NOTE: To date, no response from Sherbourne Health Centre, which claims to serve Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities. I wonder how they treat their Lesbian patients?
*******************************************
from Cathy Brennan bugbrennan@gmail.com
to privacy@sherbourne.on.ca
date Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 11:12 AM
subject Health Facility Misuse
mailed-bygmail.com
hide details Jan 3
Good morning,
My name is Cathy Brennan, and I am a lawyer in Baltimore, Maryland. I am a lesbian activist that does work about gender identity issues. Recently, a lesbian blogger sent me a link to a blog post by Xander (Sly) Sarkisova, who works at Sherbourne (according to his LinkedIn profile). Specifically, Mr. Sarkisova stated in this blog post that:
“your [penis eschewing] behaviour is not tied to a lack of desire, but rather your unwillingness to validate transfemale realness.” See
http://www.thescavenger.net/isgd/what-transphobia-looks-like-a-primer-for-family-friends-and-loved-ones-817.html
I find this statement tremendously homophobic and harmful to lesbians, and commented accordingly on Mr. Sarkisova’s blog at http://xsarkisovathespaceinbetweenyouandme.blogspot.com/. See attachment; Mr. Sarkisova did not publish my comment, which I left under my real name and this email address (bugbrennan at gmail.com). I routinely comment on blogs, as I believe this is how we have dialogue to advance understanding. And, I always do so under my real name, as I also believe in accountability.
My comment seems to have struck a nerve, because Mr. Sarkisova apparently subsequently commented on a wholly unrelated blog, the parody site “Privilege Denying Tranny” as illustrated in the attachments. The lesbian activist who runs that site (who I have never met and do not know) recognized that it is abusive to publish people’s home and work addresses in an apparent attempt to threaten and notified me of the threat. Again, I don’t run the “Privilege Denying Tranny” blog, and I have no idea why Mr. Sarkisova thinks I do. As my online presence is fairly well-documented, it would be easy for anyone to find me and simply ask. However, Mr. Sarkisova did not choose to do this.
Funnily enough, the IP from which Mr. Sarkisova posted the comment with my home and work addresses is a UNIQUE IP address attached to where Mr. Sarkisova works (the Sherbourne Health Center http://www.sherbourne.on.ca/about/about.html). See attachment.
I am appalled that Mr. Sarkisova would see fit to publish my home and work addresses to a blog I don’t even operate in some bizarre attempt to threaten me. I believe that Sherbourne receives public funding. Is this how employees of a publicly-funded health center should spend their work time, on work resources? I have two young children – is Mr. Sarkisova hopeful that someone might publish my home and work addresses and stalk me at home? This is terribly upsetting.
I request that Sherbourne look into this matter, as I believe my privacy has been violated by a mental health counselor from an organization that receives public funding. If you need additional information, please feel free to contact me. I am also copying the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner to request information on how to file a formal complaint with that agency.
Best,
Cathy Brennan
410-336-9857
You think I just don't understand, but I don't believe you. 
They aren’t going to do anything, because they don’t have to. They are not going to give your letter, or my letter, the dignity of a reply. No doubt, because they do not want to provide any grist for the mill. We are left to twist in the wind.
There’s no stick big enough to threaten them with that can change that.
Now, if all this were happening in *Baltimore*, and maybe a year from now, you might actually get somewhere.
In Canada? Hah. Canadians cave in. It’s one of our national traits, like being polite. And socialized medicine.
When I refer to Canadians caving in, I mean to the trans lobby. They are powerful, and funded, and they’ve *got* the media – they’ve just *got* it.
What the trans lobby wants, the trans lobby gets. All the people who work at Sherbourne know that, and they aren’t going to stick their necks out for the sake of any kind of integrity.
It feels good when one is clinging to the faint hope that they might – – but they won’t.
And this is PRECISELY WHY, I don’t use my real name on anything online! EVER, except maybe a petition. On my blogs, on groups I’m on, on Facebook. Those who know me, KNOW ME, but I also use the same two handles so that folks that have known me online for years, can track my commentary and we can interact. I don’t invent new personas. I keep the ones I have…and if I feel safe enough with a person, ONLY THEN, will I share my identity.
This is absolutely horrible Cathy, and you know I completely support you, but this has happened to us all too often by the jerks..it is one big silencing of bio female LESBIANS/DYKES! Cuz we ARE the only ones to stand up to this shit, and we KNOW what Female really is, without all the cosmetic trappings. This is what the born male just don’t ‘get’! Ever!
-Labryis Swingin’ in Solidarity,
-FeistyAmazon
[…] Silence Continues from Sherbourne Health Centre (bugbrennan.com) […]
http://mansplaintransplain.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/the-gatekeepers-of-womanness-are-males-and-wannabe-men-you-idiot-lesbians/
http://mansplaintransplain.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/xander-likes-dick-this-makes-xander-a-heterosexual-female-simple-huh/
[…] Counselor Xander Sarkisova pushes his rapey analysis that Lesbians are bigots for not wanting dick. To […]
Hi Cathy, I’m sorry you were harassed like that. That kind of shit needs to stop.
To answer your question, my wife and I are lesbian patients @ Sherbourne Health and it’s a great, comfortable space from the few times we’ve been there (we were on a 2+ year wait list to get in). My wife comes from a small town with very few LGBT spaces and a Neo Nazi population; she was gay and race bashed by a group of them in her 20’s. So going to an LGBT health centre is a new and good thing for her, and me. We’re treated pretty decently medically as far as the colonist pharma-medical industry goes (which isn’t very far). :-\