A plan to make Victoria more inclusive would cost up to $60,000, staff say

It would cost between $40,000 and $60,000 to assess what would be required to make the City of Victoria inclusive for transgender, gender non-binary and two-spirited individuals, say city staff.

City councillors committed in September to making civic facilities, operations and programs safe, inclusive and equitable for people of all genders, gender identities and gender expressions and their communities.

Staff were to report back with a plan to identify and change policies to make that happen, and to engage with transgender, gender non-binary and two-spirit communities as changes are made.

A staff report says several changes have been made to improve inclusivity. Those include new signs for all-gender washrooms at city hall and updated customer service practices at Crystal Pool and Fitness Centre.

But, it says, more needs to be done to fulfil council’s vision.

Staff are recommending hiring a consultant to conduct an assessment, engage with the community, identify leading practices from other jurisdictions and develop a plan.

The council motion focused on the following areas:

• signage and literature

• public spaces (including washrooms and change rooms)

• human resource training and staff policies

• programming, collaborative and community partnerships

• forms, records, data collection and management

Transgender people are those whose gender identity (a person’s sense of their gender) or expression (things such as voice, dress and body characteristics) differs from their sex at birth.

Someone who is non-binary experiences their gender as falling outside the categories of man and woman.

Two-spirited refers to a person who embodies both a masculine and feminine spirit, and is sometimes used to broadly refer to Aboriginal people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.