Kerry Sauriol

Former blogger. Before the word ‘influencer’ was invented. Marketer, copywriter, armchair warrior.

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@CityofVancouver I love this group but it is appalling that they are providing stewardship of the Champlain trails. Back in the 80s the trails were maintained and managed. It should be a showcase of nature within a city https://t.co/KuCtABWJQ3

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@jodyvance @DeputyChow Don’t need them now - who can afford to park

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

Dear @telus and @TELUSsupport please cancel our account with you. We have been trying since the new year. We have been on hold now for a very long time. Again. Your company is a nightmare now.

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

Any BCers who can help this amazing program? https://t.co/iOvoqHvbVJ

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@jan_murray Women are not news anymore

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@OrbitStudios Saw it with my Canadian pals - said that’s where I’m from.

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@zoeelizabethjpg So so sexy in that

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@hostproductions I danced on a speaker at a dark club to this!

[Lilyallly❤️🇬🇧 @lilyally98]

This whole argument is built on projection.

You assume that if women ever had power, they would do to men what men historically did to women. That says more about how you view power than how women do.

Show me one country where women gained political power and stripped men of their rights. It doesn’t exist. When women got the vote, they didn’t take yours. When laws expanded, they expanded for everyone.

Dating preferences are not human rights violations. Not being desired is not oppression.

And saying women are “consumers not givers” ignores centuries of unpaid labour, caregiving, and emotional support that societies have quietly depended on.

Equality is not revenge.
It’s balance.

If equality feels like oppression to you, maybe what you’re mourning isn’t rights it’s dominance.

[Read some Piaget please! @prof_curiosity1]

From “Hysteria” to “Gender Dysphoria”: How Medicine turns Distress into Doctrine

Every era has its signature diagnosis. A label that looks scientific, feels compassionate, and gives institutions a clear script for what to do. In Victorian and early 20th century medicine, that label was women’s hysteria. Today, one of the most culturally powerful labels is gender dysphoria, increasingly applied to children and adolescents.

The comparison is not that gender distress is fake. It is that society often takes real distress and then builds a story around it that reflects the politics, anxieties, and moral fashions of the time.

1. Both begin with real suffering
Women diagnosed with hysteria often had genuine symptoms: anxiety, depression, dissociation, trauma responses, sexual distress, social confinement. But medicine did not ask what those symptoms meant in context. It translated them into a tidy narrative: female instability, rooted in the body.

Similarly, many young people presenting with gender dysphoria today are genuinely distressed. But the modern script increasingly treats that distress as proof of an inner identity: a mismatch between the self and the sexed body.

In both cases, the label offers certainty where the real situation is complex.

2. Both convert social conflict into a medical condition
“Hysteria” medicalised women’s dissatisfaction with restrictive sex roles. It allowed society to avoid confronting the real causes: limited autonomy, sexual coercion, poverty, lack of rights, and trauma.

Gender dysphoria functions similarly. It medicalises discomfort with puberty, misogyny, homophobia, sexual shame, autismr elated social alienation, or trauma. Instead of asking, “What is happening in this child’s life and development?” the system asks, “How quickly can we validate the identity?”

3. Both are shaped by suggestion, authority, and culture
Hysteria spread through medical institutions, popular writing, and elite opinion. The diagnosis became a lens through which women’s experiences were interpreted.

Gender identity frameworks spread through schools, social media, clinical pathways, and activist training. Children learn the script at precisely the age when identity is most malleable and belonging matters most (Erikson). This is not a conspiracy. It is basic developmental psychology: children absorb meaning from authority, peers, and reward structures (Vygotsky, Bandura, , ).

4. Both have “treatments” that reflect ideology more than evidence
Hysteria was treated with rest cures, institutionalisation, forced dependency, and sometimes surgery. Many of these interventions were justified as compassionate. They were often harmful.

In paediatric gender medicine, now mandated interventions are puberty blockers and hormones. Evidence reviews have repeatedly raised concerns about weak evidence, limited long term follow up, and inadequate assessment of comorbidities. Yet the interventions are still framed in some settings as established care.

