I'll be attending this meeting as an observer and tweeting what Toronto Public Library decides.
A contingent of folks is heading into the Boardroom now at the @torontolibrary to advocate against TPL allowing Meghan Murphy to be featured at an event at Palmerston public library. The TPL board meeting gets underway at 6pm. 
20 minutes to go til the meeting starts and the TPL staff are showing people to an overflow room with a video screen set up. They say space is at a premium in the actual Boardroom. 30 people here in the overflow room so far and more arriving every minute.
Trans people and @PrideToronto say that Murphy is a transphobe who denies the existence and human rights of trans people.
At issue is whether hosting Murphy is a violation of s.4.4.1 of the @torontolibrary space rental policy.
I'm in the overflow room with about 80 other people. I've asked to have access to the main room so I can ensure accuracy in my reporting but @torontolibrary staff asked me to wait and see if anyone leaves because the main room is crowded. Meetings usually aren't this popular!
We're now at 90 people in the overflow room watching as Vice Chair Jonathan Hoss gets started with a land acknowledgement. @torontolibrary has not taught its Board how to pronounce Indigenous names.
Here is the agenda. Yes, ironically for a meeting about gender identity, the handouts are blue and pink.
VP Hoss asks that each presentation be kept to 3 minutes because there are a lot of people wanting to speak.
First up: Olivia Nuamah, ED and Christin Milloy, Board Member of @PrideToronto.
First up: Olivia Nuamah, ED and Christin Milloy, Board Member of @PrideToronto.
Nuamah says: When this city celebrates Pride, we celebrate the right of trans women to exist. Growing up, Nuamah remembers a different city, one that challenged that right. She remembers the library as a refuge.
Nuamah: Canada has enshrined the right of trans people to protection, but Murphy does not support this protection and does not think trans women need to be acknowledged as women. Those most affected by violence are those whose identities are most questioned.
Nuamah: "Those that are most affected are sitting in front of you right now... we need to see more of us reflected in your decisionmaking." She closes by asking TPL Board to "believe us". Long applause from the overflow room.
CW sexual assault
Christin Milloy: "I do know what it's like to exist as a trans woman." She has been harassed in women's restrooms and assaulted in mens restrooms. "I'm one of the lucky ones. I do have a job right now, and a home." Murphy, she says, does not understand her life.
Christin Milloy: "I do know what it's like to exist as a trans woman." She has been harassed in women's restrooms and assaulted in mens restrooms. "I'm one of the lucky ones. I do have a job right now, and a home." Murphy, she says, does not understand her life.
Milloy says men have the freedom to go through life knowing other men won't treat them as women. She says "that because of the words of Meghan Murphy", other women may be genuinely afraid of her if she uses a women's restroom. "I don't just prefer to be safe. I need to be safe."
Milloy: Depending on the decision made today, @torontolibrary "Isn't and perhaps was never a safe place for me."
Next, Jane Schmidt, an academic librarian. She expresses her disappointment w @torontolibrary for hosting Meghan Murphy. She says she was hopeful about s.4.4.1. She asks why the speaker at an event abt women's legal rights has no legal background and no trans women are speaking.
Schmidt says Murphy's words "are at the very least spreading misinformation" and may be spreading hate. @torontolibrary says Murphy has not been charged w a hate crime, but Schmidt says that is not a criterion in the updated policy.
Schmidt: "There are a good number of librarians who believe intellectual freedom must not trump the lives of real people." This has become a crusade for freedom of speech against all else, propped up by TERFs + the alt right. "I don't think TPL can come back from this."
Next, David Morris, Board Chair of @The519 talks about the impacts of discrimination on trans people's health and mental health. "We do not live in a society where we have equal voices." When trans people's very existence is questioned, changing that should be our first priority.
Morris says @torontolibrary's own policy "says nothing about needing to reach a hate speech threshold". What about the responsibility to uphold equity and anti-discrimination policies? "I ask you, I implore you, please reverse this decision."
Pam Hrick, @the519 board member, says as an ally she implores the Board to please listen to trans people when they are telling you about the harm they will experience as a result of this decision.
Next, Thane Tweyman, "a trans denizen of Toronto and a library user, but other than that, I'm no one special." Someone in the overflow room calls out, "You're special to us!"
