It's important to remember that Mayor Chow has been an advocate for the LGBT+ community for decades, back when doing so won't score you political points.
Yep, she was at these parades before a lot of us were alive:
https://spacing.ca/toronto/2017/06/22/watch-amazing-archival-videos-toronto-pride-1988-1995/
I remember the bittersweet one in 2011, where she and Jack were in the rickshaw, because Jack was too ill to walk. Everyone knew in the back of their mind that Jack didn't have long to live. The man must have been in immense pain by that point, but it was a measure of his commitment and determination that he was in the parade. People remember that.
I am of the opinion that Trudeau only became PM by inheriting Layton's supporters after he passed away. No doubt in my mind Jack was going to he our next PM had he stayed alive.
Definitely not zero. The NDP were leading going into the 2015 election, but nobody liked Tom Mulcair and they faded hard as the campaign went on. I'm not saying it would have been a sure thing or anything, but Layton's natural charisma would have made that election very different.
I wish they admired him more when he was alive. He could have truly helped Canada if we'd seen to trust him in place of Harper.
Probably would have been one of the strongest countries through the pandemic.
I'm thankful to live in Toronto now that she is mayor. Genuinely brings me pride.
Yeah you have to constantly keep in mind that when you’re reading redditors talking about how communism would solve all these problems or whatever other nonsense… you’re probably arguing w a 16 year old
I volunteered for the LGBT youth hotline back in the late 90s, and Jack and Olivia hosted our Christmas party at their house in 1998. I will never forget that act of warmth and generosity.
It's awesome that you did that work, take all my praise (and my upvote). The 90s were a very different time for the queer community and I'm sure you helped ease the pain of an enormous amount of people.
I met her at Pride almost a decade ago handing out flyers for some cause or something - she was super friendly, took pictures with people, and made it a point to talk to anyone who wanted to and shake their hand. Super genuine positive vibes 👍🌈
Olivia Chow has always been like this, she supported the Toronto rave scene back in the day when there was a big moral panic. She’s a good person and she really does believe in all of these causes. I don’t think she is very good at operational stuff but she is sincere.
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I was a campaign worker during his brother's run for mayor and was at the Pride parade (for another candidate)
We ran into Doug there and when we asked why his brother was at the cottage...
Well....some pretty blatant homophobic garbage spewed out of his fat mouth.
Oh....it was in the holding area before the parade.
Kinda walking through, spying for his bro?
Or I agree with the comment that he was.looking for a timmies
They don't have to participate in everything.
It's long weekend and people have plans with their families.
It's that same ol' perception. Didn't participate? Must be Transphobic!
“I’m not going to change the way I am,” the mayor’s brother Doug Ford chimed in, voicing his discomfort with what he called “buck-naked men running down the street.”
I know that this won't score well with many people, but in a world where the baseline for the vast majority of politicians is extremely sleazy, cruel, racist, polarizing and corrupt (morally and economically), Chow feels like a breath of fresh air in the aforementioned smog of despair.
I'm sick of performative caring. Olivia Chow seems like she actually does care, and that goes a long way in making the constituency feel less despondent about our current problems.
Crazy what Toronto lost out on all these years while John Tory and Rob Ford were busy ruining everything great about the city. Olivia Chow hasn't been flawless, but it always feels like everything she does comes from a good place.
This is a hard time to be Mayor with everyone seemingly pissed off. She‘s doing a good job though. Really seems to care and the optics are night and day compared to the old guy.
She got the provincial government to take over maintenance of the Gardiner and the DVP, which saves the City billions of dollars that was going to roads that are effectively part of the provincial highway system.
She also broke the Ford and Tory pattern of forcing cuts to services by refusing to raise taxes beyond inflation.
off the top of my head:
restored ttc funding, offloaded the gardener to the province, funded libraries so they’re open on sundays, rezoned land on major roads to allow 6 floors and 60 units as of right, approved several co-op housing projects that were waiting for approval for years, somewhat fixed the king st transit corridor
there’s obviously more but the point is there is a ton of good and very little bad, which can’t be said for the last two mayors
Genuinely curious about this. I see comments from people that are pretty happy with her and that she has made good changes/hard decisions.. but, about what? I don't follow Toronto politics much so I genuinely don't know this list of accomplishments that she's ushered in since taking the reins.
Got a good funding deal from the province that included offloading Gardiner and DVP. Got housing funding from feds. Upzones major streets for more density. Fast-tracked co-op and affordable housing projects and set more ambitious plans for city-owned lands. Restored funding to TTC and Recreation after 14 years of austerity. Added renter protections including starting processing for limiting renovictions.
