The city of Edmonton has successfully quashed a judicial review of the Alberta Human Rights Commission's refusal to hear a complaint about women's sex-based rights. The city was also awarded $625 in costs for their successful application against the woman seeking the review.
The city's application was heard at the Court of King's Bench Alberta on June 10.
Background of the case
The case centered around academic Kathleen Lowrey, who, along with her 14-year-old daughter, encountered a male in overt sexual fetish gear using the female change room at the Bonnie Doon Leisure Centre in February 2025. Lowrey argued that the facility's policy, which allows males who self-identify as women to enter the women's-only areas, compromises the privacy, dignity, and safety of all females.
From her original complaint, filed in May 2025: "Perhaps not all men who claim a female gender identity are sexually motivated, but saying any man who claims a female gender identity can come in to women's changing rooms, the City has invited in sexually motivated men like him. It is a direct threat to women and girls for the city to say I have to see his penis and his fetish gear, let him look at me and my girl child if we change, and if we feel frightened our only alternative is to just stop using the facility. This denies us a public service on the basis of our female sex."
In an affidavit filed with her application for judicial review, Lowrey described entering the Bonnie Doon female change room with her daughter only to find "a bald man wearing only a black thong outlining his penis and a pair of artificial rubber breasts slung around his neck." Lowrey wrote that she wound up calling police after the leisure centre staff told her that the person in the thong was perfectly entitled to be in the women's area, fetish gear and all.
Human rights complaint dismissed
Lowrey filed a complaint with the AHRC in May 2025, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex. The AHRC rejected both her original complaint in July 2025 and then her request for an appeal of that rejection in November 2025. They asserted that Lowrey had not demonstrated that she had been discriminated against. She then filed for a judicial review, hoping to force the AHRC to hear her case.
City of Edmonton intervenes
Then came the city of Edmonton. The city had Lowrey's application for a judicial review thrown out on the basis that Lowrey did not name the city as a respondent. In an application filed to the courts, they argued that the city is "the entity directly affected by and implicated in the underlying human rights complaint." The city also argued that Lowrey is now outside of the six-month filing period for a judicial review, meaning that she will not be able to re-file, even with the city named as a respondent. The entire case is dead.
Lowrey, who is not a lawyer and is self-represented, filed her application against the AHRC alone. She argued that she merely wanted her original complaint to be heard. In a written statement she prepared for the application hearing, and provided to the Post, she argued that "the relief (she is) seeking in (her) originating application is not from Bonnie Doon Leisure Centre and/or the City of Edmonton. It is simply for the AHRC to hear (her) arguments."
