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Background
The Zenith Foundation was founded in 1992 by Stephanie Castle, Christine Burnham and Patricia Diewold a clinical psychologist with the Provincial Gender Clinic at the Vancouver General hospital. The foundation was active from 1992-2003, while 2003-2014 was a period of inactivity. As of 2014 the founders of the organization have sought to revive the foundation. The Zenith Foundation was formed in the hopes of becoming a charitable organization apt for supporting and meeting the needs of transgender men and women. However, the foundation never quite reached ‘charitable status’, in spite of their attempts on numerous occasions. At its peak, the Zenith Foundation had over two hundred members, most of whom resided in British Columbia on Canada’s west coast. The Zenith Foundation is most notable for their role as an ‘interested party’ in the Synthia Kavanagh case and their magazine The Zenith Digest. The largest collection of records and publications by the Zenith Foundation is held at the Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria; the largest transgender archives in the world.

Purpose
The Zenith Foundation arose out of the apparent need to promote tolerance and understanding surrounding individuals who identified as transgender and those experiencing gender dysphoria. During the foundation’s active years, they were heavily involved with preparing educational materials and advocating for the elimination of societal barriers for transgender people (CITE REF #6). The foundation sought to address issues such as “barriers to employment, improvement of lifestyle and relief of poverty for transexual individuals.”. In spite of this purpose, and the endorsement from various clinics such as the Gender Dysphoria Clinic, the Zenith Foundation has yet to receive ‘charitable status’. A factor in their inability to receive charitable status is due to the Government of Canada’s Charity Division believing that they only catered to a select group of people. This belief may have been influenced by the fact that the Zenith Foundation’s membership eligibility was contingent on applicant's identification with the condition “gender dysphoria”.

Outreach and Services
The Zenith Foundation sought to assist troubled persons in the transgender community. While assistance was provided for all genders, the foundation tended to service transgender women more than they helped women transitioning to men. The foundation was able to network with various peoples and institutions in order to better provide service for transgender people. The Zenith Foundation helped to raise funds for transgender women seeking to undergo a sex reassignment surgery alongside the assistance of a Montreal clinic. In addition, the Zenith Foundation rallied support and received aid from members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the police, local businesses as well as the government.

The Zenith Foundation became known for their involvement and support of transgender people in the prison system. The most notable transgender inmate the foundation assisted was Synthia Kavanagh. On May 4 1999 the Zenith Foundation was granted interested party status to make oral representation and file supporting documents on the subject of transsexual inmates. . The granting of ‘interested party status’ came following a complaint filed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission on September 7 1995 in response to the treatment of Synthia Kavanagh (a trans woman) within the prison system. With the support of the Zenith Foundation, Kavanagh eventually won the right to receive a sex reassignment surgery within the prison system and was finally relocated to a women’s prison. In addition, the Zenith Foundation’s involvement in the Synthia Kavanagh case helped to bring awareness to the treatment and the challenges faced by transgender people within the correctional system.

Publications
The Zenith Foundation’s mandate was to provide information services and education in an effort to counter the stigma, ignorance, and prejudice around the subject of transsexuals. Therefore, the Zenith Foundation worked on numerous publications including pamphlets, digests, newsletters, and manuals. These publications were offered to members of the foundation, practitioners, advisors, and counsellors in order to spread information about the foundation and issues that pertain to transsexuals. The Zenith Foundation understood the great assistance these materials would offer because, at that time, there was very little written from a Canadian context. The Zenith Foundation became famous for their newsletter The Zenith Digest and the first newsletter was completed and delivered July 30th 1993. Privacy issues were important for the Zenith foundation, and in the first newsletter, it stated that the foundation did not want any unneeded interest from the media. Because of this, the foundation asked its readers to exercise discretion with any material received at meetings or through the mail. The foundation also sought to develop strong communication links with the BC Ministry of health. Coupled with strengthening ties with BC Health Ministry, the Zenith Foundation enacted a special project to study the diverse attitudes of different provincial health ministries across the county. The information gathered was used to benefit the cross-Canada transsexual community