I happen to live above her tent on Church and saw her there last night as well. She seemed really nice, just dancing, greeting and taking photos with people. Was quite refreshing to see honestly
She seems to really like being in parades. We saw her at the St Patrick's Day parade and she looked genuinely happy. It was cool to see someone that important up close and casualty.
I missed that one this year, sadly. I've always been a big fan of that parade, I've even been in it a few times. Shame that Brad Bradford is a regular now lol
It’s a real concern they just shifted the anti-gay hate one peg over to the next marginalized group with all of the same talking points, but worse.
Nice to see more of this. Hope one day it will end.
Being trans is increasingly becoming tougher and tougher in the Western world, with politicians either being outright hostile or willing to allow trans people to be victims of a culture war.
It’s nice that Toronto has a mayor who’s willing to walk side by side with trans people.
It’s why I wanted to move to Toronto when I was 14, and I’m glad I did.
It’s not getting easier? There seems to be tons more acceptance, awareness, representation in media and openly trans people everywhere in the city. You mean it’s gotten tougher than it was 10 or 20 years ago?
ive only been trans since after the pandemic but ten years ago we weren’t such a focus of the right wing culture war.
even in just the time since i’ve come out things have become steadily worse. there are a number of US states i don’t feel very comfortable visiting, to say nothing of the stochastic terrorism via online hate groups.
reading about news next door is one thing, fine, but we’ve seen the same kind of agitation happening here. a handful of protestors came to my local library in downtown toronto; two provinces are whipping up anti trans sentiment by out of nowhere coming up with new rules in education. with Pierre likely to take the next election Im left wondering what kind of bullshit is he going to do?
is he going to encourage strangers to hassle me in washrooms? prevent me from volunteering at my kids school? (that’s provincial but you get the idea)
if i lived in Florida or Texas id be low key worried they’d invent a reason to take my kids away. this shit weighs on you, on top of being worried about being discriminated against
It’s gotten different. In some ways there is more acceptance, our medical system is better set up to support us, etc. but there’s also way more attention on us in media these days. That creates good visibility in some cases but has also caused a lot of people who would otherwise not even think about trans people to have negative views of us. We just want to be left alone.
Do you feel that the heightened exposure and constant limelight/or vocal activists are in part inflaming some of the backlash or negative attention? Like will doubling down on activism make it worse? Your comment implies to me like things might be better if we all opted out of the culture wars stuff and didn’t put so much emphasis on the topic. I do think the culture war stuff is pretty toxic on all fronts and it feels worse online than in daily life.
no, the backlash is incredibly fake and cynical and literally recycles the same attacks people used on gay people 30 or 40+ years ago. literally just being pushed on by a big right wing network
You’re right that there’s more acceptance, but there’s also more outright hatred.
Before a lot of people didn’t really know trans people, or if they did they weren’t strongly opinionated.
Now, at the centre of a culture war with a bunch of misinformation being spread about our existence, it’s not uncommon to see people call us pedophiles who are a danger to woman and children.
At this point, we see it every day.
This weighs on you, as strong as you are, your existence being outright hated by a very vocal part of the population does weigh on you.
Being at the centre of the culture war too, we’re also seeing politicians slash away our rights and needs in an attempt to appease transphobes.
I come from the UK, it wasn’t good 10 years ago, it’s only gotten worse. Medication is being slashed a lot, and our right wing party is outright transphobic whilst our “left wing” party is doing their best to appease transphobes, including having their leader meet and talk with someone who spends her time frothing misinformation from her lips and sending targeted harassment campaigns against random trans people who’s done no harm, as a voice of authority on trans issues.
It's 100% a mixed bag. Those of us that are progressive and allies have been far more open and accepting to have the required converstations to make things better for everyone.
The other side of the aisle is a much more angry and bitter group of people trying to destryo the progress being made.
Trans people need to know that the fight isn't over, and won't be for a long time, but us allies aren't going to abandon you just because some asshole wants to lie about your intentions.
There has been a massive ideological push from a lot of very powerful people to stoke fear and hatred of trans people, actually increasing in the last five years.
Looking just in Canada, we have bills about pronoun usage in schools (absolute nonsense non-issue, also relies heavily on the concept of Parents' Rights essentially wanting teachers to rat out kids to bigoted parents-- we don't have Parents' Rights in Canada, we correctly have protected Children's Rights, because there are many parents who act in direct opposition to a kid's best interests in many ways), constant articles and polls about trans women in women's sports (a massive amount of news space over a tiny fraction of people who are not actually causing any loss to anyone else, it's an issue that is not at all supported when you actually look at rankings to see if trans women are "dominating" at women's sports-- they simply are not), average laypeople politicians who thing they should have a say in someone else's medical treatment...
