Photo Courtesy of Kelsey Savage & John Woods, Real Talk

On paper, Alison Klein is a serious academic with a master’s in interdisciplinary studies focused on adult education and disability. Meet her at one of the Real Talk’s free public events (affectionately known as “pizza parties”), and she’ll be the first to greet you as a peer facilitator and make a joke—sometimes with anatomically correct models at the ready.

“I go, ‘Look, a present’, and then just walk away,” says Klein with a smile. “I have kind of a funny side.”

Founded and managed by sexual health educator John Woods, Real Talk is an initiative based in Metro Vancouver that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Woods has worked in community living spaces, schools, and sexual health organizations since the early ’90s, both in Canada and in London, UK. He saw the urgent need for sex education tailored to the IDD community, and a slew of intersectional barriers rooted in eugenics. Now, in between pizza parties and Q&As, Real Talk works with the community living sector to support providers and those with cognitive disabilities.

“Step five is getting the public to acknowledge and affirm that folks with intellectual disabilities could be LGBTQ,” explains Kelsey Savage, Real Talk’s project developer. “Step zero is the general population believing that folks with intellectual disabilities have a sexuality at all.”

Since its founding in 2017, Real Talk has grown to include both certified sexual health educators and peer facilitators with lived experience, ensuring its initiatives are driven by community needs. While the disability rights rallying cry “nothing about us without us” has existed for decades, Real Talk remains one of the few accessible sex-positive resources that centre self-advocacy. It provides an extensive library of YouTube videos addressing common questions around sexuality and disability. Savage also oversees Connecting Queer Communities (CQC), a social group for 2SLGBTQIA+ folks with cognitive disabilities to connect across the Lower Mainland both in person and online. People often attend both Real Talk and CQC events, and several have joined Klein as peer facilitators themselves. As facilitators, honouring education and community could mean helping someone explain orgasms to their partner one day, and being with someone’s deepest traumas the next.

“It’s happened a number of times at our events, where people have discovered they’ve been taking birth control and it’s been called a vitamin, or they’ve had an IUD and they didn’t consent to it,” says Savage. “There’s already a lot in the room before you step into it.”

As Real Talk works across communities to expand its outreach, what’s needed to ensure the future of good sexual health education is clear: government-sponsored education and publicly funded accommodations and support so people with cognitive disabilities have an equitable pathway to become sexual health educators. “I want to ideally work myself out of a job,” teases Savage.

“Earlier, I was mostly around staff and disconnected from my community,” Klein says. “I hope Real Talk is a starting point, and that sex education can be taught in schools to kids from all different backgrounds, so they all have a frame of reference [for] each other.”

Collage by Valerie Thai

Isabella Calahoo-Zeller was attending eighth grade in Alberta when she received sex education for the first time. It consisted of a YouTube video about consent, and not much else. “We didn’t really get much on what a penis looks like, or what a vulva looks like,” Calahoo-Zeller says. “We never got the birth video that you hear so much about. So for me, I was like, what is this?”

Calahoo-Zeller is one of many young people in Alberta, and across Canada, who have been left wanting more from the sex ed experience offered in schools. Research by the Sex Information & Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN) has shown that 82.5 percent of young people across Canada see sex ed as a basic right for all.

These results come at a time when political and popular support for sex education seems to be shifting. Across the country, some parents, who claim to be advocating for parental rights, have been extremely vocal in their distaste for comprehensive sex ed, especially content focused on 2SLGBTQIA+ identities. According to Statistics Canada, about four percent of the population identifies as 2SLGBTQIA+. This means that if queer and trans-related content is left out of sex ed, many young Canadians won’t be receiving essential information about their health.

In Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick, trans and nonbinary young people’s rights in the education space are on a backslide. New policies by the United Conservative Party, the Saskatchewan Party, and the Progressive Conservative Party respectively around the use of changed names and pronouns, as well as sex-ed access, are increasing the number of hoops through which young people have to jump to be recognized as their authentic selves and access resources made to support them.

“You’re already struggling in surviving to be yourself. How can you ask for help when the help doesn’t want to help you, right? I think it’s really a struggle right now being a trans person,” says Calahoo-Zeller, who is Two Spirit.

The benefits of receiving comprehensive sexuality education have been proven by science, and they’re not just about healthy and safe sex. From a violence prevention perspective, sex ed is key because it builds knowledge and understanding of bodily autonomy. It can be the first place children who are being abused learn that what’s happening to them is not okay. The health and safety aspect of sexuality education is essential, but that’s no less true of learning about gender identity, self-expression, and the full spectrum of human relationships.

