gender you were assigned or thought to be at birth, is so enshrined in our legal and registration systems."

"Getting a gender marker formally changed on official records, identification, etc. can be a long and complicated process, requiring proof of surgery in some states, and even when a transgender person does succeed in getting a gender marker change, the marker can still put them at risk."

Sasha Carney, 24, transgender activist 

"What she [J.K. Rowling] said..."

"[The IOC decision is a] welcome return to fair sport for women and girls, but I'll never forget the scandal of Paris 2024, when people who consider themselves virtuous and progressive publicly cheered on men punching women."

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre