Gemma Hickey (born October 1, 1976) is a Canadian LGBTQ rights activist and author. They became one of the first Canadians to receive a

gender-neutral Gender neutrality (adjective form: gender-neutral), also known as gender-neutralism or the gender neutrality movement, is the idea that policies, language, and other social institutions (social structures or gender roles) should avoid distinguish ...

birth certificate and passport. Hickey founded The Pathways Foundation, an organization that offers support to survivors of religious institutional abuse and their families. Since 2010, Hickey has worked as Executive Director of Artforce, formerly known as For the Love of Learning, a non-profit that works to forge new paths for at-risk youth by advancing their literacy and creative skills.

Background

Gemma Hickey was born in

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America ...

, on October 1, 1976. They attended

Gonzaga High School Gonzaga Regional High School is an educational establishment located in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The school began as a Jesuit sponsored all-boys school from grades 9 to 11. It is now a non-denominational coeducational ins ...

, graduating in 1994. In 2003, Hickey graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in Religious Studies from

Memorial University of Newfoundland Memorial University of Newfoundland, also known as Memorial University or MUN (), is a public university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook, elsewhere in Newfoundland and ...

. During their time at post-secondary, they served as General Director of LBGT-MUN (now Sexual and Gender Advocacy). Hickey was raised Roman Catholic but left the Catholic Church in 2003 to become a member of the Wesley

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada (french: link=no, Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholi ...

congregation. Hickey is

non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

, and uses the pronouns ''they'' and ''them''. Hickey's transition is the subject of the 2017 documentary film ''Just Be Gemma'', which aired on

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

and the

Documentary Channel A documentary channel is a specialty channel which focuses on broadcasting documentaries. Some documentary channels further specialize by dedicating their television programming to specific types of documentaries or documentaries in a specific ar ...

, as well as being screened at the

Nickel Film Festival The Nickel Independent Film Festival (otherwise known simply as the Nickel Film Festival) is an annual film festival held in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The festival was conceived in 2001 by filmmaker Roger Maunder to allow lo ...

in St. John's, the

Atlantic Film Festival FIN: Atlantic International Film Festival (known as The Atlantic International Film Festival until 2017) is a major international film festival held annually in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada since 1980. FIN is the largest Canadian film festival eas ...

in Halifax, and at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. Gemma Hickey's first book, ''Almost Feral'', a memoir chronicling their walk across Newfoundland and the emotional terrain travelled within was published in October 2019 by

Breakwater Books Breakwater Books Ltd. is a Canadian publishing company based in Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, pr ...

. In 2020, the book won two awards at the Atlantic Book Awards: the APMA Best Atlantic Published Book Award, and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award in the non-fiction category. Hickey was also one of 24 Canadian writers to be featured on CBC Books’ Writers to Watch list, and CBC Books also named ''Almost Feral'' as one of 40 Canadian books on the summer 2020 reading list.

Activism

Gemma Hickey has spent years campaigning for

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

rights in Canada, through their involvement in

Egale Canada Egale Canada (formerly Equality for Gays And Lesbians Everywhere) is an advocacy organization founded in 1986 by Les McAfee to advance equality for Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families, across Canada. ...

PFLAG Canada PFLAG Canada is a national non-profit organization which brings together family and friends of LGBT people in Canada. It was begun separately and without knowledge of the American PFLAG which performs the same functions in the United States. As of ...

, and

Canadians for Equal Marriage Canadians for Equal Marriage is a Canadian public interest group representing Egale Canada, PFLAG Canada, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Canadian Association of Univer ...

. In 2003, Hickey traveled to Halifax to present a brief on same-sex marriage to the

Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights The House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST) is a standing committee of the House of Commons of Canada. The Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, as it was then known, began their first session on February 1 ...