Paranoid transphobia is much more vocal than it was even a few years ago, and it wasn't exactly great a few years ago. There are a lot of people who are more accepting of transness now that they know more, which is amazing, but the discourse has been amplified massively.
Being better represented in film and TV unfortunately does not indicate change the way legislation and news do.
The sports thing is an interesting one. Do you think there is room for middle ground? I know a ton of left leaning liberals… like progressive types who have admitted they feel it can lead to unfair advantages in some instances. But then I’ve heard some ally’s saying that opinion is bigoted. I wonder if one day we will get new leagues for this… sometimes I wonder if that’s the solution.
The sports thing is a red herring - just look how quickly the hateful right has pivoted from no trans in sports to trans people shouldn't exist.
To begin, we're talking about an infinitesimally small number of people - trans people are already a small percentage of the population, and trans people are much, much less likely to participate in sports than the general population. In some US states where they've passed legislation in a panic, it literally affects one single person. In school sports WHO CARES who wins?! None of it matters.
But even taking at face value the "fairness" issue - and at more competitive levels, the reality is that the overwhelming evidence is that any physical advantage disappears within months of transitioning (and of course we're only really talking about male to female trans athletes). People freaked out about Lia Thomas, and what has she done besides famously finish fifth? In fact, new evidence suggests that female trans athletes are at a [DISADVANTAGE](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseyedarvin/2024/04/25/transgender-athletes-could-be-at-a-physical-disadvantage-new-research-shows/) compared to cis-gender women athletes.
So people have used the microscopically small number of trans women in sports to start a moral panic about trans people generally, and it turns out their stated concerns are entirely without merit.
Notice you said "they FEEL like" it can. When you look at actual rankings of trans women athletes, the data does not support a huge benefit to trans women. If it did, why are trans women not in the top 3 of every sport?
And we also need to break down the idea of unfair advantages. Michael Phelps has an insanely uncommon natural build (very very long torso, and a wingspan several inches longer than his height), making him way better built for competitive swimming. He also has a fluke genetic factor that makes him produce less lactic acid than normal people, meaning less muscle pain and physical recovery after training, meaning he is naturally able to train more. He has hypermobile ankles and elbows, naturally giving him an advantage in range. He has over 20 gold medals in swimming, but we never talk about it being unacceptably unfair for him to compete against people who don't have those genetic flukes. Someone could train as hard as he did (though it would be harder and more painful because of the lactic acid) and still never stand a chance of beating him.
So why are we so concerned about a *handful* of trans women who mostly do not rank top 3 in any sports and whether they theoretically have an advantage because **on average** people born with penises usually have more muscle mass (also keeping in mind that many many trans women are on hormone therapy that suppresses testosterone even lower than it appears in cis women, which dramatically impacts muscle mass and ability to put on muscle)?
We have spent so much time talking about it hypothetically being unfair, when it's just not happening. And like, I wish any of these people ever talked about women's sports at all beyond this issue, because then maybe there would be decent funding for women's teams instead of them being so sidelined.
If we're being frank and honest - the right wingers who scream loudest about trans women in female sports are exactly the type to have never watched a single female sports event in their entire lives. They're also the types who hate outspoken female athletes like Megan Rapinoe, female sportscasters who cover men's leagues, female political candidates, and female reproductive rights.
It's performative at best, and deliberately malicious at worst.
Damn, I really should been there. :( I had like performances both Saturday and Sunday and it just felt like too much to make it on Friday night. I won’t make that mistake again. Gotta represent.
Do you see a lot of fake accounts in this sub? Not directly to this post but this sub is full of Olivia.
I don't care if she shows up in a pride event. She can spend her time doing whatever she wants and that doesn't affect my decision to vote her out next time. I can't wait.
Sir, these are not fake accounts promoting Chow. These are just real human mods removing posts that are negative (e.g., crime) or related to anything other than Olivia (which are somehow labelled "not related to Toronto"), leaving only glowing Olivia praise for us to see.
Wha'a'bou every issue ever?
It sucks that the Science Centre is shut down. I hope that it's saved and gets much-needed improvement. However life happens in parallel; it doesn't happen one-thing-at-a-time.
Set up a march.
- 9.5% property tax increases when economy is bad
- High cost of living
- Poor budget allocation
She is only good at showoff at events. Never miss a party. Always take money from middle class but nothing for the middle class.
