OTTAWA—Impassioned appeals by two mothers of transgender youth and a federal promise that passports will soon reflect different gender identities marked the start of a final drive to outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression in Canada.

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould told a Senate committee studying the proposed law — to amend hate speech provisions in the Criminal Code and federal workplace protections in the human rights code — that it’s time to catch up to the provinces and territories, which have all enacted or introduced protections for transgender people.

Conservatives who said they supported the broad goal complained that Bill C-16 is too vague, will force people to use odd pronouns, confuse public bathroom usage and mess up Canadian passports.

But Melissa Schaettgen, mother of a 9-year-old trans girl and her twin brother talked about how her daughter was assaulted and her son held back from running for help while older kids yanked down his sister’s clothes to check her genitalia.

Schaettgen pleaded with senators to pass the bill to send a strong message to all Canadians. Some in her Catholic and conservative circle of family and friends even turned their back on them when they finally allowed her daughter to make “a social transition” to live as the girl she felt she was.

Schaettgen said she and her husband live in fear for their daughter’s safety every day. “We are terrified of what she faces, the discrimination, the harassment, the judgment. This is absolutely key to our children’s future, we’re fighting for our children’s lives. It’s not just some bill to us.”

Afterward, the 9-year-old, in a pale pink dress, and her twin brother spoke for themselves. “Not everyone agreed with the bill, but I feel like this bill is the right for me to live,” she said.

Shy in front of a wall of television cameras, she stammered and said, “People attacked me on the bus and I’m pretty sure it stops people, like people can’t do that to you and they can’t not give you a job . . . because you’re trans.”

The twin brother added, “It makes me feel like it has a bigger chance for her world to be better.”

“I think this is going to stop people bullying her and see different ways for their decisions. And I think that’s amazing,” he said, standing beside his mother.

The justice minister said no one should have to put up with the kind of verbal, physical and sexual violence and discrimination that drives many in the trans community to despair or suicide.

“Parliament has the opportunity to affirm, in clear language, that trans and gender diverse persons are entitled to equal protection from discrimination, hate propaganda and hate crime and that all Canadians are entitled to manifest their gender identity and expression without fear for their safety,” Wilson-Raybould said.

“What is going to be written in a passport? What kind of checks should be made before the passport is delivered?” asked Conservative Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais.

“Without question . . . we have work to do,” the justice minister admitted. “Simply ticking a box of male or female doesn’t accord with the intent that is in Bill C-16.”

She said the government is looking at “a third gender designation” and working with other departments on how to update government-wide policies.

Conservative Sen. Don Plett challenged Wilson-Raybould on whether she agrees with an Ontario human rights commission policy that says refusing to refer to a person by their chosen and proper personal pronoun is unacceptable and could amount to harassment or discrimination.

He asked whether people who identify as another race or age deserve similar protections, saying he’d met a “biologically male adult who identifies as a six-year-old girl.” He said the bill might infringe on the free speech rights of somebody, “an intellectual dissenter perhaps” who for personal, scientific or faith-based reasons might not believe there is “an infinite spectrum of genders.”

The justice minister said there’s nothing within Bill C-16 “that would compel somebody to have to call somebody by the pronoun ‘he’ or ‘she’ or otherwise.”

In most cases, public bathrooms in schools and other areas come under provincial jurisdiction, said deputy justice minister Bill Pentney. The bill would indeed provide for universal washrooms in federal spaces, but not in Parliament itself, which sets its own rules.

The justice minister said definitions and the extent of protections in the bill will be interpreted and fleshed out as human rights commissions and courts deal with discrimination claims on a case-by-case basis.

It wasn’t enough for Plett, who claimed others in the transgender community agree with him that “very clearly there are only two genders” and then there are people who “just happen to want to be the other gender.” He warned of a slippery slope which would compel the recognition of “70+ genders.”

“When you start putting other boxes in, where does that end? How many boxes are we going to put in there? I don’t think it’s a workable solution at all,” he told reporters.

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An 11-year-old trans girl, listened and raised her eyebrows as she listened to Plett. She said some senators didn’t have a “good understanding” of the bill.

“I think it’s very important for this bill to go through because people need and they should have the right to express the gender that they want.”

“Cisgendered people, they have all the rights to express themselves, and no one intimidates them about the gender that they choose. But for a lot of transgender people it’s hard to be able to express the gender of your choice without being intimidated or someone telling you that it’s not right to do it.”