“Historically, sexual health education focused on issues related to problem prevention. It has been focused on the needs of heterosexual, cisgender, white youth primarily, and focused on preventing unwanted pregnancies and preventing sexually transmitted infections,” says Jessica Wood, research and project development lead at SIECCAN. “It’s really important to understand that sexual education is not just learning about safer sex and reproduction, but should be a comprehensive approach to learning about sexuality and bodies and relationships, personal and interpersonal well-being, gender and sexual diversity, and values and rights.”

Because education falls under provincial jurisdiction, sex ed experiences are known to vary widely across Canada. Approaches can differ even between classrooms in the same school, as educators have different levels of comfort and training in delivering this knowledge. This means some students get all of the details, while others are left in an unfortunate state of ignorance. And it’s not just their own openness to the topic that educators must negotiate with: the volume of anti-trans rights rhetoric can also affect the classroom.

But, according to Janani Suthan, the comprehensive sexuality education program coordinator at the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the perception that support for comprehensive sex ed is decreasing isn’t always rooted in reality. “The majority of parents, in the grand scheme of things in Canada, are supportive of their children learning about their sexual health in schools, and learning it holistically and comprehensively,” they say. “But the people that are against this are very loud and very proud about it, and are mobilizing.”

Wood also says it’s a small minority of people who are actually against students learning this critical information. Advocacy against comprehensive sex ed, led by groups like 1 Million March 4 Children and Parents for Choice in Education, are often well organized and well funded. Religious and political interest groups have a strong hand in the work of such organizations.

The spread of misinformation and disinformation about sex ed on social media has contributed to the movement. “And so when we hear about this often, it may seem as if more people are not supportive of comprehensive sex ed,” Wood explains. “We find that a lot of people actually are, but we just don’t hear that coverage as much.”

This disproportionate coverage of dissenting voices leads to the spread of myths about sexual health, sex education, and queer and trans experiences. “They don’t want youth to know about gender, [or] sex,” says Suthan. “They are fearful of youth having knowledge, of youth having skills to understand themselves better.”

If queer and trans experiences aren’t taught as part of sex ed curriculum, that leaves young people vulnerable. Since sex ed is a health and safety issue, it is reasonable to expect that all students should have equal access to it. “It’s suicide prevention, it’s mental health care. It’s everything, because a lot of issues end up linking to sexuality and relationships,” Suthan says. “It’s very much necessary for everybody.”

For those who are supportive of sex ed in the classroom, it has never been more important to speak up for young people’s right to access information. “If you can advocate, advocate. If you can’t, that’s okay,” says Suthan. “Show up for your kid.”

Sharing knowledge with young people can help to build acceptance and understanding, some of the most important parts of living a fulfilled life. “Community is where I found more information on being Two Spirit,” says Calahoo-Zeller. “You get to understand yourself and also other people… we don’t have secrets. There’s nothing to hide.”

Photo by HAPPYRICHSTUDIO via Adobe Stock

When I learned I had precancerous lesions on my cervix and that my doctor was recommending I remove them surgically, my reaction went as follows: One, muted panic. Two, I’m definitely going to die. Three, Wait, what does that even mean?

So I did what anyone in possession of an Internet connection in 2021 would do: I went online to do my own research. The Internet confirmed what my physician had told me: the procedure, called a loop electrosurgical excision procedure, or LEEP, is a common one, in which a heated wire is inserted into the vagina to remove the offending cells.

I also found a host of women complaining of unexpected side effects. One article, in Cosmopolitan, was particularly concerning, full of stories of post-LEEP sexual dysfunction from women who had fully healed, yet who were unable to orgasm, feel pleasure during penetration, or have pain-free sex.

I mentally rehearsed the discussion I’d had with my gynecologist. He hadn’t warned me about any of this, which worried but did not surprise me. He had seemed more concerned with protecting my ability to get pregnant, even though I had repeatedly told him I was uninterested in bearing children. With scant scientific literature available—studies on post-LEEP outcomes were mostly focused on the procedure’s efficacy in preventing cancer, as well as pregnancy outcomes—it felt impossible to assess whether these risks were real. Was I about to subject myself to a procedure that might save my life, but at the cost of one of the things that brought real joy to it?

*

The disconnect between our experiences with medical professionals and what women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB) hear from our peers has been a central concern for feminist health activists for decades. When it comes to understanding what’s going on with our bodies, who can we trust?

For much of the twentieth century, the health-care system overtly treated AFAB people as unable to make decisions about their own bodies. Contraception was not decriminalized in Canada until 1969, and limitations on abortion were struck down even later, in 1988. Birthing people often had to endure labour alone, without partners present, and without the freedom to decide on pain relief options. Many women were ignorant of even the basic anatomical realities of their bodies.

In the 1960s and ’70s, activists dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by a misogynist health-care system, regressive laws regulating their bodies, and chauvinist doctors began to organize. They formed self-help groups, opened community clinics, and ran underground abortion networks. They performed vaginal self-examinations using a speculum, a flashlight, and a mirror.