Tweyman questions whether the City Librarian is indeed a neutral party. She has said she's not going to consider not supporting free speech. But Tweyman says this isn't about Murphy's free speech, but about not giving her unfettered access to community resources.
Tweyman says that it's up to the Board to decide, but that there is a difference between "likely to promote hatred" and "convicted if hate speech."
Tweyman says that requiring a conviction "feels, perhaps unintentionally, like moving the goalposts."
The next person is a lesbian who speaks in support of Murphy and the TPL decision, saying she is courageous and her predictions have been proved right.
The next speaker says "trans and gender-nonconforming people are always the first to be attacked". The library sets norms. Those who feel threatened by the trans experience launder their views through the library, making a claim to the centre and legitimacy.
They say "This is an atrocious politics for the library to support. Please reconsider." Also says that they have the internet to spread their views - please don't give them the library.
Next up is Governor-General nominated Indigenous trans poet @GwenBenaway. She is presenting a petition of more than 6000 signatures rejecting the @torontolibrary decision. "We deserve to have our rights protected in a communal space."
"It is a move towards trans death," she says of denying trans women communal space in the library. Murphy can have free speech wherever she wants, but by having that free speech in a community space, it denies trans people that space. @GwenBenaway @torontolibrary
She says, "Let me tell you that when we come to talk about trans women and our lives, you would do well to listen." She says that they should not give space to someone who advocates that she shouldn't be able to use the women's washroom in this facility.
.@GwenBenaway asks someone, I believe it is Jonathan Hoss, if he believes she is a woman. He doesn't answer. She says she is here to hold him accountable.
Standing ovation from the watching room. Next up, @nikostratis.
.@nikostratis was the first out trans-feminine person in the Yukon, which is why she is here now. She says she hopes that everyone in the @torontolibrary Board room gets to have the experience of sitting in front of a room of people, defending their right to exist.
CW assault
Niko asks everyone to imagine getting assaulted on the streets of your hometown, and then having someone you've known since you were 6 saying the assaulter "should have finished the job." Niko says Murphy encourages a climate of debating the trans right to exist.
Niko asks everyone to imagine getting assaulted on the streets of your hometown, and then having someone you've known since you were 6 saying the assaulter "should have finished the job." Niko says Murphy encourages a climate of debating the trans right to exist.
Next up is Caitlin (sp?), who is a very proud library user and is ashamed to be part of the library community. "We shouldn't have to spill our blood to be recognized as humans."
Caitlin says "This is not a freedom of speech issue. Freedom of speech does not mean that everyone has the right to a platform." If Twitter can ban MM, so can TPL. "It's not too late to prove that the library is an ally, to live up to the ideals I've always had for the library."
Next up is author Zoe on behalf of parents of trans and gender diverse children, urging the library to reverse the decision. "We have listened to city librarian Vickery Bowles and are deeply disappointed to see @torontolibrary failing our children and our community."
Zoe says the TPL policy clearly allows them to cancel this event and they are doing worse than most other public institutions to welcome trans people. "It is disingenuous of the TPL to say we can all engage in civil debate" given violence towards trans people.
"TPL is sending a hurtful message to our trans children and youth that they do not deserve safety." That's all from Zoe.
Next up, an LGBTQ+Jewish speaker who says that dehumanizing language was used to enable violence against Jewish people. As a queer kid, this speaker says the library was a refuge in childhood. "Please let those of us with so few places of safety keep this one."
This speaker also says trans people should not have to come up in front of a Board like this to assert their humanity "over, and over, and over again." And regarding discrimination, "We know better now, and we should do better."
Next up, a speaker who says they weren't able to find any evidence that Meghan Murphy was spreading hate speech. This gets some boos from the viewing room. She says she could read out some information but "what I can find is actually not hate speech at all."
She quotes from a piece of paper saying that trans people should be able to access specialized services such as shelter, and to say that Meghan Murphy suggests otherwise is a lie. She then says that men who identify as women on the basis of internal feelings are worth discussion.
It was hard to catch all the details because of the loud reactions in the viewing room. Unfortunately @torontolibrary is still not letting me into the main room because, unsurprisingly, no one has left yet.
