A transgender teacher who taught at Pitt Meadows Secondary School has filed a human rights complaint against a woman whom they believe launched an online campaign of hatred against them.
Wilson Wilson filed the complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal on Friday, June 22, with support from Lawyers Against Transphobia.
“I’m standing up because as much as this has robbed me of my privacy and like my dignity as a person, I haven’t been robbed of my power or responsibility,” Wilson told Black Press Media.
Wilson is currently on leave from the school because of the incident and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The incident started in December of last year when Wilson became the target of online threats after a far-right social media account, called Libs of TikTok, shared photos of Wilson, an artist who identifies as trans non-binary, that were from an art portfolio.
One image showed Wilson topless and in the other in a netted shirt – both appearing to show a double mastectomy.
A person claiming to be a parent of at least one student at the school, who goes by the name Blonde Bigot on X, made allegations of student abuse and accused the school district as having child grooming and “pedophilic” activities and accused the teacher of glorifying their self-mutilation. The mother has since been identified as Joanna Evenson.
Thousands of people commented on X, a majority of them harassing Wilson and calling them names.
At the time Martin Dmitrieff, head of the Maple Ridge Teachers’ Association, said the images were in the public sphere because it was important for the teacher to interact as an artist through community art programs, where their work is being showcased.
“This could be anybody,” said Wilson about the online harassment. “This could be any trans teacher. So, what I can do is stand up. And, if I don’t stand up now the right has a successful strategy to silence trans teachers.”
At common law, defamation covers any communication that tends to lower the reputation of the subject in the minds of ordinary members of the public.[1] In particular, to establish prima facie defamation, the plaintiff needs to establish three things:
- The material is defamatory, as in it lowers the reputation of the plaintiff in the eyes of the right thinking person
- The material refers to the plaintiff, and
- The material was communicated to a party other than the plaintiff[2]
It sounds like the only thing they might struggle to prove is the first one, specifically “…it lowers the reputation of the plaintiff in the eyes of the right thinking person” One ‘cool’ thing conservatives can do now is attack someone with absolutely nonsensical comments, and then go ‘whoa whoa I was just kidding. I was clearly exaggerating/joking’ etc. Not 100% sure it’ll work, I can just already see it happening. Especially from someone as cruel and moronic as to have ‘Blonde Bigot’ as a screen-name.