What became known as the women’s health movement was grounded in a belief in empowering women with access to information about their own bodies and their sexual and reproductive health that was being denied to them by licensed health-care providers. In the U.S., the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective published revolutionary health-education text Our Bodies, Ourselves in 1970. Inspired in part by that text, a Canadian group called Women Healthsharing launched a quarterly magazine, which ran from 1979 to 1993 with a mandate to “take health out of the hands of the experts and return it to our own collective and individual hands.”

“The media landscape for women’s health information and feminist health perspectives in particular was dismal” at the time, says Connie Clement, founding managing editor of Healthsharing and longtime public health activist.

Healthsharing featured a mix of experts and lay writers reporting from across the country. “We always tried to write for lay women and women who had training in health. And I think it was a huge success for us that we had nurses and doctors contributing and reading, and we had women who had no special knowledge,” Clement says.

The subjects of Healthsharing ’s coverage were wide-ranging. In the inaugural issue, collective members Madeline Boscoe and Kathleen McDonnell penned a piece exploring birthing options in and out of the hospital, in response to feelings of “powerlessness, ignorance, and alienation from our bodies and our surroundings” in childbirth. Multiple issues reported on the use of Depo-Provera, a controversial contraceptive with potentially serious side effects. One column crowdsourced health information from readers (“We are trying to find out more about cervical caps in Canada,” read one callout). Other stories, like a piece on the labour conditions of garment workers, looked at the wider social and economic status of women in Canada.

This kind of education was key to both the women’s health movement and to second-wave feminism more broadly, grounded in the belief that knowledge was a precondition for enacting social change. “The whole feminist health movement was trying to change the social context of women’s health, [and] the structural conditions that influence health,” says Clement.

While it may seem like we are lightyears away from people not knowing what their own vulvas look like, as I peruse archival copies of the magazine over 30 years later, I am struck by how many articles overlap with current hot-button topics. The desire to balance “expert” medical opinion with the layperson’s experiences, the critical questioning of controversial pharmaceutical solutions, the attention to broader social, economic, and political conditions: it’s all in those pages, and it can be bittersweet to see how many issues are still relevant today, a testament to how slow progress can be in these contexts, and how easy it can be to roll it back, especially when we forget what has come before us.

*

I came of age in the 2000s, long after the era of the Women Healthsharings and vagina colouring books of women’s lib. I instinctively shied away from the diet-centric, fatphobic content in teen girl magazines. Thankfully for me, there was an entire ecosystem of feminist writing I could turn to online which shared both individual women’s experiences and fact-based reporting on our health. From blogging platforms Tumblr and LiveJournal to linchpin publications Bitch and Jezebel to private and semi-private groups of people with the same issues, for a while it seemed like the Internet could deliver on the promise of creating networks of knowledge in ways that mattered, filling the gaps where traditional media failed.

But by the time I was doing a deep dive on LEEPs, the online landscape had transformed entirely—in no small part because of social media, especially TikTok. The short-video sharing platform has become a major source for health information, especially for young women. In 2024, a survey study in the journal JMIR Infodemiology found a majority of U.S. women between 18 and 29 used TikTok for health information. Users post about vaginismus, birth control, orgasms, squirting, perimenopause, endometriosis, fibroids: I could go on. Some of these videos are created by health professionals, but many AFAB people post in the spirit of helping others through sharing their own experiences.

When I type in “birth control” on TikTok, the results are as follows: a “wellness”-focused woman encouraging natural planning, i.e. tracking your menstrual cycle to understand when you might be ovulating; a self-described nutrition coach listing ways the pill supposedly “robs us of our health;” and a sex educator responding to a question about birth control that doesn’t involve hormones.

In some ways, this knowledge ecosystem seems like an outcrop of the activist efforts of yore, grounded in information-sharing between peers and often using the language of increased bodily autonomy. Topics like hormonal birth control’s effects on the body are sometimes grounded in
legitimate concerns. Although these contraceptives are both considered safe overall and highly effective at preventing pregnancy, rare life-threatening complications can occur. There is research investigating the link between birth control and chronic inflammation that can lead to cardiovascular problems, blood clots, and mood disorders. Meanwhile, for methods like intrauterine devices (IUDs), for example, some report extreme pain during insertion, feeding into concerns that women and AFAB people’s pain is being dismissed by health-care providers.

More problematically, however, discussion online about birth control can quickly veer into right-wing misinformation territory, inflaming fears in an effort to get people to abandon contraceptive use altogether.

And in countries like a post-Roe U.S., where some states are increasingly implementing restrictive abortion laws, the stakes of an unwanted pregnancy can be high, says Dr. Jenny Wu. Wu is a medical resident in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke’s School of Medicine; she studies women’s reproductive health information shared on TikTok.