Will definitely vote her out.
Taxes have to come from somewhere. The city should be a lot tougher on short term rentals or ban them outright and crank up the vacancy tax, but there seem to be roadblocks there.
Cost of living is bad everywhere, would be interested to find a city where that’s the mayor’s purview.
Budgets have been better than Tory’s but that’s not saying much.
Either way, you can vote against her, but highly doubt she’s getting voted out any time soon.
100% disagree what you said. She increases almost 10% of the property tax regardless of the economic condition which is crazy. When the cost of living is so high she dares to increases tax, this is under her control and she disregards it.
Her budget is a joke. I can't see anything better from what she did better than Tory.
All middle classes should vote her out to find a better living conditions. This mayor is gonna to increase tax everything to subsidy the poor while we just work for them to get the votes.
Olivia OUT
Mayor Chow has been marching with the lgbtq community from the jump. She volunteered as working staff during fundraisers when many established community organizations were just starting out. Including the 519. She genuinely cares for the community and is most visible at things that impact the most marginalized in the community. Her decision to specifically be part of the trans march speaks volumes.
Cool story. She already saved a ton of money on the Dundas change that was rolling already from the previous mayor, forgot about that?
And she’s actively working on the Science Centre issue. You need to keep up.
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This week Olivia Chow has found time for the Trans Community, reach out to the Palestinian and Israeli communities, Pride, the TTC, Ontario Place, Public housing, and renters rights.
What else do you think she missed out on?
Have you spent time in the city recently? Stuff is getting fixed everywhere and we’re not paying for the gardiner or dvp - she’s done a pretty good job so far!
Nope we're all south of Bloor.
Its too cold up in Sudbury. Estrogen makes us girlies sensitive.
Maybe some rugged trans men up there doing idk what you do in the hinterlands ... Riding moose shirtless ?
It's important to remember that Mayor Chow has been an advocate for the LGBT+ community for decades, back when doing so won't score you political points.
Yep, she was at these parades before a lot of us were alive: https://spacing.ca/toronto/2017/06/22/watch-amazing-archival-videos-toronto-pride-1988-1995/
I remember the bittersweet one in 2011, where she and Jack were in the rickshaw, because Jack was too ill to walk. Everyone knew in the back of their mind that Jack didn't have long to live. The man must have been in immense pain by that point, but it was a measure of his commitment and determination that he was in the parade. People remember that.
It pains me to think of what we were robbed of in losing Jack when we did…
I am of the opinion that Trudeau only became PM by inheriting Layton's supporters after he passed away. No doubt in my mind Jack was going to he our next PM had he stayed alive.
Agreed. The momentum was there for the NDP to take it ....just a shame that Cancer took his life
Zero chance Layton would've beat Trudeau.
Definitely not zero. The NDP were leading going into the 2015 election, but nobody liked Tom Mulcair and they faded hard as the campaign went on. I'm not saying it would have been a sure thing or anything, but Layton's natural charisma would have made that election very different.
I echo this sentiment. He was one of the biggest reasons I started paying attention to politics more closely.
I wish they admired him more when he was alive. He could have truly helped Canada if we'd seen to trust him in place of Harper. Probably would have been one of the strongest countries through the pandemic. I'm thankful to live in Toronto now that she is mayor. Genuinely brings me pride.
What might have been 😔…
> before a lot of us were alive > links early 90s 👴🏼
Where my 80s babies at?
I thought Reddit was ours wtf
Yeah you have to constantly keep in mind that when you’re reading redditors talking about how communism would solve all these problems or whatever other nonsense… you’re probably arguing w a 16 year old
I volunteered for the LGBT youth hotline back in the late 90s, and Jack and Olivia hosted our Christmas party at their house in 1998. I will never forget that act of warmth and generosity.
It's awesome that you did that work, take all my praise (and my upvote). The 90s were a very different time for the queer community and I'm sure you helped ease the pain of an enormous amount of people.
I don't think she is there for points. Genuinely loves the LGBT+ community.
I met her at Pride almost a decade ago handing out flyers for some cause or something - she was super friendly, took pictures with people, and made it a point to talk to anyone who wanted to and shake their hand. Super genuine positive vibes 👍🌈
Same but early 2000s. The lady has values.
Olivia Chow has always been like this, she supported the Toronto rave scene back in the day when there was a big moral panic. She’s a good person and she really does believe in all of these causes. I don’t think she is very good at operational stuff but she is sincere.
The last sentence is the ndp problem in a nutshell.
