WATCH ABOVE: A Montreal-based group fights to get transgendered youth and kids’ rights recognized by the Canadian government
MONTREAL – When she was just two years old, Elijah knew that her body didn’t match the way she felt on the inside.
“I started feeling like I was a girl,” said Elijah.
“At three or four I started asking my mom for wigs because my hair was still very short.”
Elijah says she still clearly remembers the day her mother came home with a shopping bag – “she was smiling slyly” – and gave her her first wig.
It was the best present she had ever received because, all of a sudden, she felt slightly more comfortable with who she was.
The courageous eight-year-old and her mother, Kimberley Manning, spoke with Global Morning News anchor Camille Ross about their fight for transgender rights in Quebec and across Canada.
“There was not one moment,” says Manning about her son telling her that he felt like a girl on the inside.
“It was many, many, many months and I’d say even years of observing Elijah and her interests and her self expression.”
Manning says she was worried for Elijah’s safety when she started kindergarten.
“I was kind of worried … knowing that kids tend to go after other kids whose gender expression does not conform to the norm,” she says.
“My foremost concern was how to protect her from being bullied.”
After much research, Manning discovered there were not many resources for families of transgender children. That’s when she founded Gender Creative Kids, a group that provides resources to support transgender children within their families, schools and communities.
It, along with with many other transgender advocacy groups, wants the federal and the provincial governments to change the rules when it comes to protecting transgender youth.
One of these is to have gender identity protection in the Charter of Human Rights, which would include installing transgender bathrooms in all public facilities – something the group has already brought to the Senate’s attention under Bill C-279.
“Bathrooms are among the most difficult spaces for transgender people,” says Manning.
“Unfortunately, the Senate’s decision was that they were going to add additional amendments, including one that would not provide protection for transgender people in same-sex spaces like bathroom.
“It wasn’t only a disappointing decision. It was an insult.”
Though transgender youth are at a higher risk of experiencing violence, bullying and even suicide, Manning insists she’s staying optimistic that things will change.
“In the meantime it is hard,” she says.
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