The common pattern is not the intervention itself. It is the institutional confidence: the rush from uncertainty to treatment.

5. Both create a moral hierarchy of “good patients”
Women with hysteria were expected to be compliant. Their symptoms were taken seriously only if they accepted the doctor’s explanation.

"Gender distressed" children face a modern version: those who “affirm” are supported; those who question, hesitate, or detransition can be treated as inconvenient. The system often rewards certainty, not complexity. But children are complex.

6. The deepest similarity: distress becomes identity
Hysteria did not merely describe symptoms. It became a social identity: a type of woman.

Gender dysphoria is increasingly treated the same way. Not as distress to explore, but as identity to consolidate. Yet developmental psychology is clear: childhood identity is time sensitive, socially influenced, and still forming. When institutions treat a provisional self concept as a life destiny, they risk turning a phase into a pathway.

Summary
The moral of hysteria is not; “do nothing.” It is; do not mistake a culturally fashionable explanation for settled science.

Real distress deserves care. But the most ethical, trauma informed and evidence based care in childhood is the kind that keeps options open, treats comorbidities, resists premature certainty, and refuses to turn a child’s confusion into a lifelong medical narrative.

Because hysteria and its treatment shows what happens when medicine stops asking: What is the suffering?
…and starts insisting: This is who you are.

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@sappholives83 Ya how do you back away when everyone around is now cheering on becoming someone else

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@hollie__pollard The system for youth is horrifically overwhelmed so I can only imagine what rural families face

[Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌✡️ @sappholives83]

So I’ve been thinking about trans mass shooters, and I think it very clear that it isn’t transphobia that pushes trans kids to kill. It’s the pain and anger and the cognitive dissonance that come from living a lie.

These kids know, deep down, that identifying as the opposite sex is no more valid than identifying as an animal, or as someone from another planet. They know, even if not consciously, that it’s all pretend.

Knowing that, they cannot help but be aware that everyone in their life who affirms them is lying through their teeth, whether they admit that consciously or not. Parents, teachers, counselors — everyone in authority is reinforcing a charade. They’re all lying — and that leaves the kid with no firm foundation upon which to build a genuine identity. It’s all pretense, based on whatever stereotypes these kids have picked up about the opposite sex, and that leads to feelings of instability and insecurity. They can’t even trust their own parents to tell them the truth — so how can they trust anyone else?

Moreover, these kids are told over and over again that transition will cure all of their mental distress, and because of the culture in trans spaces, they feel compelled to pretend that this is so. That causes a lot of repressed anger and pain they feel unable to express verbally, and whereas girls who are angry and depressed at this level are more likely to self-harm (although there are exceptions), boys — as we continue to see — tend to lash out instead.

You cannot surround a child with liars and expect them to grow up as a healthy and rational member of society. Affirming parents are lying parents, and “trans” kids know that. It severs the bonds between parent and child, leaving the child unable to trust their authority figures. Their parents, teachers, etc. will look them in the face and lie to protect them from the truth — but that’s not healthy, and it’s not how you raise functional children.

Moreover, forcing a child to make life-altering medical decisions at an age where they are incapable of fully understanding what they’re about to do to themselves is a form of neglect. It puts “trans” kids in an unnatural position, in which the parents push the child to make life-altering choices that no child should be forced to even consider.

Instead of being protected, the “trans” child is forced into an adult role, and required to make decisions that will have long term consequences for their health and mental wellbeing, years before they’re even old enough to decide to get their ears pierced on their own. Additionally, they’re expected to make these decisions while living in a carefully curated fantasy world in which everyone they should be able to trust is instead lying to them about the very basis of who they are — but the fantasy is imperfect, and no matter how elaborate, no matter how affirming, it IS a fantasy — and fantasies don’t last.

The kid is trapped between his idealized self and his true self, unable to achieve the former, but forced to pretend he has, even as the existence of the latter becomes harder to ignore. The dissonance between fantasy and reality increases as he ages, and the anger at his inability to reconcile the two eventually erupts into violence.