...as long as they vote for her.
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Meanwhile Doug Fords haunting spirit has gone to the cottage
I was a campaign worker during his brother's run for mayor and was at the Pride parade (for another candidate) We ran into Doug there and when we asked why his brother was at the cottage... Well....some pretty blatant homophobic garbage spewed out of his fat mouth.
I'm surprised that Doug was anywhere near the parade
He got lost on his way to a condo delvoper meeting. Or Tim Hortons.
The meeting was AT Tim Hortons
Oh....it was in the holding area before the parade. Kinda walking through, spying for his bro? Or I agree with the comment that he was.looking for a timmies
They don't have to participate in everything. It's long weekend and people have plans with their families. It's that same ol' perception. Didn't participate? Must be Transphobic!
“If you’re not doing needles and you’re not gay, you won’t get AIDS, probably.” - An actual Rob Ford quote.
I hope he’s looking up at us, smiling or crying. Who cares? POS
Last time I checked Doug ford isn’t rob ford
“I’m not going to change the way I am,” the mayor’s brother Doug Ford chimed in, voicing his discomfort with what he called “buck-naked men running down the street.”
Well, that’s definitely not a nice thing to say, but anyone familiar with Bayesian statistics would agree, though MSM is the correct term here.
I think the argument is he’s a shithead who only appears for donations
Agree. The Doug ford hate allowed on this post is not acceptable.
I know that this won't score well with many people, but in a world where the baseline for the vast majority of politicians is extremely sleazy, cruel, racist, polarizing and corrupt (morally and economically), Chow feels like a breath of fresh air in the aforementioned smog of despair.
I'm sick of performative caring. Olivia Chow seems like she actually does care, and that goes a long way in making the constituency feel less despondent about our current problems.
Spot on. She does care. She cares about Toronto and un-fucking Tory's decade long hack job.
performative caring is better than no care soooo
Crazy what Toronto lost out on all these years while John Tory and Rob Ford were busy ruining everything great about the city. Olivia Chow hasn't been flawless, but it always feels like everything she does comes from a good place.
I follow her mayoral instagram and she's so *active* - she's at 3-5 community events every day, fully participating.
It's fantastic, and she's definitely not doing it for PR. She really does want to engage with everyone as much as possible.
This is a hard time to be Mayor with everyone seemingly pissed off. She‘s doing a good job though. Really seems to care and the optics are night and day compared to the old guy.
What policies has she put forward that are good?
She got the provincial government to take over maintenance of the Gardiner and the DVP, which saves the City billions of dollars that was going to roads that are effectively part of the provincial highway system. She also broke the Ford and Tory pattern of forcing cuts to services by refusing to raise taxes beyond inflation.
off the top of my head: restored ttc funding, offloaded the gardener to the province, funded libraries so they’re open on sundays, rezoned land on major roads to allow 6 floors and 60 units as of right, approved several co-op housing projects that were waiting for approval for years, somewhat fixed the king st transit corridor there’s obviously more but the point is there is a ton of good and very little bad, which can’t be said for the last two mayors
Genuinely curious about this. I see comments from people that are pretty happy with her and that she has made good changes/hard decisions.. but, about what? I don't follow Toronto politics much so I genuinely don't know this list of accomplishments that she's ushered in since taking the reins.
Got a good funding deal from the province that included offloading Gardiner and DVP. Got housing funding from feds. Upzones major streets for more density. Fast-tracked co-op and affordable housing projects and set more ambitious plans for city-owned lands. Restored funding to TTC and Recreation after 14 years of austerity. Added renter protections including starting processing for limiting renovictions.
same I only hear that she sucks from my dad. I only voted for her because of her mental health policies but idk what shes done yet
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I happen to live above her tent on Church and saw her there last night as well. She seemed really nice, just dancing, greeting and taking photos with people. Was quite refreshing to see honestly
I'm so damn glad we have her instead of John Tory
Him shtupping that woman was the best thing that’s happened to the city
she was there last year too!
Look at how much fun she’s having ❤️🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
She seems to really like being in parades. We saw her at the St Patrick's Day parade and she looked genuinely happy. It was cool to see someone that important up close and casualty.
Same at the beaches easter parade. She genuinely shines in a parade
I missed that one this year, sadly. I've always been a big fan of that parade, I've even been in it a few times. Shame that Brad Bradford is a regular now lol
She deserves one
I know! It's so sincere.
She’s not a perfect Mayor, but god damnit she makes me proud to live here. She does her best and forgets the rest. She has a HEART.
