Hello everyone I want to talk about the PHF non-binary and transgender policy that they just reformed. Now this policy did improve several things no doubt. They removed hormone requirements, they have expanded the non-binary recognition and many other areas and I’m still working on a full reaction and I reacted on Twitter and I also would recommend that you look at Sie Morley’s reaction on the Ice Garden. It was a good piece that broke down section-by-section critiques and the such such like that. Also just want to point out that the Melissa Burgess pointed out on Twitter that even though the league has been trying to move away from the gender issue they still refer to themselves as women’s professional hockey in the documents. That was also a necessary critique so kudos to her on noticing that. There’s a lot in the document to be looked at but I wanted to focus especially just on on one section. It’s going to be more than one section. It’s going to combine a few but it is it’s sort of one idea but it comes together in the idea of the two-year waiting period. When you…it says that you know if you…it says a basically…and I’ll just read it directly:

It says that “Transgender women are eligible to compete in the PHF after they’ve been living in their transgender identity for a minimum of two years and also says a nonbinary athlete assigned male at birth is eligible to compete in the PHF if they’ve been living in their non-binary identity for a minimum of two years as affirmed by the athlete in consultation with the PHF. And I don’t ya know many people have agreed with this criticism. What is this about? You know as I’ve stated openly you know I am transgender I am non-binary and I’ve been out for less than a year or less than two years and you know it took me a long time to get on that journey and figure out where I am and figure out. And I’m still figuring things out. It is a process. It is…it is complicated. There is so much that people going through this have to figure out and yet somehow there is this two-years that is put into it. That somehow that I will after 2 years be somehow more valid than I am now. I mean what…what what basis is that? It’s arbitrary. It’s arbitrary. It’s not fair. It’s not right. What is it based on? it’s based on nothing. It’s just it’s just it’s it’s it’s it’s very likely based on just trying to fall back on this idea that there are some people out there that want to defraud the system and pretend to be women to win all the championships and that just isn’t the case and if somehow that does happen someday then deal with it but that’s not what’s happening. What is happening is that a lot of people in our society are transgender and non-binary or both and they’re just trying to live their lives. And they have to continue to put up with this because all the associations and organizations in the world keep trying to not deal with what they need but to deal with this boogie man out there that is the false strawman of somebody trying to just fake everyone out to win you no titles or something like that. People need support and this document has several things in it that indicate support is supposed to be coming, but then it is undermined by a two-year waiting period and also as as their comes into it this vague policy that says that “fraudulent assertion of identity under any circumstances is not permitted and if the player is found to be asserting fraudulent identity the PHF reserves the right to immediately remove a player from the league and if necessary to take legal action” and that’s it. That’s what the rule says but there’s no there’s no right of appeal, there’s no other rules spelling out what that means. What…what…what are the…what are the legal rights there? Who, whose authority does that rest on? It’s entirely arbitrary. Who? What information has to come in? What…what I mean, can just anyone make some anonymous complaint that says Player A is faking it and then the Commissioner can just say all that they’re ‘you’re out of the league.’ That is not enough. It’s not enough. And you can improve a policy. So you can make it a hell of a lot better than it was and it needed major major reforms and we’ve seen major reform, but this is this is leaving things…it;s it’s just it’s not fair. And when you continue to define people’s humanity on a time clock that they do not exist upon. When somebody is non-binary when somebody is transgender. When they are that they are not that two years from when they say they are. They…are they…need the support when they say it when they reach out to people.

It’s not supposed to be “well once we are sure and that’s going to be two years from now, once we’re sure that you are telling the truth then we’ll help you then we’ll give you the support then we’ll give you in the recognition.” I mean that’s just not right and it’s just not right. I could probably go on ranting off and on for hours but I’ll leave it at that. We’re talking about people’s humanity. <>don’t. You don’t just it <> don’t put numbers on that