Pride Toronto To Hold A Trans Rally On The Night Of The TPL’s Meghan Murphy Event [UPDATED]

The Toronto trans rally will take place on Tuesday, October 29 at 4:00pm and will begin at Barbara Hall Park…
 
Pride Toronto is organizing a rally to coincide with the Toronto Public Library (TPL)’s controversial event on Tuesday, October 29 featuring Vancouver-based blogger Meghan Murphy.
 
Murphy is scheduled to speak at the TPL’s Palmerston branch on a panel called Gender Identity: What Does It Mean For Society, The Law And Women? She was invited to speak by the Toronto-based group Radical Feminists Unite, which organized the event. Murphy is a prominent opponent of transgender rights who refers to trans women as men and has previously argued that trans women should be banned from women’s locker rooms, bathrooms and prisons.
 
The event is currently sold out.
 
City librarian Vickery Bowles has repeatedly stood by the library’s decision to allow the Murphy event to proceed despite condemnation from a growing number of Canadian authors, activists, literary groups, the Toronto Public Library Workers Union and Mayor John Tory.
 
After hours of emotional deputations from LGBTQ community members during a heated board meeting on Tuesday night (October 22), the TPL ultimately decided to proceed with the event.
 
In a statement posted on social media, Pride Toronto blasted the TPL board’s “reprehensible decision to support the anti-transgender views of Meghan Murphy.”
 
“Trans woman after trans woman spoke about the hurt and offence caused by Meghan Murphy’s views, their violent and deeply personal experiences told to a room full of strangers. Their views and harrowing experience held little sway in the face of a desire for the ‘free and intellectual’ exchange of ideas.'”
 
“In the last 10 months this community has dealt with Bruce Mcarthur’s guilty plea, the violence we saw at the Dyke March, the Christian Rights group that attempted to hold a homophobic rally up Church St., Chick-Fil-A, and now Meghan Murphy’s transphobic talk at Palmerston Library. In each case we were told there was no problem when clearly there was and continues to be.”
 
“The fight for the rights of all members of this community continues. We stand by the trans community now and always.”
 
UPDATED TIME AND LOCATION: Pride Toronto’s trans rally in protest of the TPL’s Meghan Murphy event will be held on Tuesday, October 29 and begin at 4:00pm at Barbara Hall Park on Church Street in Toronto. Pride Toronto has arranged transportation to The Palmerston Library at 5:15PM. Accessible shuttle buses will be provided. TTC fares will also be available.