“It’s a complex conversation to navigate with my patients, when they tell me they don’t want hormonal birth control and they want to do natural family planning in a state where we have limited abortion access,” shares Wu from her home in North Carolina, which in 2023 banned abortions after 12 weeks with limited exceptions. (Both surgical and medication abortion is legal in Canada and free to those with access to territorial or provincial health care.)

Wu says the level of misinformation propagated online about reproductive health is contributing to increased levels of distrust from her patients overall. This climate makes it more difficult for Wu and other doctors to have these conversations about proper gynecological care, but it also can mean people don’t go see her at all, don’t receive proper care, don’t get the contraceptives they need or access to screening tests to detect potentially life-threatening diseases. But mistrust of the health-care system, especially for at-risk populations, is nothing new.

*

Underlying the relatively recent phenomenon of online misinformation is the much longer, checkered history of gynecological medicine. In Canada, abusive medical practices like the forced sterilization of Indigenous women are ongoing. Meanwhile, many AFAB people and racialized people feel their symptoms are routinely downplayed or dismissed by health-care providers. It’s not hard to understand why some people would want to avoid the medical system altogether.

Tracey Lindeman is a longtime Canadian journalist and author of BLEED: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care. Endometriosis, in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere in the body, is notoriously under-researched, misunderstood, and underdiagnosed, which can lead to years of pain and suffering for those living with the condition.

“Endo is a super lonely disease, because you just feel like no one can really understand you and how much pain you’re in,” Lindeman, who lives with endometriosis, shares. For endo patients, frustrating repeated encounters with the medical system can feel more like gaslighting than care. In BLEED, Lindeman writes about asking her boyfriend to write a letter confirming that they didn’t want children in order for her request for a hysterectomy to be taken seriously. Another woman she speaks to experiences a pelvic exam so rough she files a sexual assault complaint; others still are denied referrals to a specialist or have their requests for pain relief dismissed.

Online groups can be a boon to these patients. There are thriving communities, like Nancy’s Nook Endometriosis Education on Facebook, with roughly 213,000 members, that offer a network of information and crucial support—and, just as importantly, the knowledge that those going through this are not alone.

But health influencers hawking cures of dubious provenance and efficaciousness feed off the need of those who turn to the Internet to self-manage their health. Much of the content paints itself as “natural,” implying it is better than “chemical” remedies. Looking up videos about LEEPs, I immediately stumble upon an account that is selling a course on how to “naturally” clear human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer. Another “plant-based health” account shares a video about how “chemicals” cause endometriosis and that you can heal it without hormonal or surgical intervention. These accounts are selling supplements, creams, and cycle trackers, all ways to supposedly take control of your own health or body.

Many of these solutions are obviously farfetched; others have a “science-y” veneer of plausibility about them. But for those people who have been ignored, traumatized, or abandoned altogether by formalized health care, these options may feel like the only solution.

“[The wellness industrial complex] is capitalizing on desperation,” says Lindeman. “People are desperate for help, they’re desperate for answers, and they’re not getting that help, and they’re not getting those answers the conventional way, and so they become really vulnerable to online influencers and online [gynecologists] who are proposing information that lets them maybe try to manage it themselves.”

Enduring racism and sexism in the health-care sector; traumatic personal experiences when seeking treatment; the explosion of influencers promising to help reclaim power over your own body: these all feed into one another so that AFAB people delay the treatment they need, suffer needlessly, and even die younger. We need ways to circulate accessible, evidence-based information, both from other women and AFAB people and medical professionals, which build momentum to tackle these much larger problems together, instead of isolating us even further.

*

A year after my diagnosis, I sat in a Montreal-area hospital, clad in a medical gown and socks, clutching a small piece of yellow paper. I didn’t feel like I had all the information I needed to make a decision about whether to have the LEEP, so I had scribbled down a list of questions for my doctor.

But I was called into the OR with no chance to speak to the doctor beforehand. Instead, I was ushered onto the operating table. As he applied local anesthetic to my cervix and inserted the wire into my vaginal canal, I asked him: “So… should I be worried about any sexual side effects?”

“No, no, I have never heard of this,” he replied.

With the loop still inside me, he rattled off what to expect post-surgery. In a daze, I heard the words “heavy bleeding.” “So a lot of bleeding afterwards is normal?” I asked. “No! Go to the ER if you start bleeding,” he repeated.

The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes. I stumbled off, the yellow paper crumpled and unused.

For a long time after the procedure, I felt confused and irritated at myself for not being a better self-advocate. I could have refused to undergo the procedure if I wasn’t satisfied with the level of information I had been provided. Why hadn’t I been able to say what was on my mind?

Sharing my story helped, because I started to realize just how common LEEPs were. It helped assuage my fears that I was necessarily on the road to cervical cancer. Reading accounts like those from Lindeman, who experiences doctor anxiety after a lifetime of poor medical encounters, helped reassure me that I wasn’t alone.