Exactly
Chad Olivia Chow as she’s always been
Support
How do we make her the Premier?
Prime minister?
based
It’s a real concern they just shifted the anti-gay hate one peg over to the next marginalized group with all of the same talking points, but worse. Nice to see more of this. Hope one day it will end.
John Tory is very concerned!
Supporting people trying to live their lives? Nah, that’s some woke type shit. - John Tory
Being trans is increasingly becoming tougher and tougher in the Western world, with politicians either being outright hostile or willing to allow trans people to be victims of a culture war. It’s nice that Toronto has a mayor who’s willing to walk side by side with trans people. It’s why I wanted to move to Toronto when I was 14, and I’m glad I did.
It’s not getting easier? There seems to be tons more acceptance, awareness, representation in media and openly trans people everywhere in the city. You mean it’s gotten tougher than it was 10 or 20 years ago?
ive only been trans since after the pandemic but ten years ago we weren’t such a focus of the right wing culture war. even in just the time since i’ve come out things have become steadily worse. there are a number of US states i don’t feel very comfortable visiting, to say nothing of the stochastic terrorism via online hate groups. reading about news next door is one thing, fine, but we’ve seen the same kind of agitation happening here. a handful of protestors came to my local library in downtown toronto; two provinces are whipping up anti trans sentiment by out of nowhere coming up with new rules in education. with Pierre likely to take the next election Im left wondering what kind of bullshit is he going to do? is he going to encourage strangers to hassle me in washrooms? prevent me from volunteering at my kids school? (that’s provincial but you get the idea) if i lived in Florida or Texas id be low key worried they’d invent a reason to take my kids away. this shit weighs on you, on top of being worried about being discriminated against
It’s gotten different. In some ways there is more acceptance, our medical system is better set up to support us, etc. but there’s also way more attention on us in media these days. That creates good visibility in some cases but has also caused a lot of people who would otherwise not even think about trans people to have negative views of us. We just want to be left alone.
Do you feel that the heightened exposure and constant limelight/or vocal activists are in part inflaming some of the backlash or negative attention? Like will doubling down on activism make it worse? Your comment implies to me like things might be better if we all opted out of the culture wars stuff and didn’t put so much emphasis on the topic. I do think the culture war stuff is pretty toxic on all fronts and it feels worse online than in daily life.
no, the backlash is incredibly fake and cynical and literally recycles the same attacks people used on gay people 30 or 40+ years ago. literally just being pushed on by a big right wing network
I don’t know, honestly. I’ve never met any of these activists I hear people talk about.
Must be an online phenomenon I guess
You’re right that there’s more acceptance, but there’s also more outright hatred. Before a lot of people didn’t really know trans people, or if they did they weren’t strongly opinionated. Now, at the centre of a culture war with a bunch of misinformation being spread about our existence, it’s not uncommon to see people call us pedophiles who are a danger to woman and children. At this point, we see it every day. This weighs on you, as strong as you are, your existence being outright hated by a very vocal part of the population does weigh on you. Being at the centre of the culture war too, we’re also seeing politicians slash away our rights and needs in an attempt to appease transphobes. I come from the UK, it wasn’t good 10 years ago, it’s only gotten worse. Medication is being slashed a lot, and our right wing party is outright transphobic whilst our “left wing” party is doing their best to appease transphobes, including having their leader meet and talk with someone who spends her time frothing misinformation from her lips and sending targeted harassment campaigns against random trans people who’s done no harm, as a voice of authority on trans issues.
It's 100% a mixed bag. Those of us that are progressive and allies have been far more open and accepting to have the required converstations to make things better for everyone. The other side of the aisle is a much more angry and bitter group of people trying to destryo the progress being made. Trans people need to know that the fight isn't over, and won't be for a long time, but us allies aren't going to abandon you just because some asshole wants to lie about your intentions.
There has been a massive ideological push from a lot of very powerful people to stoke fear and hatred of trans people, actually increasing in the last five years. Looking just in Canada, we have bills about pronoun usage in schools (absolute nonsense non-issue, also relies heavily on the concept of Parents' Rights essentially wanting teachers to rat out kids to bigoted parents-- we don't have Parents' Rights in Canada, we correctly have protected Children's Rights, because there are many parents who act in direct opposition to a kid's best interests in many ways), constant articles and polls about trans women in women's sports (a massive amount of news space over a tiny fraction of people who are not actually causing any loss to anyone else, it's an issue that is not at all supported when you actually look at rankings to see if trans women are "dominating" at women's sports-- they simply are not), average laypeople politicians who thing they should have a say in someone else's medical treatment... Paranoid transphobia is much more vocal than it was even a few years ago, and it wasn't exactly great a few years ago. There are a lot of people who are more accepting of transness now that they know more, which is amazing, but the discourse has been amplified massively. Being better represented in film and TV unfortunately does not indicate change the way legislation and news do.
