Canadian Man Convicted of Murder Wins Right to Spend Life in Women's Prison as Transgender
A man who identifies as a woman and is serving a sentence for first-degree murder is now allowed to spend the rest of his life in a British Columbia women's prison.
The inmate, Fallon Aubee, who was convicted in 2003 for a gang-related killing, will be transferred to a women's prison Tuesday, according to CBC News.
Aubee, whose first name was Jean Paul, will be among the first federal prisoners to be transferred after policy changes at Correctional Services Canada that allows such transfers based on gender identity and not biological sex, Jennifer Metcalfe, a spokeswoman for the West Coast Prison Justice Society, was quoted as saying.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"It's a really big deal," she said, and added, "I've had a number of transgender women prisoner clients who have been held in men's prisons and who faced a lot of day-to-day discrimination, such as name calling and harassment from both correctional staff and other prisoners."
Aubee has been working for about a decade to shift to a women's prison.
Last month, Canada's Senate passed a law against the use of wrong gender pronouns, which critics said would allow authorities to charge those who deny gender theory with hate crimes leading to imprisonment, fines or "anti-bias" training.
Bill C-16 passed by a vote of 67–11 in June, more than a year after being introduced and adds protection of gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Code and includes them within the protections provided by the hate-speech and hate-crime provisions of the criminal law.
"In Canada we celebrate inclusion and diversity, and all Canadians should feel safe to be themselves," Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said in a statement after the bill was passed. "Trans and gender diverse persons must be granted equal status in Canadian society, and this bill makes that status explicit in Canadian law. … The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that everyone can live according to their gender identity and express their gender as they choose. It will protect people from discrimination, hate propaganda and hate crimes."
Canada's Campaign Life Coalition group criticized the bill. "This tyrannical bill is nothing but social engineering to the nth degree, all in the name of political correctness," its vice president, Jeff Gunnarson, told LifeSiteNews at the time.
"Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of 'shield' to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth," the group's senior political strategist Jack Fonseca said.
Also in June, Ontario province passed legislation that allows the government to seize children from families that refuse to accept their child's chosen "gender identity" or "gender expression."
Jack Fonseca, senior political strategist for Campaign Life Coalition, said, "With the passage of Bill 89, we've entered an era of totalitarian power by the state, such as never witnessed before in Canada's history. Make no mistake, Bill 89 is a grave threat to Christians and all people of faith who have children, or who hope to grow their family through adoption."
Weeks later, the Swedish government said it is also considering including "gender expression and identity" into its existing hate crime legislation.
"This is a special vulnerable group, which has been exposed to hate for a long time," Sweden Justice Minister Morgan Johansson said.
