George Smitherman gets my vote

Tipped off by a friend, I went to see George Smitherman speak at the University of Toronto this morning. He was the opening speaker at Healthy Queer Communities, a one day free conference on Queer Studies in Education, put on by OISE (the education faculty).

I must be a little heated up about this SRS + CAMH situation. I've been fighting depression and low productivity for years, and suddenly, within the space of three weeks, I've written a lengthy letter to the Health Minister, and gone guns-blazing to the CAMH "support" group. And now I found myself pedaling sweatily over to Bloor and St. George at 9 am (!) to put the Health Minister on the spot, in person.

He was well prepared. He touched on several topics. When he began addressing trans rights and access to SRS, he tried to proactively address the community's concerns by talking about Sherbourne, and about how many people felt that it was the leader in trans care, and how he envisioned it as a "Centre of Excellence" for trans care (it already is, so far as I can tell), and felt that eventually, it would have a place in the gatekeeping scheme for trans care like SRS.

It's not hard to tell why he's a successful politician. That is one charismatic, slick man. Likable, and slick. He'll be around for a while. I'm delighted to have him on my side (the queer side).

I want to take a moment to paint a picture of how queer-positive Ontario is right now. It is SO exciting! This morning, the (gay) Minister of Health for my province, with a population of more than 10 million people, spent time talking about trans health care, and about the province launching research programs to better understand the needs of queer communities. He said "there seem to be more people identifying as trans today, so far as I can tell." He has an informed personal opinion on the prevalence of transness. He talked about how proud he was personally of getting SRS funded.

I was so pleased that I almost let him off the hook.

The first question was from another trans woman. I know her first name was Susan, and her credentials included sitting on the board of the Rainbow Health Network. She was fairly effusive too. I think she cited some ongoing concerns, but she spent more time itemizing all the queer-positive things he had accomplished.

He smiled and joked that since the province has queer Health and Education ministers, 69 cents of every tax dollar flows through queer hands. The queer community has the ear of the province, he said. Ontario seems to have been reading its Florida. Being queer-positive is sound strategy, politically.

Finally, I stood up and thanked him for funding SRS, explained that I had written to him, and that I had had a bad experience at CAMH, and was concerned about the idea of giving them more power over trans people. I asked him for a timeline for the initial implementation of the funding, and for the promised reform of the gatekeeping function (and the way trans care is handled in the Province overall).

"The initial implementation is already complete" he announced, to scattered applause. It was exciting to hear. It IS a reality.

He could offer no timeline for the research and reform of trans care in Ontario. He promised that they would happen, but the details clearly haven't been worked out. I will write him to remind him that if they aren't worked out before his tenure ends, they may never be worked out.

He frankly admitted that he needed to include CAMH in any resuscitation of SRS funding, because that was the way it had been before it was delisted. He promised to renew the Gender Identity clinic at CAMH.

I jumped back up to the mic to chip in:

"I think renewing CAMH is criticial! I was at the trans support group there last week to see what their standards would be. Maxine Peterson, the only full-time resource--this is not a big organization--explained to me that she had been there 26 years, and that their policies were not going to change. So they're quite proud of their 26 years of rigidity over there."

The woman in front of me was laughing. He smiled, and said "well I'm a very persuasive person," and then something to the effect that he would find a way to make this work.

I was nodding the whole time. He seems to already have the bare bones of a strategy in place: re-list SRS as it was, renew CAMH, research changing trans and broader queer community health needs, and implement some sort of strategy based on that research.

It sounds like exactly what we need. I wonder if we'll get it. I don't live in Smitherman's riding, but I will be voting Liberal in the next election. My home is adapting to make room for my people :).