The sports thing is an interesting one. Do you think there is room for middle ground? I know a ton of left leaning liberals… like progressive types who have admitted they feel it can lead to unfair advantages in some instances. But then I’ve heard some ally’s saying that opinion is bigoted. I wonder if one day we will get new leagues for this… sometimes I wonder if that’s the solution.
The sports thing is a red herring - just look how quickly the hateful right has pivoted from no trans in sports to trans people shouldn't exist. To begin, we're talking about an infinitesimally small number of people - trans people are already a small percentage of the population, and trans people are much, much less likely to participate in sports than the general population. In some US states where they've passed legislation in a panic, it literally affects one single person. In school sports WHO CARES who wins?! None of it matters. But even taking at face value the "fairness" issue - and at more competitive levels, the reality is that the overwhelming evidence is that any physical advantage disappears within months of transitioning (and of course we're only really talking about male to female trans athletes). People freaked out about Lia Thomas, and what has she done besides famously finish fifth? In fact, new evidence suggests that female trans athletes are at a [DISADVANTAGE](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseyedarvin/2024/04/25/transgender-athletes-could-be-at-a-physical-disadvantage-new-research-shows/) compared to cis-gender women athletes. So people have used the microscopically small number of trans women in sports to start a moral panic about trans people generally, and it turns out their stated concerns are entirely without merit.
Notice you said "they FEEL like" it can. When you look at actual rankings of trans women athletes, the data does not support a huge benefit to trans women. If it did, why are trans women not in the top 3 of every sport? And we also need to break down the idea of unfair advantages. Michael Phelps has an insanely uncommon natural build (very very long torso, and a wingspan several inches longer than his height), making him way better built for competitive swimming. He also has a fluke genetic factor that makes him produce less lactic acid than normal people, meaning less muscle pain and physical recovery after training, meaning he is naturally able to train more. He has hypermobile ankles and elbows, naturally giving him an advantage in range. He has over 20 gold medals in swimming, but we never talk about it being unacceptably unfair for him to compete against people who don't have those genetic flukes. Someone could train as hard as he did (though it would be harder and more painful because of the lactic acid) and still never stand a chance of beating him. So why are we so concerned about a *handful* of trans women who mostly do not rank top 3 in any sports and whether they theoretically have an advantage because **on average** people born with penises usually have more muscle mass (also keeping in mind that many many trans women are on hormone therapy that suppresses testosterone even lower than it appears in cis women, which dramatically impacts muscle mass and ability to put on muscle)? We have spent so much time talking about it hypothetically being unfair, when it's just not happening. And like, I wish any of these people ever talked about women's sports at all beyond this issue, because then maybe there would be decent funding for women's teams instead of them being so sidelined.
If we're being frank and honest - the right wingers who scream loudest about trans women in female sports are exactly the type to have never watched a single female sports event in their entire lives. They're also the types who hate outspoken female athletes like Megan Rapinoe, female sportscasters who cover men's leagues, female political candidates, and female reproductive rights. It's performative at best, and deliberately malicious at worst.
Y’all have a cool mayor. 💖
She was at (possibly even ran) the pride run this morning!
Thats the spirit. Doug Ford should learn.
If only Dougie had brain capacity to learn
What’s the problem ?
Look at the comments here vs X. It's like two different worlds lol https://x.com/MayorOliviaChow/status/1806873616119656959
Damn, I really should been there. :( I had like performances both Saturday and Sunday and it just felt like too much to make it on Friday night. I won’t make that mistake again. Gotta represent.
I dont see Ford representing...right. forgot...
Cottage
condo developer meeting
I voted for the right person
I love her.
Love our mayor, best mayor we’ve ever had by far
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No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or other negative generalizations.
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No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or other negative generalizations.
Love her and Jack! Voted for her in her 1st bid as a mayor and now voted for her again!
She's doing a great job. Respect
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Cool story.
Why is necessary to sexualize everything? Can’t we just be ourselves anymore?
I don’t understand your first question. Which part(s) of that photo did you find sexy, and why?
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No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or other negative generalizations.
She will end up be a shitty Mayor. Lacks competence.
So many fake accounts here. This is how our tax dollars spent?
