The City of Toronto is considering whether to remove the terms “male” and “female” from its online booking system.
The request was made by the city’s Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (2SLGBTQ) Advisory Committee during discussions about how best to update the gender categories used in the online form.
At a meeting on Tuesday, committee members said “highly harmful” terms such as male and female “should no longer be used” because they refer to “biological and reproductive” descriptions and should instead be replaced by the gender categories “man” and “woman”.
According to Kathleen Harquail, manager of Business Transformation and Change Management, who is overseeing the update, his comments echo those of the Toronto community.
The City of Toronto is considering whether to remove the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ from its online booking system
She added that the use of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ is in line with the city’s ‘recommended’ language.
Harquail also said her team had previously received requests from the 2SLGBTQ committee to remove “male” and “female” and replace them with “cis male” and “cis female.”
However, she explained that the categories ‘male’ and ‘female’ are currently hard-coded into the system and therefore cannot be changed.
But Jaber continued to insist that they should be removed anyway.
‘Any form of “female” and “male,” even though they are fixed in the system, when we talk about male and female, we are talking about biological and reproductive adjectives and adverbs and descriptions of people.
‘This kind of language is no longer used, we now talk about gender.
“We speak ‘man’ and ‘woman’, so as far as I’m concerned, ‘female’ and ‘male’ should absolutely be removed, no matter how sexualized they are.”
His comments were echoed by committee member Kay Mehrizi.
Jad Jaber, a member of the Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (2SLGBTQ) Advisory Committee, suggested using the terms “man” and “woman” instead
Fellow committee member Kay Mehrizi agreed, arguing that ‘male’ and ‘female’ put too much emphasis on biology
“As closely linked as the language of men and women is, they are incredibly damaging. It would be great if we could remove it and replace it with the more modern language of men and women,” she said.
Discussions are underway regarding changes to gender categories in Toronto’s recreation program registration system and facility booking system. The update is expected to go into effect in December.
Users of the system can optionally specify their gender for data collection.
Other recommendations from the commission included eliminating the “outdated” category of “transsexual,” as well as “female to male” and “male to female” in favor of “trans person” to avoid biological essentialism.
“The language of ‘trans’ or ‘trans individual’ encompasses those categories,” Mehrizi said. “So just stay away from male/female altogether.”
Kathleen Harquail, manager of Business Transformation and Change Management, said she was open to listening to the committee
The changes are proposed for optional gender categories in a booking system for the Toronto recreational facility
A suggestion was also made to add a free text box where users can enter their own gender identity.
However, the idea of removing ‘male’ and ‘female’ from the booking system has caused outrage online.
“I’m a woman, not a cis woman. If you can’t respect that, I can’t respect you,” one person wrote on Instagram.
“This is a joke here,” agreed another.
“It’s just crazy how this gets on someone’s priority list. Just do what you want to do and be what you want to be. Just don’t expect others to believe in something just because you do,” one person fumed.
Others, however, were less concerned about the proposed changes.
“Cis means you are the gender you were born with. It doesn’t mean anything else, it’s not that deep,” someone said.
DailyMail.com has contacted the City of Toronto for comment.