The change in how we are collecting information is a reflection of how the idea of gender has shifted and is an important contribution to social justice. 

Western civilization is founded on the notion that gender is binary. Individuals were born with either female or male genitals that defined their sex, and thus, their gender.  Anyone who did not align with their sex assigned at birth, or who did not align with heterosexism was considered deviant (Renn, 2010). This deviance was historically described as a disease (Levin, 2019), a behaviour that violated fundamental religious beliefs (Renn, 2010), or a criminal act (Lugg & Murphy, 2014). Individuals who were labelled by society as sexually deviant were either treated for their pathology, incarcerated, or ostracized from society, and sometimes all of these together (Spade, 2014). Those defined as deviant have been subject to many forms of violence and indignity (Nicolozza, 2017).  Those included in this definition were lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) or otherwise known as the Queer community. These individuals have lived with intense cultural hatred and have dealt with medical, legal, and political oppression (Lugg & Murphy, 2014; Nicolozza, 2017). 

Members of Indigenous communities and anthropologists have long argued that the western understanding of gender is rigid and is not shared by many Indigenous cultures. In Canadian and American Indigenous cultures there were individuals who were identified as two-spirited, a term that recognizes the intersection of identity, and includes sexuality, gender, culture, community, and spirituality (Wilson, 1996). This notion has helped to advance the understanding that gender is socially, and politically constructed in western society. Further gender research throughout the 70’s and 80’s increased the visibility and legitimacy of non-heteronormative genders (Renn, 2010; Lugg & Murphy, 2014).  

The human rights movement of the 60’s and 70’s advanced many rights-based agendas including the rights of the Queer community. The removal of homosexuality from the criminal code in Canada in 1969 was a result of the shift in social values in Canadian society and removed the criminality of homosexuality (Kimmett & Robinson, 2001). In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but replaced with a lesser pathology that indicated homosexuals were still in conflict with their sexuality and thus needed to be treated (Burton, 2015).  It wasn’t until 1987 that homosexuality was completely removed from the DSM (Levin, 2019). These changes alongside a ground swell of activism, and an increase in gender-based research contributed to the paradigm shift related to gender. It helped to define the differences between sex assigned at birth, gender identity, gender expression and sexual preference (Scott & Dennis, 2017).   

More recently, Canada has experienced several changes that have furthered the gender-diverse agenda. In 2016, Canada passed Bill C16 which added gender expression and gender identity as protected grounds to the Canadian Human Rights code and to the Criminal code related to hate propaganda (Department of Justice, 2017). What this means is that the rights of transgender or gender diverse individuals are now protected by legislation. In a 2017 landmark human rights case, a trans activist successfully argued that there had to be a legitimate reason to collect sex and/or gender information by governmental agencies (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2017). This case sets a new standard on how, and why, gender and/or sex information is collected. All governmental agencies need to reflect on whether there is a legitimate rationale to collect the information and if there is, there is increased scrutiny on how the information is collected, protected, and used.    

Most of these changes have advanced the agenda for some of the members of the queer community, namely lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals (LGB).   While these changes have increased the legitimacy and visibility of LGB individuals in Canadian society the same is not true for trans individuals. Spade (2014) argues that trans people must strongly consider why these changes have not resulted in the same level of change for their community. While there have been some advances in how Canadian society understands gender, oppression towards the trans community remains (Spade, 2014; Nicolazzo, 2017).    

If institutions want to respond to the shifting paradigm around gender and contribute to the liberation of trans students they will need to examine how they are complacent in maintaining the oppression. Post-Secondary institutions are well positioned to advance the gender agenda and contribute to the liberation of those that are gender oppressed by first and foremost collecting gender in a non-binary way. Institutions fail trans students if they do not expand the gender categories and then use the data to develop campus services relevant to the trans community. Garvey et al. (2020) suggest that the intersectionality in the lives of trans students complicates how they can find supports on campus. Trans students can also have a disability, be from a specific ethnic background, or have a special interest. They can struggle to find community in any one of these identity-based support areas on campus. (Garvey et al., 2020). Researchers argue that institutions need to consider, and embrace the intersectionality of race, ability, and gender when developing services (Garvey & Rankin, 2014; Nicolazzo, 2017; Garvey, et al., 2020). However, this is not enough. Institutions must also have policies that are inclusive and accessible at the institutional level (Nicolazzo, 2017). Additionally, there must be a commitment at the institutional level to include diversity in the strategic plan that can be translated into action plans that help shift both culture and understanding of gender fluidity (Garvey et al. 2020).