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@GTurple @JenniferSey Exactly- this chips away at any protections we ever had

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

Thank you from a frustrated BC resident

[Chris LaBossiere @ChrisLaBossiere]

Hey @TELUS and @TELUSsupport, I am an Alberta resident and I have a serious public question that deserves a serious public answer.

I am repeatedly contacted on my personal mobile phone by TELUS telemarketing calls using masked or spoofed local numbers. I have clearly and explicitly instructed callers to stop. The calls continue.

So let’s get precise:

1) Consent and compliance
Under the CRTC Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules and the National Do Not Call List framework, what specific legal basis does TELUS rely on to continue calling individuals who have clearly withdrawn consent?

2) Internal suppression controls
What internal systems does TELUS have to ensure that a consumer’s explicit do not call request is honored across all outbound campaigns, vendors, and affiliates, and why are those systems clearly failing here?

3) Third party accountability
Are these calls being made directly by TELUS employees or by third party contractors?
If contractors are involved, how does TELUS audit, discipline, or terminate vendors who ignore lawful do not call requests?

4) Masked or spoofed numbers
Why is TELUS using masked local numbers for sales calls, a tactic widely associated with deceptive or coercive telemarketing, and how does TELUS reconcile this with its public commitments to consumer trust and digital ethics?

5) Record keeping and proof
If TELUS believes it is acting lawfully, what records exist showing my consent, my revocation of consent, and the internal actions taken or not taken after I demanded the calls stop?

6) Consumer remedy
What specific remedy does TELUS offer Albertans when its marketing practices become persistent, unwanted, and intrusive?

And if TELUS offers none, should affected consumers escalate directly to the CRTC and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner?

This is not a one off annoyance. It is a very regular, almost daily, pattern. And patterns indicate policy, not accidents.

I am asking for a clear written response that TELUS is prepared to stand behind publicly.

Many Canadians are watching. Regulators should be too.

[Patrick Condon @pmcondon2]

DRAFT article:

SEVEN RULES FOR SURVIVING THE VANCOUVER REAL ESTATE CRASH.
Patrick M. Condon

As of early 2026, the long-predicted correction in Vancouver's real estate market has arrived. BC Assessment figures released this month confirm what many have felt for years: residential values across the Lower Mainland have softened, with median single-family detached home assessments in Vancouver dropping about 5% year-over-year, and cumulative declines in the composite benchmark reaching 3-4% in recent months.

This is no mere blip. After decades of speculation-driven escalation—fueled by global capital, low interest rates, and unchecked land value capture—the market is undergoing a necessary reset. Detached homes and condos alike face high inventory, stagnant sales, and downward pressure on prices.

Yet the crisis is also a catalyst. The pain of falling values exposes deep structural flaws: an economy overly dependent on real estate as wealth creation, families priced out of neighborhoods, and urban forms that prioritize profit over people and planet. Drawing from principles of land economics, sustainable design, and equitable urbanism—ideas I've explored in works like Broken City and Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities—here are seven rules to navigate this downturn and emerge with a more just, resilient and equitable Vancouver.

Rule 1: Diversify the Economy.

Vancouver has treated real estate as its primary industry for too long, turning land into a speculative asset rather than a community resource. With values now correcting, the city must urgently broaden its economic base. Invest in sectors that generate genuine productivity—servoce industries (think accountants, plumbers, artisans, carpenters, teachers that serve internal communities)—rather than relying on endless condo towers and foreign capital inflows. Diversification reduces boom-bust vulnerability, as seen in resource-dependent economies. Redirect public funds from developer incentives toward a largely local and BC focussed economy with infrastructure that supports diverse and geographically distributed employment. We might then build wealth that stays local and supports families, not just speculators.

Rule 2: Support Families with Non-Market Housing.

The market alone cannot deliver affordability for working families. Young families have been systematically excluded from this city as land rents soared, leaving working households paying 50% or more of income on shelter. Use this correction to scale non-market solutions: expand community land trusts, deepen public housing commitments, and enforce inclusionary zoning with real teeth. Make affordable rents real, not a mirage, permanently capped at 30% of median income in non market units, drawing from proven models like Vienna's or Montreal's social housing networks. Fund these through a robust land value tax that captures unearned increments from public investments (transit, parks, schools). This rule restores housing as a human right, preserving social diversity and preventing the hollowing out of neighborhoods.

