Last Thursday, I spoke to you about a text from National Post on a Supreme Court justice, Sheilah Martin, who, in a ruling, used the term “person with a vagina” rather than the word “woman.”
I made a connection with Justin Trudeau who made the whole world laugh by saying that we should say “peoplekind” instead of “mankind” because it was more “inclusive”.
Some people say that I raised my leg hair for nothing and that the National Assembly erred in condemning the Supreme Court’s choice of words.
Well at the risk of making even more enemies, I persist and sign.
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Black on white
Here is what Madam Justice Martin wrote in paragraph 109 of the Kruk decision:
“When a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty to having experienced penile-vaginal penetration, the trial judge must be able to conclude that she is unlikely to be mistaken.”
Unless I have lost the use of my tongue, Ms. Sheilah Martin writes, in black and white, “person with a vagina” instead of “woman.”
People may think that “there is nothing there”, I persist in saying that it is astonishing that woke Newspeak has contaminated even the highest court in the country.
And as a reader told me who, like me, read the Kruk decision, yes it is true that the word “woman” appears 67 times in Ms. Martin’s text (which would “prove” that the judge does not is not against the use of this word), but…
At least 29 of the 67 times the word woman appears are in the summary of the judgment (which is written by professionals other than judges), in the title of an association, in Justice Rowe’s concurrent reasons, in the title of a bibliographic reference, etc.
And to this number, we should also add the number of times Judge Martin uses the word woman because she quotes an extract from the reasons of the Court of Appeal or the court of first instance…
Photo taken from X, Supreme Court of Canada
A minority within a minority
I imagine that if Justice Martin uses the term “person with a vagina” (only once, okay, but in my opinion, once too many), it is because for her, this term would be more inclusive for “non-binary people” and transgender people who have vaginas…
That would be like saying that we must stop drawing human beings with two legs and two arms (on pictograms, for example) because some are born without legs and/or without arms…
Yes, people who call themselves men have vaginas. But can we agree that they are exceptions… exceptional? That they do not yet represent the rule? That they constitute an extremely minority within a minority?
Are we going to change our entire way of speaking – and the way we portray and design our world – for 0.001% of the population?
Are we going to completely stop using the word “woman” to please a handful of radical activists?
That’s the question that arises with this story…
And to this question, I answer No.
Without any shame.