Is sharing stories online enough to take control of our health? In some ways, yes. The Internet has become a lifeline for many Americans seeking medication abortions. Lindeman says journalists pay attention to what is being said online and amplify concerns to a wider audience.

Meanwhile, after finding that the majority of videos about IUDs on TikTok mentioned pain, Wu shifted the way she practices: “I [now] offer patients something for pain before any IUD placement and really before any gynecological procedure.” In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States’ public health agency, even updated its recommendations for IUD insertions to include discussions of pain management.

And in 2023, a year after my own LEEP, a study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine was published exploring healthcare providers’ limited knowledge of post-LEEP sexual dysfunction and the resources patients used to cope—potentially the first ever study to look at the difference in patient and health-care provider perspectives when it comes to LEEP treatment. It found that there was “misalignment” between the two and recommended not only further research into sexual dysfunction symptoms, but also better education and training for providers, and better support for patients who do have negative outcomes.

These are heartening indications that when you share your health experiences, people are listening. The question remains: how do we translate these types of discussions into improving health outcomes for all AFAB people—especially when research into health problems that affect us is still underfunded?

It starts with finding ways to pair networked knowledge with collective action, because the power of social media is ultimately limited. “It’s the personalization of systemic problems,” points out Lindeman. “[You’re] continuing to focus on what you can do as an individual, instead of attacking the systems that are responsible for such a deficit in care.”

Social media may give us the reassuring impression of solidarity. In reality, it is atomizing, incentivizing a competitive attention economy; a billion voices speaking over, but not always to, one another. The collectives of the women’s health movement knew that to build power, you must do it together, through communities of care.

Perhaps we have to start by relearning that lesson–even if it means tearing ourselves away from our phones.

The store has now moved to an all-ages format, eliminating the sexually explicit videos and magazines, says Taylor in an e-mail to This.

Venus Envy has locations in Ottawa and Halifax. The shops are trans-affirming. The stores also sell books and health products around safer sex, in addition to toys, and also offerworkshops on sex education. As its website says, “Anyone who’s turned off by traditional sex shops will find us a welcoming and informative place to get cool and sexy stuff.” On October 9 Venus Envy started a Pay it Forward Campaign, offering free binders and gaffs (similar to a jock strap) through their shops. This is possible through donations (which you can make here). “We’ve had a lot of interest in our new Pay It Forward campaign that was sparked by this whole kerfuffle,” says Taylor.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

When the mammoth pharmaceutical company Bayer announced in 2009 that it would be making NorLevo, a morning-after pill, available over the counter to women in Toronto, it failed to mention one small detail: it doesn’t work for every woman.

The drug, which is identical to Plan B One-step, (the more popular emergency contraception pill), may not be effective for women who weigh over 176lbs, according to HRA Pharma, the French manufacturer of NorLevo. The decision to investigate the pill’s efficacy was made on the heels of research done in 2011 by Anna Glasier, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research showed that levonorgestrel, the progestogen used in most emergency contraceptives, including Plan B and NorLevo, was ineffective for women with higher body mass index

One might infer that, with such strong evidence, health advisors here in Canada would be hastening to revise the packaging, in the interest of not misleading certain women. Especially when the particular drug has such momentous implications on a woman’s life. But it’s been all crickets and tumbleweeds at Health Canada, who hasn’t yet attempted to update its literature on the drug.

Scarier still is to think that, had HRA Pharma not released the information in Europe, Glasier’s research could have gone blissfully ignored altogether. Women deserve better transparency than this—when it comes to their bodies, when it comes to the choices they make. Information is power, and in this case, it’s sad to say, power has been eschewed for profits. We can only speculate how many women, over 176lbs, took the pill misguidedly and wondered why it didn’t work.

The story, over the past few days, has been swimming around other sites and blogs. If you know anyone whom this might affect, don’t wait for the big pharmaceutical companies to break the news—share the info. With a matter this consequential, it’s best to be as informed as possible.

-Slavoj Zizek

As we all move slowly into the second week of October, grabbing thicker jackets on our way out the door, wearing chunkier socks, drinking hotter beverages, we can see that in nature things are starting to change—leaves are rustier, grass is sparser and the last, desperate bees try for warmth indoors. Fall has this kind of grey realism about it—people mean business now. And as fall begins, the fall of corrupt institutions, kleptocratic governments and social inequities are given a chance to follow suit. After all, they have—as the leaves—worn out their welcome.

October has always been a month of protests: In 1917, the Bolsheviks led a revolt on Petrograd, beginning the first Socialist state; in 1969 the “Days of Rage” protestors took to the Chicago streets to voice their opposition to the Vietnam War; in 1990, Germany officially reunified after its Berlin wall came down; and, less commendably, in 1970, the FLQ kidnapped James Cross and Pierre Laporte in Montreal, executing Laporte.

