LGBT+
Activist urges everyone to advocate for trans rights
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by Carlito Pablo
icola Spurling finds it interesting how people react differently to homophobia and transphobia. There’s a “double standard”, the transgender woman posted on Twitter. Homophobia, prejudice against gay people, “tends to get shut down immediately”. However, transphobia, which is aversion or negative actions toward trans people, is “allowed to play out”. “Even ‘allies’ seem to hesitate to speak up about one and not the other,” Spurling, who uses the pronouns she and her, observed on the social-media platform. When reached at her home in Coquitlam, Spurling noted that there are two reasons for this situation. One is that most people aren’t informed about trans issues. Hence, transphobia is “sort of given more of a pass by society at large”. “People just haven’t come around to the realization that transphobia is just as bad,” Spurling told the Straight by phone. The second reason is that trans advocacy is years behind the gay movement. She related that 20 years ago, it was “incredibly common for people to say, ‘That’s so gay,’ and bullying of gay kids in schools was fairly normalized, although changes were happening”.
Trans-rights campaigner Nicola Spurling encouraged her employer, The Flag Shop, to create a social-justice colouring book, which is expected to be released in advance of the holiday season.
“In Grade 9, I remember a gay man being brought in to discuss what it was like to be gay in society,” Spurling recalled. Two decades later, she’s the one being brought into schools to talk about what it’s like to be a trans person in society. Spurling noted there is a segment in the LGBT+ community that focuses only on sexual orientation instead of including
trans issues of gender identity and expression. She specifically mentioned the LGB Alliance, which was born in the U.K. and has a chapter in Canada. Spurling started volunteering with the Vancouver Pride Society in 2013. That was when some of the questions she had been dealing with since elementary school “started to make sense”.
Growing up in Burnaby and Tsawwassen, the White Rock–born advocate lived the life expected of a straight male. Spurling competed as a cross-country skier, played soccer and field hockey, and participated in many physical activities as a young person. Spurling was living in “stealth” as a trans woman before being accidentally outed when she ran as the B.C. Green candidate in Coquitlam-Maillardville in 2017. She was out to friends but not in public at the time. Realizing there was no way to get back to her old life, Spurling decided to become an outspoken advocate for LGBT+ issues and causes like housing affordability. She currently works as an advocate with The Flag Shop, where she successfully pitched the idea of a social-justice colouring book to the company. Copies are expected to be out before the holiday season. “My style of artwork lends itself well to this format, and colouring for me is a meditative experience,” she said about her book. Spurling believes that progressive-minded and, especially, influential individuals should “use their positions of privilege” to help fight hatred and discrimination. “If they’re scared to speak up, it’s so much worse for trans people,” Spurling said. g
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