Rule 3: Shift from Expensive Concrete High-Rises to Cheap Perimeter Blocks.

Vancouver's love affair with glass-and-concrete towers has inflated construction costs, energy demands, and land prices while delivering poor livability. These tower forms, often built for investor flips, are inefficient and environmentally costly. Pivot instead to perimeter block typology: mid-rise (4-8 stories), wood- or mass-timber structures enclosing green courtyards, as perfected in European cities like Berlin or Barcelona. These are faster and cheaper to build, integrate far better into existing neighbourhoods, foster community connection through shared space, and integrate ground-floor retail for walkable destinations. This shift aligns density with affordability and climate goals, making "missing middle" housing viable again.

Rule 4: Find Cheaper and Better Alternatives to Subways.

Mega-transit projects like subways consume billions while serving narrow corridors and largely benefiting landowners along routes. In a post-correction era of constrained budgets, prioritize scalable, cost-effective options: bus rapid transit (BRT) on dedicated lanes, light rail using existing rights-of-way, and comprehensive cycling/pedestrian networks. Systems like Bogotá's TransMilenio prove BRT can move masses at a fraction of subway expense. Pair these with upzoning along corridors to leverage non market housing (Leveraging Inclusionary Zoning units at 50 percent of total) to create transit-oriented communities that reduce travel expenses and enhance local mobility. The result: equitable mobility that serves the many, not just prestige lines that exacerbate inequality.

Rule 5: Use This Collapse to Purchase Land at Firesale Prices.

As distress sales rise and land values fall, governments and non-profits can act decisively. Acquire depreciated parcels for a public land bank—preventing vulture funds from returning to the market. Repurpose foreclosed sites for affordable housing or public park spaces. Impose vacancy taxes and higher rates on idle land to discourage hoarding. By buying low now, we can hold land in perpetuity for public benefit, breaking the speculation cycle and ensuring future generations inherit opportunity, not scarcity.

Rule 6: Stop Subsidies for Land Bankers (Temporary Agriculture Rates for Dog Parks are one example).

Vancouver's tax system has long rewarded speculators through loopholes, such as "farm status" exemptions applied to urban lots used as makeshift dog parks or temporary community gardens. These subsidies allow owners to hold prime land at minimal cost, waiting for windfalls. Eliminate them now. Implement a full land value tax on these parcels (à la Henry George) to capture societal-created increments, funding public goods instead of enriching idle holders. Ending these giveaways forces productive use—or sale—accelerating recovery while addressing equity.

Rule 7: Buy, Buy, Buy Buildings for Co-Ops (Vienna Model).

Finally, seize distressed assets for large-scale conversion to resident-owned cooperatives, following Vienna's success (where over 60% of residents live in secure, high-quality social housing). Public entities can purchase buildings at discounts during the downturn, then transfer to co-ops with mandates for perpetual affordability. This decentralizes ownership, empowers residents, and stabilizes communities against future volatility. Fund via progressive taxes on luxury holdings (mansion tax). Scaling co-ops democratizes housing, turning crisis into collective strength.

This correction hurts, but it also clarifies: housing must serve people, not just capital. By following these rules, Vancouver can emerge not just recovered, but transformed—more equitable, sustainable, and truly livable.

Professor Emeritus Patrick M. Condon
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
University of British Columbi

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@owroot Family have been made to watch due to their‘British’ roots

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@ATRightMovies

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@sappholives83 Yes

[Kerry Sauriol @CrunchyCarpets]

@chrisgailus it would be great if media looked at this. Many neighborhoods fighting this. Not nimbyism either.

[CityHallWatch @CityHallWchVAN]

Vancouver races to promote towers nearly everywhere and eventually ban most public hearings 2026 onward. #SocialHousingInitiative public hearing is now set for Nov 27. But the public is uninformed. Still nearly zero media coverage #vanpoli https://t.co/fgDn5hAxVe