However they manifested themselves, whether they were ultimately good or bad, the undercurrent in each of these protests was the same—something is wrong, and so something needs to change. Let’s kick off October by looking at this week’s protests (by no means is this a comprehensive list; it’s merely a smattering; feel free to add, in the comments section below, anything that I’ve missed!).

Idle No More

On Monday, Idle No More called a Global Day of Action to remember the October 7^th signing of The British Royal Proclamation in 1763, which legally mandated Canada to recognize Indigenous land rights. Groups across Canada convened to make their voices heard, and many people added videos to the Idle No More website showing support.

Shawn Atleo discusses the day’s significance:

250 years later, Indigenous peoples continue to struggle for sovereignty, especially against large-scale projects such as…

The Pipelines

Idle No More’s October 7 protests, in addition to remembering the Royal Proclamation, took aim at Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, as well as the 14 other new or expanding oil and gas pipeline projects in Canada.

Torontonians meanwhile took to a concert near Finch station on October 6 to call attention to Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline, because, as you can see here, the pipe runs right through Toronto, (something Enbridge would rather we didn’t know).

Also, on October 9, protestors in Montreal disrupted the National Energy Board hearings on the Line 9 project, interrupting those speakers who supported the pipeline. Young protestors launched loudly into stories about a fictional “Mr. Enbridge”, making it difficult for the pipeline to be promoted.

Quebec had more than a pipeline to oppose though, as protestors continued to show their indignation over the misguided…

Charter of Values

On Sunday October 6, around 200 demonstrators in Quebec City gathered to again remind us all how ill-considered the Quebec Charter of Values—that proposed ban on noticeable religious symbols on public sector workers—really is. Adil Charkaoui, the Muslim leader who also organized September’s 5,000-strong protest in Montreal, led the demonstration.

Here’s a video from the protests (okay, this video is not October, it’s the September 29 protest. But hey, it’s the same astrological sign, so let’s watch it.)

Where and how people publicize their religion continues to be a source of contention, but I think we can all agree on when religion is used incorrectly. I speak of course about…

Westboro Baptist Church

Get Shot, a U.S. punk band, protested the WBC’s draconian anti-gay dogma this week in a rather unlikely way: They filmed a porno. Laura Lush, the group’s bassist, was filmed stripping and masturbating on the organization’s front lawn in Topeka, Kansas. She said, in a comment on Facebook, “As a bisexual woman and the bass player of a ridiculous punk band, I wanted to spread my legs and cause controversy.” The video, should you wish to see it, is somewhere on this site (NSFW).

And in other nude protest news…

Spain’s Anti-Abortion Plans (link: NSFW)

Activists for the feminist group FEMEN broke into a Parliamentary session in Madrid on Wednesday to voice opposition to the conservative government’s proposed abortion law reform, which would limit women’s access to abortions. FEMEN (NSFW link) is known for their topless protests, having staged them in such enclaves as the Vatican, the London Olympics, and a “Topless Jihad” in front of the Great Mosque of Paris.

As I said above, if you have any more to share, or if you have a burning opinion you just can’t hold onto much longer, feel free to drop in the comments section below!

The change took effect July 22, and marks a drastic departure from the organization’s previous policies concerning blood donation from the MSM category of donor, a blanket term used to describe gay men and other males who have, at any point in their lives, had sex with men.

Before the policy change, if a potential male donor had had sex with a man since 1977, he couldn’t give blood. Now, the deferral time is five years—a donor who falls into the  MSM category can give blood if he has had absolutely no sexual contact with another man for at least five years.

This can be interpreted as a step in the right direction. Certainly, Canadian Blood Services would like us to think so. In a press release announcing the change Dr. Dana Devine, VP of Medical, Scientific and Research Affairs at the organization said: “It’s the right thing to do and we are committed to regular review of this policy as additional data emerge and new technologies are implemented.”

In fact, we are still smack dab in the middle of the spectrum—the National Blood Service in the U.K. has a deferral time of one year. In the U.S., if a man has ever had sex with a man he can’t give blood, though the American Red Cross and other U.S. blood donation services have called for a change to 12 months, saying there is no reason why those who fall under the MSM category should be banned from donation while those with similar sexual practices are not.

Canadian Blood Services tests all donated blood for HIV and other transmissible illnesses before it becomes available for transfusion, and HIV testing can detect the virus as early as three weeks after infection—so why the five year deferral?

Canadian Blood Services will point to statistics to justify the restriction: Those in the MSM category still make up a large portion of both those living with HIV and the newly diagnosed. As of 2011, 46.7 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS in Canada were MSM, as were 46.6 percent of new infections.