Next up, a trans woman called Kirsten who works in construction and says that the anti-trans discourse being permitted at @torontolibrary would not be tolerated on any construction site in the city. She hopes the Board will change their minds.
Next up, a woman who speaks of growing up wanting to be an astronaut, getting put in a psych ward in her teens by her parents, and of peers considering heterosexuality "normal". She references 2 women doing a spacewalk together for the first time.
She says Vickery Bowles says she advocates for "marginalized voices", but they are white, cisgender, middleclass voices that sound a lot like her. She asks why trans folks are marked and villainized by women like Murphy. We are women, she says. "We're just not cis."
CW suicide, SA
She talks about that young girl who dreamt of being astronaut surviving attempted suicide, sexual assault, and running away from home at the age of 16. She says the spacewalkers are middleclass, white cis women in a place somewhere like her has never been.
She talks about that young girl who dreamt of being astronaut surviving attempted suicide, sexual assault, and running away from home at the age of 16. She says the spacewalkers are middleclass, white cis women in a place somewhere like her has never been.
Next up, a nonbinary Torontonian who is stepping down as @torontolibrary Artist in Residence. They're presenting a petition of 430+ artists involved with the library who are disappointed in what has happened and are against the decision. They fight back tears as they say this.
They were working on a project with @torontolibrary with trans and nonbinarysex workers. "When you platform Meghan Murphy, you make the trans sex workers who you partner with feel second-class."
They're now reading quotes from some of the sex workers involved with the project. One participant says the project will look for alternate funding: "As a hooker, I don't want dirty money from TPL. I would rather turn tricks in a gutter."
@torontolibrary
@torontolibrary
Next speaker says trans people speaking on this issue aren't "too emotional or too close to the issue". In fact, they have the experience, the trauma, the history of survival that is needed to understand the impacts and intentions of someone like Meghan Murphy.
This speaker says that "Science backs us up. We need to stop debating their humanity. It is cruel, it is violent. Please let's stop doing that."
Someone in the viewing room says Parkdale-High Park city councilor @gordperks, who is on the board, released a statement an hour ago saying he's not going to change his mind.
Next up, a cis person who says she has learned a lot about the issue as it entered popular discourse. She says that it's not the case that cis women are losing space to trans women.
She says that it's not about biological features but about the whole "broad, complex" matter of being a woman and how it relates to patriarchy. She ends by re-stating that trans women are women.
Next up, a longtime bookseller. "Free speech is my bread and butter. Bookselling and free speech is in my blood. To hear free speech being discussed in a way that is toxic is very disturbing." He says he has been a bigot in the past, and he "got over that."
He says getting to know people is one of the joys of living in a city. He says he's been on the other end of bigotry as a gay man and "for 30 years, I've participated in academic debates" that are toxic, cruel, and dehumanizing.
The only way he got through was with the support of his community, including the library. "Where is the Toronto Library" for trans women, he asks? Meghan Murphy, he says, is not interested in academic debate. Her msg is one of exclusion and hate, and has no place in this city.
He says his father, a bricklayer, helped build a Toronto public library branch and was very proud. And so was he. "But tonight, here, I do not love the public library."
Loud cheers from the viewing room on this one.
Loud cheers from the viewing room on this one.
As an update, there are at least 100 people in this viewing room.
Next speaker says 50% of trans people live under the poverty line. Trans people deserve to live with respect and full inclusion in society. That said, she says she believes only her biological sex is what determines her womanhood.
She says the potential to get pregnant, perception of women "as potentual breeders" is what determines womanhood. Pretty loud boos from that one.
She says she is Jewish and Middle Eastern and tells a story of a woman in her family whose family valued her based on whether her hymen was intact. She says women were targeted by Boko Haram because they were biological women, able to procreate. She is now out of time.
It would be decent of trans women, she says, to accept that not all women see them as one of their own kind, their own type. "You have no decency", shouts someone from the audience. She says people silencing her is a disgrace. "You are a disgrace," comes back from the audience.
Anton, a trans guy who works with trans and nonbinary youth, up next. He says he is a board member and understands that it can be hard to have all the right info to make the right decision. He says what's missing is an understanding that "society is inherently transphobic."
