The proposed addition of \u201cgender identity and expression\u201d\u009d carries that transformation even further by suppressing the binary logic itself. Backers of these bills often make no attempt to disguise this. \u201cOne of the great myths of our culture,\u201d\u009d insists the Canadian Labor Congress, \u201cis that at birth each infant can be identified as distinctly \u201d\u02dcmale\u2019 or \u201d\u02dcfemale\u2019 (biological sex), will grow up to have correspondingly \u201d\u02dcmasculine\u2019 or \u201d\u02dcfeminine\u2019 behavior (public gender), live as a \u201d\u02dcman\u2019 or a \u201d\u02dcwoman\u2019 (social gender role), and marry a woman or a man (heterosexual affective orientation). This is not so.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
The standard notion of sex, then, must be replaced by the more malleable concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity. And I do mean must. Here in Quebec a recent government white paper promises to wipe society clean of both homophobia and heterosexism\u201d\u201dthat is, of any \u201caffirmation of heterosexuality as a social norm or the highest form of sexual orientation [and of any] social practice that conceals the diversity of sexual orientations and identities.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
What this will mean in the long run for the legal protection of women remains to be seen, of course, but we can\u2019t have it both ways. Sex cannot serve as an effective legal marker for discrimination if its binary nature dissolves into fluid sexual subjectivities. In that sense, these bills constitute unfriendly amendments to the civil and criminal codes they purport to refine or perfect.<\/p>\n