While these statistics can give pause, they’re still not enough to justify the five-year wait period. The U.K. blood donation service changed its policy to one year in 2011, after a review of blood donor selection criteria determined a lifetime exclusion for men who’ve had sex with men wasn’t medically justifiable.

What’s more, in Canada the deferral time is only one year for those who engage in heterosexual sex with someone who is HIV positive.

Let’s put it this way: if a woman had sex with an HIV positive man, she could potentially give blood 12 months later. In Canada, if a man has had sex with any man, HIV-positive or not, he can’t give blood for five years. That, to put it bluntly, is discrimination, not protection.

Photo: http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/new-female-sex-drive-drug-tested-5172215

It’s been 14 years since the erectile dysfunction pill Viagra hit the market, and it seems like women are finally close to getting one, too—in the form of a nose spray.

The product, called Tefina, is a testosterone gel that gets sprayed up the nose and absorbed within minutes, with effects that could be felt within hours. Aimed to combat Female Orgasmic Disorder (FOD), also known as anorgasmia, Tefina is “a bioadhesive ‘no touch’ intranasal low-dose gel formulation of testosterone.” From the company Trimel, the spray is designed for “use as required” treatment, and has virtually no androgen-related side effects like acne, hair growth, and voice deepening. It also is not expected to have risk of testosterone transfer from skin-to-skin.

The drug, which intends to increase orgasms for females, is being tested in Australia, the United States, and even Canada, where Health Canada recently approved the trials. Australian researchers are aiming for 240 pre-menopausal women, aged 18-49, to participate in this Phase II Ambulatory study. Canadian enrollment sites are expected to be up and running in the next 30 days, with actual product ingesting done at the patient’s home instead of in a hospital.

There seems to be a lot of heat surrounding the race to put a female equivalent of Viagra on the market, as is outlined in Liz Canner’s 2011 documentary Orgasm Inc. It’s not even just a question of what the most effective product will be, but also if it’s possible that a drug that can make women orgasm more often, and furthermore, if there’s even such a medical condition in the first place. As Jezebel reported, Orgasm Inc. asks whether Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) “will be an umbrella diagnosis for women who’ve never been stimulated properly, and questions the ethics of the companies who are more than willing to keep women in the dark about their own bodies in order cash in.” Still, Dr. Fiona Jane of Melbourne’s Monash University was quoted as saying that “female sexual dysfunction is a real thing” and thinks “up to 43 percent of women suffer from some form of sexual dysfunction.” According to a Trimel press release, FOD affects approximately one in five pre- and post-menopausal women worldwide.

This process has been a long and arduous one, and it still doesn’t have an end in sight. And, it still seems as if people are glossing over the larger issue here, which is weather or not there is even a disorder that can be dealt with in the first place. Are women really suffering from a dysfunction of some kind, or have they just not been pleasured in the appropriate way for their body (as a male friend of mine announced the other night, “Yo, all girls are different”)? Sexual pleasure is a complicated matter, and it’s not uncommon for women to have a harder time reaching climax in sex than men. The results from Tefina’s testing will be much anticipated, and probably, very interesting—regardless of which direction they sway. In the meantime, women will keep having sex, and hopefully, exploring the ways in which they can experience pleasure.

“Is a drug gonna help them?” asks Carol Queen, from the Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum, in the Orgasm Inc. trailer. “Maybe if it has a map of the clitoris on the box.”

Stopping in various cities and towns on their way to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the women spent their evenings hearing the stories of other women so they could share them with the government. The women’s efforts helped inspire others across our country, establishing solidarity in the pro-choice movement.

This event has been deemed as one of the most under-appreciated rebellions in our country’s history. It helped pave the way for the 1988 Supreme Court decision to rid to country of all existing abortion laws. The Supreme Court’s ruling of Regina v. Morgentaler, found the Criminal Code of Canada was unconstitutional, because it violated women’s rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The debate today is vastly different than that of 1988.

On May 29^th, the New Abortion Caravan set out on their very own—very different—cross country tour. A group from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, consisting almost entirely of individuals under the age of 30, has a contradicting message to the initial Abortion Caravan of 1970.

According to their website:

Over 3 million Canadian children have been brutally dismembered, decapitated, and disembowelled through abortion. Our taxes pay for this grotesque human rights violation. In fact, the Canadian government has gone so far as to pay for Canadian women to go to the United States to have late term abortions. The “pro-choice” movement has prevailed in every area imaginable.

In 1970, the Abortion Caravan heralded the arrival of a great injustice.  But in 2012, the New Abortion Caravan will make the victims of Canada’s abortion holocaust visible to the entire country. The New Abortion Caravan will signal the beginning of the end of Canada’s greatest human rights violation: The wholesale, state-funded slaughter of the youngest members of our society.

The anti-abortion campaign has taken up a new approach through the use of social media and extreme graphic imagery which has grabbed the attention of a number of youth across the country. A movement typically involving more religious overtones and compiled of an older generation, the new face of the anti-abortion debate is younger than ever.