He asks the @torontolibrary board to do more research. He says that saying "trans women aren't women" is very helpful. He says that you just have to walk down to @ChickfilA to see everyone happy to support an anti-trans organization in this city.
He says Meghan Murphy has been banned from libraries in Victoria. He says maybe having her on a panel would be a better solution.
"I'm here. I've seen a lot of pain around this. If you could deepen your knowledge on this, Toronto would very much appreciate it." @torontolibrary
"I'm here. I've seen a lot of pain around this. If you could deepen your knowledge on this, Toronto would very much appreciate it." @torontolibrary
Next up, Rosemary, who is queer and supports the TPL doing this. Says that we see too much narrowing of debate in society on some issues. "I'm not transphobic," she says. Brings up issues with trans women in sporting events. "You are a transphobe," says the audience."
Next up, a trans woman who says she is "so, so tired of having this same debate." She seems to be near tears. She believes there are important discussions to be had around free speech and gender, especially binary gender because "gender is not a binary".
"But this is not that," she says. Of course it seems civil and polite on the surface, because that is the sales pitch they're giving @torontolibrary. But this is a discussion about why we shouldn't be giving trans women and trans feminine people safe spaces.
As a former employee with the Toronto Public School Board, she says that we talk about the danger of burning books. But we don't talk about what books the Nazis were burning: the work of a Jewish man who was studying and legitimizing the existence of trans and gay people.
"Context matters," she says, and "we are so, so tired of having this discussion."
Very loud cheers.
That was the last speaker.
Very loud cheers.
That was the last speaker.
A protester has entered the boardroom and been acknowledged by the board.
Vickery Bowles, City Librarian, is jow speaking. Repeating that what Meghan Murphy says "is controversial, but she has not been arrested." A protester tries to ask how this relates to the @torontolibrary policy, but is asked to be quiet.
Bowles says the group hosting the event had to sign a contract promising not to say anything illegal. A senior library official will attend and cancel the event if they do so. They'll also have a conversation with the group and Meghan Murphy to make this clear.
@torontolibrary consulted legal advice and the external legal team that developed the updated policy. Audience member says, "Did you consult trans people?"
A board member asked about why the policy was revised (it was bc a NeoNazi group wanted to hold a memorial in a library).
A board member asked about why the policy was revised (it was bc a NeoNazi group wanted to hold a memorial in a library).
Bowles says the policy was developed "to allow free speech to flourish, so that voices aren't shut down." Also to reflect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Another board member asks how the library official would decide to stop the event. Bowles says it would have to be the legal interpretation of promoting hatred. A protestor says that's not mentioned in the policy. Protesters are given a final warning not to interrupt.
Councillor @gordperks says as an elected official he shouldn't be given the authority, case by case, to override the city librarian and decide who gets to speak in public. "Literally your job," shouts an audience member.
A protester raises an interruption and is warned by VP Hoss not to interrupt again. "Oh - but freedom of speech is so important!" says the protestor. This gets a laugh from the viewing room. Perks says it's his role to ensure the City Librarian did her due diligence.
Here are Bowles (centre) and Hoss (right). Protesters continue commenting and Hoss says he will have no choice but to ask security to remove them if they keep speaking up.
Councillor @gordperks says he wouldn't want this veto power in the hands of Doug Ford or Jason Kenney, so he won't take it into his own hands. A protester says they're not asking him to do that but to put the decision in the hands of the community.
Here is security at the door of the meeting.
"Untrammeled powers... no checks and balances on the City Librarian," observes one audience member in the Boardroom.
The protesters have left the boardroom. It looks like that's that. Council accepted the words of people who came to speak tonight, but didn't overturn the decision.
A reminder of tonight's events left in that hotly-contested space, the women's washroom.
Update: it was Vickery Bowles @vbowlestpl who refused to answer whether she believed @GwenBenaway is a woman. I would have gotten that right the first time if @torontolibrary had let me into the main room to report firsthand!
And another update: after I left, the Board apparently thanked Vickery Bowles, Chief Librarian, for being the public face of a Board decision. Gord Perks had earlier said that he didn't see it as his role as an elected official to veto her decision.
Correction: Anton said that saying trans women aren't women is very HURTFUL. Big typo on my part there.