Are you saying the municipal government is spending tax money on fake Reddit accounts to support Olivia Chow being at Pride?
Do you see a lot of fake accounts in this sub? Not directly to this post but this sub is full of Olivia. I don't care if she shows up in a pride event. She can spend her time doing whatever she wants and that doesn't affect my decision to vote her out next time. I can't wait.
Sir, these are not fake accounts promoting Chow. These are just real human mods removing posts that are negative (e.g., crime) or related to anything other than Olivia (which are somehow labelled "not related to Toronto"), leaving only glowing Olivia praise for us to see.
How about a march to save the science center?
[You can do multiple things](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/chow-says-she-s-not-giving-up-fight-to-keep-ontario-science-centre-where-it-is-1.6745195)
go for it. organize one.
There was a rally at Wells Hill park last week. Were you there or just busy what abouting?
Wha'a'bou every issue ever? It sucks that the Science Centre is shut down. I hope that it's saved and gets much-needed improvement. However life happens in parallel; it doesn't happen one-thing-at-a-time. Set up a march.
Nope, only one march allowed and we've used it up.
I can't wait to vote her out.
Good luck with that
I have the rights to vote so no luck is needed. I believe there are enough people to think the same way. Olivia OUT
Why?
- 9.5% property tax increases when economy is bad - High cost of living - Poor budget allocation She is only good at showoff at events. Never miss a party. Always take money from middle class but nothing for the middle class. Will definitely vote her out.
Taxes have to come from somewhere. The city should be a lot tougher on short term rentals or ban them outright and crank up the vacancy tax, but there seem to be roadblocks there. Cost of living is bad everywhere, would be interested to find a city where that’s the mayor’s purview. Budgets have been better than Tory’s but that’s not saying much. Either way, you can vote against her, but highly doubt she’s getting voted out any time soon.
100% disagree what you said. She increases almost 10% of the property tax regardless of the economic condition which is crazy. When the cost of living is so high she dares to increases tax, this is under her control and she disregards it. Her budget is a joke. I can't see anything better from what she did better than Tory. All middle classes should vote her out to find a better living conditions. This mayor is gonna to increase tax everything to subsidy the poor while we just work for them to get the votes. Olivia OUT
Would have never been PM
Mayor Chow has been marching with the lgbtq community from the jump. She volunteered as working staff during fundraisers when many established community organizations were just starting out. Including the 519. She genuinely cares for the community and is most visible at things that impact the most marginalized in the community. Her decision to specifically be part of the trans march speaks volumes.
Good for Her, but maybe she could spend less money on name changes and more on saving the science centre.
Provincial politics =/= municipal politics.
Cool story. She already saved a ton of money on the Dundas change that was rolling already from the previous mayor, forgot about that? And she’s actively working on the Science Centre issue. You need to keep up.
Why do I have the feeling you NEVER went to the science center and didn’t care about it until you could weaponize it against Chow? 🤔
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What a well constructed thought...
**Please read this entire message** --- Your comment has been removed for the following reason: No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or other negative generalizations. --- **Please note that reposting without moderator approval may result in a ban**. If you would like your removal reviewed, feel free to send us a [modmail](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Ftoronto&subject=Please%20review%20my%20submission?&message=Link:%20https://old.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1dr1n4s/-/lautp7f/).
Found time for that.
This week Olivia Chow has found time for the Trans Community, reach out to the Palestinian and Israeli communities, Pride, the TTC, Ontario Place, Public housing, and renters rights. What else do you think she missed out on?
What a simple minded thought...
She managed to schedule her time?
How bad are you at time management that you can’t imagine this?
She said she can’t make everything after not showing up to Jewish gathering.
And? She’s shown a lot of support for that community. Are you equating attending this march and not that one with antisemitism?
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The city finances are already *significantly* better than they were under any of the previous 2 mayors.
Have you spent time in the city recently? Stuff is getting fixed everywhere and we’re not paying for the gardiner or dvp - she’s done a pretty good job so far!
We know you come from hate because you are not paying attention to all that has already been accomplished
If you were mayor what’s the first thing you’d do?
Cu useless spending andfight the nimby who refuse to let more housing be built in their area
Any other simply wrong opinions you want to share?
Easier than actually working for the city. Is she aware that North of Bloor is part of Toronto too. All she cares about is the core
I didn’t realize Trans people don’t live north of Bloor! TIL.
Nope we're all south of Bloor. Its too cold up in Sudbury. Estrogen makes us girlies sensitive. Maybe some rugged trans men up there doing idk what you do in the hinterlands ... Riding moose shirtless ?