VANCOUVER—Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter says it will turn down important funding from the City of Vancouver because it does not want to change its policy that excludes trans people from many of its services.

City hall heard a number of heated presentations Wednesday night, during which trans people spoke against the organization receiving renewed funding from the city. Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, Pete Fry and Christine Boyle worked on a proposal, which passed on Thursday, that will compel the anti-violence support group to open up all of its services to include trans people or not get funding from the city.

Vancouver Rape Relief says it won’t budge.

“Rape Relief is strong enough and principled enough and has enough supporters in the community ... we will say no to that kind of money,” said Vancouver Rape Relief spokesperson Hilla Kerner, reached by phone before the motion was passed.

“I think it (the demand) is undemocratic and a very dangerous bullying move on behalf of councillors ... It says, ‘If you want the money, change how you operate, change your political principles, change your basis of unity.’”

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Reached after the council motion passed, Kerner confirmed the organization will not change its policy, and that it has received messages of support from people as far off as England.

The organization has been receiving public funding from the city for more than 10 years, Kerner noted.

The proposal to cut the funding — which came in the form of an amendment to an existing motion on grants — exists to protect and include trans people in services receiving public money.

“I am personally concerned that they’re limiting their services to focus on women who are born biologically women at birth, and not wanting to provide a full suite of services to trans women or other people who identify as women,” Councillor Kirby-Yung said.

The new rule says the city will give money to the organization for 2019, but it is considered “termination funding” until the organization changes its policies. The city will look to give that money in future years to organizations that offer similar services and are trans-inclusive.

The city has equality policies that seek to be inclusive of trans people in its services.

Kirby-Yung said she recognizes the importance of the Vancouver Rape Relief’s services, and said she hopes the organization agrees to change its ways.

According to a B.C. law passed in 2016, and a federal law passed in 2017, it is a violation of someone’s human rights to discriminate against them based on their gender identity or gender expression. The laws seek to protect people who are transgender or non-binary (which means they do not identity as a man or a woman) from being excluded from services or other aspects of society.

“I have a lot of heart for people, first and foremost, and I think that when anybody is in a traumatic situation (and has been assaulted) like that to then experience any further alienation from a lack of access (to services) is heartbreaking,” Kirby-Yung said.

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Morgane Oger, chair of the Trans Alliance Society, spoke at city hall on Wednesday and later told the Star she would like Vancouver Rape Relief to change its ways to become inclusive of trans people, and is disappointed that it is refusing.

Oger has spoken out against the organization in the past as well. In 2013 she was doxxed and she and her children were threatened by people who supported the organization.

“Vancouver Rape Relief has been the source of immense amount of personal pain for me. People protecting Vancouver Rape Relief, or thinking they’re doing so, have attacked me unacceptably and cruelly, year after year, for the advocacy that I and other people have been doing for decades,” she said, noting that while she has been doing this advocacy work for about five years, many trans people came before her.

Several other sexual-assault support groups in the city used to have trans exclusionary policies, but have since adapted to include trans people, Oger said.

“We don’t win by crushing our opponents. We really win as a society by bringing them in and getting them to change their ways. And my most sincere hope is that Vancouver Rape Relief is able to survive that change.”

Councillor Jean Swanson supported the motion.

“We have a policy that’s very clear around trans equality,” she said during discussion of the motion on Thursday afternoon.

Council should “be serious in implementing that,” she added.

“Funding from government ought to be at the highest level of ethics. I think that’s what people expect of us.”

Kerner explained that the organization specifically serves people who are born with female sex organs (cis women), and is not geared to those who transition their gender or sex to become a woman (trans women).

“Most of our services are based on that principle. Our consciousness raising work, our support group, our peer counselling work and that means that some of our services are not available to people who are not born female,” she said.

However, the organization says it will make sure that anyone who calls its front-line rape crisis line, regardless of their gender, is safe and accesses necessary resources.

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