A cycling workshop at the University of Quebec in Montreal bans men from entering on Tuesdays, a practice that is raising questions and drawing criticism from students.
Workshop leaders justify this decision with the desire to create a safe space for women, transgender, non-binary, two-spirit and intersex people.
However, all UQAM students must pay $1 per session to fund the workshop, and the fact that men cannot access it on Tuesdays poses a problem.
“It makes me angry because excluding a group of people doesn’t open the door to inclusion,” one student told our journalist Kevin Crane-Desmarais.
“This is reverse discrimination,” says another.
However, one student confirms that the decision to ban men once a week makes her feel safer.
“When I started coming to the workshop, I felt it was safer,” she says. “It’s intimidating for a lot of people if you’re not used to it, and it’s generally a very male environment.”
The workshop managers did not want to react.
For its part, the university affirms that “it is a choice of the autonomous student group of the workshop” and that it is possible for students “to receive a refund of the one dollar contribution”.
The Human Rights Commission invites people who believe they are victims of discrimination to lodge a complaint.