For Immediate Release
Aug. 11, 2006
ST. JOHN’S, NFLD. – Vancouver lawyer barbara findlay, Q.C., has been named the winner of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) 2006 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Conference (SOGIC) Hero Award for her contributions made in the cause of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and two-spirited (LGBTT) people.
“barbara is a leader, an advocate, and a teacher,” said Robert Muir, co-chair of SOGIC. “Her work, both as an openly gay lawyer and in defense of the rights of the LGBTT community, has shown her commitment to human rights in the face of adversity.”
findlay, who does not use capital letters in her name, has represented the LGBTT community in a number of landmark actions, including Nixon v. Rape Relief (2006), the first appeal courts decision on the rights of transsexuals, Smith and Chymyshyn v. Knights of Columbus (2005), where a lesbian couple to be married was denied the use of a hall on the basis of their sexuality, Kavanagh v. Canada (2000), dealing with the rights of an incarcerated transsexual to have sex re-assignment surgery and to be housed in a facility for females, and Gill and Maher v. Vital Statistics Agency (1999), which secured the right for two lesbian mothers to be registered on their child’s birth certificate, and the B.C. partners in the first of the marriage cases to be brought, in 2000.
findlay is a prolific writer on legal subjects, in the legal academic press, in continuing legal education workshops both nationally and in B.C., and in plain-language publications for LGBTT communities.
Additionally, findlay has been instrumental in establishing community groups for the LGBTT community. She was a founding member of the December 9 Coalition, a working coalition on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in British Columbia, as well as the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Issues Section of the CBA’s B.C. Branch, the steering committee of SOGIC, the B.C. Cancer Agency’s Lesbian Cancer Group, the Alliance of Women Against Racism Etc. (AWARE), and of Across Our Differences, a group providing unlearning oppression workshops and training trainers.
findlay has also been a groundbreaker in the legal profession: she was the first out gay person appointed to a law society committee in Canada when she was named to the Law Society of B.C.’s Gender Equality Monitoring Committee, and was the first out lawyer in Canada to be recognized with the Queen’s Counsel designation, in 2001. In 2005, she received an Award of Merit from the Sexual Diversity Studies Department of the University of Toronto in recognition of her distinguished contributions to public understanding of sexual diversity issues in Canada.
findlay received a bachelor of arts degree from Queen’s University in 1970, a master’s of sociology from the University of British Columbia in 1973, and her bachelor of laws degree from UBC in 1976. She was a member of the Faculty of Law for two years from 1984 to1986.
The SOGIC Hero Award recognizes contributions made in the cause of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and two-spirited people. The Award will be presented at the Touchstone Reception, held as part of the 2006 Canadian Legal Conference in St. John’s, Nfld., on Tuesday, Aug. 15 at 4:30 p.m. NDT in Salon F of the Delta St. John’s Hotel and Convention Centre. The event is open to accredited journalists who have registered with the CBA Media Centre.
The Canadian Bar Association is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 36,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and law students from across Canada are members.
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CONTACT: Hannah Bernstein, Canadian Bar Association, Aug. 11-15, Delta St. John’s Hotel and Convention Centre, St. Mary’s Room, (709) 726-7594; E-mail: hannahb@cba.org.
