Friday, August 31, 2001 Transvestite lawyer can sign as Micheline : ruling Human-rights commission chided for rejecting case By Janice Tibbetts from Southam Newspapers

OTTAWA - The Federal Court of Canada has admonished the Canadian Human Rights Commission for being too "conventional" and has ordered it to consider the complaint of a transvestite lawyer.

The decision rejects the commission's argument that Micheline Montreuil, a Quebec City cross-dresser, must file a grievance in his birth name of Pierre if he wants his case heard.

Justice Daniele Tremblay-Lamer chided the commission for "arbitrarily dismissing" Montreuil's sex discrimination complaint against the National Bank of Canada.

"I find it surprising that the commission, which requires flexibility and tolerance from everybody, has become so conventional in dealing with this case," she wrote in a ruling released this week.

Montreuil, 49, alleges that the National Bank denied him an entry-level job after an article appeared in newspapers three years ago about his history as a cross-dresser. He says he was all but offered the job as a telephone clerk when bank officials suddenly stopped returning his calls.

"I'm not asking for the moon," Montreuil said from his home in the Quebec City suburb of Charlesbourg. "This is a question of human rights and I have the right to be heard."

Montreuil, who is currently working full time on his doctorate in law at Laval University in Quebec City, has spent several years fighting to be called Micheline, a name he said "sounds soft to my ears."

He was born Joseph Yves Pierre Papineau Montreuil, but has changed his name on most of his identification, including his credit cards and passport. His battle to officially add the name Micheline to his birth certificate reached a dead end last year when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his challenge following a defeat in the Quebec Court of Appeal.

Although he started taking hormone therapy three years ago, the Quebec government's civil registrar said he could not legally change his name to Micheline unless he underwent a full-scale sex change.

Montreuil said he has been "living as a woman"since 1986 and would rather lose his case against the National Bank than be denied the right to sign the name Micheline Montreuil to his human rights complaint.

As a lawyer with a master's degree in business administration, he said he was well qualified for the bank job, which he applied for in response to a newspaper advertisement in hopes of eventually being promoted once he was hired.

The flamboyant Montreuil has been known to dress as a woman in both the courtroom and the classroom. His resume says he has taught college and university courses, as well as authored books on law and business administration.

At Laval University, he is president of the post-graduate law students' association and a photo of him in his female attire appears with his president's message on the group's Web site.

A spokeswoman for the human rights commission said the complaint was rejected for technical reasons.

Since human rights proceedings are "judicial proceedings," the agency is bound by Quebec law to only accept grievances filed in a birth name, said Cathy Barrett.

"We're quite happy to take the complaint back," she said. The proceedings will now include both Montreuil's given name and his chosen name, she said.

The court rejected the commission's contention that it had no choice to reject the complaint. Rather, it is an organization that has been handed plenty of latitude in such decisions, said Tremblay-Lamer.

Copyright © 2001 Southam Newspapers. Tous droits réservés.
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