. Hickey was president of

in 2005, when

same-sex marriage in Canada Same-sex marriage in Canada was progressively introduced in several provinces by court decisions beginning in 2003 before being legally recognized nationwide with the enactment of the ''Civil Marriage Act'' on July 20, 2005. On June 10, 2003, th ...

was legalized. Hickey is outspoken about the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy. After going public about being sexually abused at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest, Hickey founded The Pathways Foundation in 2013, a non-profit organization that helps people deal with the effects of such abuse. Hickey continues to raise the issue publicly, including attending the February 2019

Vatican sexual abuse summit The Vatican sexual abuse summit, officially the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church (), was a four-day Catholic Church summit meeting in Vatican City that ran from 21 to 24 February 2019, convened by Pope Francis to discuss preventi ...

in Rome. On June 2, 2015, a private member's bill was tabled in the House of Commons in Ottawa that Hickey had helped draft, to make June 1 the National Institutional Abuse Awareness Day. In 2015, Hickey undertook a 908-kilometer walk across the island of Newfoundland to raise awareness and funds for survivors of clergy abuse. Hickey completed the month-long walk at the

Mount Cashel Orphanage The Mount Cashel Orphanage, known locally as the Mount Cashel Boys' Home, was a boys' orphanage located in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The orphanage was operated by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, and became infamous for ...

Memorial in St. John's, the site of the largest sexual abuse scandal in Canadian history.

Non-binary official documents

Canada introduced non-binary passports in August 2017, becoming the first country in the Americas to allow its citizens to use 'X' in the gender category. Hickey applied and received one of the first issued, and used the passport to travel to Germany and visit a memorial to gay people persecuted by the Nazis. Hickey then traveled to Japan to speak about LGBTQ issues, to attend a screening of the documentary film ''Just Be Gemma'', and to give a reading from their memoir, ''Almost Feral''. On December 14, 2017, Hickey became the first person in Newfoundland and Labrador, and one of the first in Canada, to receive a non-binary birth certificate.Gemma Hickey breaks new ground with gender-neutral birth certificate
''CBC.'' December 14, 2017. Their application was initially rejected because the Vital Statistics Act limited gender designation on the application form to male and female only. In response to the rejection, Hickey filed an application at the

Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador is the superior court for the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear appeals in both criminal and civil matters from the Provincial Court and design ...

to challenge the constitutionality of the law. The province changed the legislation before the court proceedings concluded. The space for 'gender' on Hickey's birth certificate is marked with 'X' instead of a 'M' or 'F'.

Politics

Hickey unsuccessfully ran as a New Democrat for a seat in the

Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly The Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly is the Unicameralism, unicameral deliberative assembly of the General Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It meets in the Confederation Build ...

in the riding of Kilbride in a by-election called for February 8, 2007 following the resignation of Ed Byrne. They again unsuccessfully sought election to the provincial House of Assembly, this time in the Electoral District of

St. John's East St. John's East (french: St. John's-Est; formerly known as St. John's North) is a federal electoral district in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 1949. It covers a part of St ...

, in a general election held October 9, 2007. In January 2021, Hickey was confirmed as the Liberal candidate in

St. John's Centre St. John’s Centre is a provincial electoral district for the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Much of the former district of St. John's Centre was renamed St. John's East in 1996. As of 2011 there were 7,846 eligible vote ...

for the 2021 provincial election. Hickey was defeated by incumbent NDP MHA

Jim Dinn James Gerard Dinn is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly in the 2019 provincial election. He represents the electoral district of St. John's Centre as a member of the Newfoundland and Labra ...

Honours and awards

In 2012, Hickey was recognized with a

Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (french: Médaille du jubilé de diamant de la reine Elizabeth II) or The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2012 to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's ...

for their contribution to LBGTQ rights in Canada. In 2016, Hickey was named a Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Champion for their longstanding commitment to human rights protection, particularly for LGBTQ people.

Bibliography

Electoral results

, - , - ,

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National Deve ...

, Gemma Schlamp-Hickey , align="right", 864 , align="right", 16.60 , align="right", , - , Progressive Conservative , John Dinn , align="right", 2,744 , align="right", 78.83 , align="right", +0.55 , - , - , style="width: 130px" ,

, Gemma Schlamp-Hickey , align="right", 229 , align="right", 6.58 , align="right", +0.63 , - bgcolor="white" !align="left" colspan=3, Total !align="right", 3,481 !align="right", 100% !align="right",

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hickey, Gemma 1976 births Living people Writers from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Memorial University of Newfoundland alumni Canadian LGBT rights activists Activists from Newfoundland and Labrador 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers Canadian non-binary writers Converts to Protestantism from Roman Catholicism Members of the United Church of Canada Canadian memoirists Candidates in Newfoundland and Labrador provincial elections 21st-century Canadian LGBT people