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Forget being female or male, as far as the City of Toronto concerned.
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You will now be considered “cis female” and “cis male.”
A request was submitted to the city during a meeting for Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation Registration and Booking Transformation (RBT) Project.
The member, identified only as “Jad” on the video, spoke up about changes they felt needed to be made immediately.
“These changes do need to be made on an emergency basis,” they said in the clip first shared on social media by 6ixBuzzTV.
“I think that it’s unacceptable that we see these terms at this day and age, [and] that some things within organizational settings need to be fast-tracked,” they continued.
They mentioned other terms that need to be updated, including “other anatomical biological terms, female, male.”
They concluded: “So, in general, just wanted to mention and hope that this is moved as promptly as possible internally.”
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Kathleen Harquail, manager of Business Transformation and Change Management, who was conducting the meeting, responds, “I can confirm that we can make this change immediately.”
In another clip, Harquail confirms that a request was received “from committee to change ‘female’ and ‘male’ to ‘cis female’ and ‘cis male.’”
She added that they also “received a recommendation from the community to change ‘female’ to ‘woman,’ as is currently recommended by the city’s gender equity office and ‘male’ to ‘man’ and those align with those options with the City’s recommended language.”
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The RBT project centres on replacing its recreation program registration and facility booking software, according to a document shared with the Toronto Sun by the City of Toronto.
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Those involved used gender data to determine what changes they believe needed to be made for those registering for programs or booking a facility with the city.
Among those changes, recommended by the City’s Equity and Human Rights unit, included changes to terminology including “woman, man, trans woman, trans man, gender non-binary (including gender fluid, genderqueer, androgynous) and two-spirit.”
The defaults for the current system defaults to either female or male, but those on the committee noted some other options that could be displayed to residents include “gender non-conforming,” “intersex, “transgender” “FTM (female-to-male),” “MTF (male-to-female)” and “blank.”
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