The little coverage the New Abortion Caravan has garnered thus far has not been about the message, but rather the medium in which they have chosen to spread it. The group has been questioned about their tactics: using large cube vans plastered with horrific images of aborted fetuses.

Some of the women connected to the original Abortion Caravan are disgusted with the ploy to mimic their original movement. Margo Dunn who took part in the 1970s said in an interview with the CBC: “They can do what they want. What I don’t like is the connection to something that I think is considered one of the major actions that cause progressive social change in Canada.”

Stephanie Gray, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform also sat down with the CBC. She said the reasons for using such graphic imagery is to make it visible and to make the topic intolerable.

The images being used are truly intolerable and visible—to everyone whether they like it or not—but at what cost?  It’s rather difficult to justify the use of such images, to exploit a dead fetus to simply add shock value to a message.

Certainly, people have the right to freedom of speech. Yet, abortion itself is a very private matter. The action cannot be looked at in the broadest sense of the word—most abortions do not yield from the same circumstances, every case is different in its own right. An individual can make their own decision. It is a health and medical issue, in which a woman has the right to make her own decision about her own body.

Whether for good or ill, however, the abortion debate in Canada is not ending any time soon. If we are to have a debate, we should strive to make both sides of the debate  respectful. There needs to be some kind of line drawn; without it there is no telling how far shock value may go. Children do not need to see dead fetuses as they walk downtown with their parents; they do not understand or even need to understand at such a young age. Most children don’t know about the birds and the bees. What is the purpose of bombarding them with this?

When the New Abortion Campaign comes to any town, the CCBR will have achieved part of its goal: residents will be hard-pressed to avoid the massive billboard campaigns. But images like these distract. People are not taking about pro-life and pro-choice, and all the nuances of the debate. They are talking about images. Whatever could be gained from the re-opened abortion discussion is lost behind the graphic nature of the billboards. What we are lacking is what we need most: a civilized debate, absent of disturbing language and imagery, where the public can clearly understand both sides—and make informed opinions.

Woodworth, a Conservative backbencher, recently proposed a private members motion to reopen the conversation on Section 223(1) of the Criminal Code, which states a child does not become a human being until it has “completely proceeded” from the mother’s body. The motion was quickly denounced by the opposition as well as the Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper said in a recent question period that he does not want the abortion debate reopened and he would vote against any move to do so. Many of Harper’s supporters at the rally were frustrated with his recent remarks and disappointed that a Conservative PM supposedly has no intention of supporting a bill that would restrict abortions.

Any time the word abortion enters into conversation in the media, or really anywhere, very strong public opinions—both for and against—come along with it.

I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. The anti-abortion rhetoric, to me, is a violation against women’s rights. If this country were ever to allow restrictions to be implemented on a women’s choice over her own body, we would be taking one giant leap backwards.

However, debate today is greatly different than in 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled to not put any legal restrictions on abortions. At that time, the Supreme Court’s ruling of Regina v. Morgentaler, found the Criminal Code of Canada was unconstitutional, because it violated women’s rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With advancements in medical screenings the debate is no longer just a yay or nay discussion; it has become much more complex.

Major advances in science and maternal healthcare means genetic counselling is now a growing medical field. Through screening and family history, doctors are more capable than ever when it comes to determining if a child may be born with Down syndrome or have a predisposition to a variety of illnesses. What happens when we reach the point when we can find out with certainty that a child will grow up to have Parkinson, ALS or Alzheimer’s? Is it humane to let the fetus survive only to live a life of unspeakable pain and suffering? Female feticide is a regular occurrence in  China and India where boys are the preferred sex—and is now occurring in North America. Should parents be allowed to choose the sex of their child?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. Nobody does. But based on our advances in science and technology the abortion debate will only become more difficult as we move forward—new science-made options in family planning have generated a whole new avenue for heated argument.

The ongoing debate around not having the abortion debate within the House of Commons only confuses matters. The conversation needs to be reborn. We currently have no laws around abortions and it’s about time we enacted policy to officially protect women’s rights.

As Andrew Coyne wrote in his April 27th column for the National Post: “Possibly, after a full and open debate, we might decide we wished to continue to have no abortion law—by policy, rather than by default. That is how a democracy decides such questions. It does not leave them to a tie vote of the Senate.”

We live in a democratic society where issues are openly discussed and voted on by the individuals we have elected into power. Would it be wrong or dangerous to reopen the discussion? I strongly doubt it.  It would be wrong and dangerous not to reopen the debate in a democratic nation. By not allowing this to be discussed within the House of Commons, it would sent a precedent that could prevent other major issues from seeing the floor. We live in a progressive country, a country where church and state are separated, and I think there are enough sound minded individuals who can make the right decision.