Written on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations, in what is colonially known as Vancouver, Canada.
This document serves to archive examples and evidence of a demonstrated effort in the promotion of harmful, violent TERF/SWERF ideology by Yuly Chan for the purposes of public awareness and community accountability. We recognize this ideology to work in tandem with the institutionalization of cisheteropatriarchy in so-called “Canada”, coming into existence on these lands due to colonization.
Yuly Chan is an active member of Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution (AWCEP)1 and Chinatown Action Group (CAG)2. Chan is also connected to labour unions in Vancouver, Canada.3 In their work, they have been witnessed and documented aligning themselves with TERF/SWERF ideology:
- In February 2018, Chan was witnessed making the statement: “trans people are against feminism.”
- On February 18th, 2018, Chan retweeted Vancouver Rape Relief (VRR), stating “Working class women have always been on the frontlines of rape crisis centres. Shame on the labour unions that have pulled their funding from orgs like @VanRapeRelief. Shows how much they really don’t care about building a working class movement, or one that supports women”.4
- VRR has a history of excluding trans women from their services, volunteer positions, and leadership positions.5 VRR also promotes the criminalization of sex work.6
- On May 14th, 2017, Chan tweeted a link to a FeministCurrent post, entitled “Bill C-16 misunderstands what gender is and how it harms women under patriarchy”.7
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- FeministCurrent is an online bigoted, hateful, fear-mongering rag run by Meghan Murphy, a well-known TERF/SWERF local to Vancouver.
- Bill C-16 was legislation which sought to amend the Canadian Human Rights Code to include protections for trans and gender nonconforming people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression.
- Meghan Murphy, representatives from VRR, and right-wing Christian clergy flew to Ottawa to argue in parliament against this bill.8
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- On March 27th, 2015, Chan tweeted, “Excellent keynote from #chrislynnhedges on imperialism, colonialism, prostitution, resource extraction, pornography, capitalism…”9
- Chris Hedges openly promotes anti-sex work and anti-trans women ideology both in writing and through talks. Various groups have attempted to hold him accountable for speaking over the voices of women with lived experience in sex work.10
- On March 12th, 2015, Chan tweeted, “Open Letter to Stephen Collis organizer of SFU conference ‘State of Extraction’ from AWCEP”.11
- On March 12th, 2015, AWCEP wrote an open letter to Stephen Collis, one of the organizers of the SFU conference ‘State of Extraction’ demanding Hedges to be re-invited to speak at the conference.12
- Hedges was originally invited by Collis to speak at the conference, scheduled for March 27th – 29th, 2015. After the invitation, Hedges wrote an article about sex work in the DTES, titled “The Whoredom of the Left”13, comparing the extractive industry to the sexual exploitation of women, perpetuating stigma about sex work, and promoting criminalization and abolition as solutions. As a result, sex work advocates in the community wrote letters expressing their outrage to Collis and the conference organizers.10 Hedges was removed from speaking and then re-invited again.
- On February 16th, 2015, Chan tweeted an article from Hedges, titled “Pornography is what the end of the world looks like”.14
- On November 2014, Chan was a speaker at the Earth At Risk Conference in San Francisco15 hosted by Fertile Ground Institute.
- The institute and conference is a brainchild of Randall Wallace and Derrick Jensen16, the latter of whom is a well known TERF/SWERF17 and co-founder of Deep Green Resistance, an eco-fascist group that has been denounced and boycotted by a variety of student, eco, and Indigenous groups in Canada and USA.18
- At this conference, Chan spoke on a panel titled, “Confronting Misoygny” described as, “Human trafficking, pornography, and violence against women are serious issues, but receive little attention. This panel will discuss these issues and how to bring the fight for women’s liberation to the center of our work.”19
- In April 2014, Chan signed an open letter calling for the Nordic Model approach in Canada.20
- On March 2014, Chan spoke at a panel titled “Buying Sex: Film Screening and Feminist Panel”21, alongside Meghan Murphy.
Coalition Against Trans Antagonism 