VANCOUVER (CP) - A women's support group clearly discriminated against a woman who used to be a man when it barred her from a training program as a volunteer counsellor, a lawyer for the B.C. Human Rights Commission argued Tuesday.

Deirdre Rice said the Vancouver Rape Relief Society is wrong to assume it did not promote the view that Kimberly Nixon was "less capable or worthy of recognition or value, equally deserving of concern, respect and consideration."

"Rape Relief clearly excluded the complainant because it assumed things about her because, and only because, she is a transsexual woman," Rice said in closing arguments.

That discrimination also denied Nixon future employment at the women's support group, she said.

Rape Relief members barred Nixon, 43, from the training program, saying she wouldn't be able to relate to female victims of sexual assault and other violence against women.

Nixon, who is seeking $10,000 and other remedies from Rape Relief, said she was humiliated for not being accepted as a woman and filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Commission.

The case, which began hearings late last year, started wrapping up Tuesday.

Nixon told the tribunal that she's capable of relating to women's issues and knows what female oppression is all about because she has experienced it since childhood.

"Growing up, I still had the sense and burden of being female and the burden of being aware of the oppression and sexism and all the issues women deal with," she said Tuesday.

But when Rape Relief lawyer Victoria Gray challenged Nixon about her ability to understand discrimination against women trying to enter male-dominated professions, Nixon appeared unsettled.

Nixon worked as a pilot while she was still a man. She underwent sexual reassignment surgery in 1990.

"Do you say that this oppression affected your ability to train as a pilot?" Gray asked.

"I was living two lives," said Nixon, who wore a clip in her streaked shoulder-length hair and spoke in a female-sounding voice.

"The only time I was appearing as a male was for my job."

Nixon previously testified that she had difficulty getting work as a pilot after she became a woman.

Suzanne Jay, spokeswoman for Rape Relief, said outside the hearing that it's impossible for someone born as a male to share the same life experiences as females born and raised as girls and women.

"Being a woman requires a combination of experiences that are both social, psychological and biological and they combine in a way that shapes women's experiences and . . . the world's perception of us," Jay said.

She said a ruling in favour of Nixon would have far-reaching consequences for women's support groups across Canada.

Women fleeing abusive relationships and expecting support from another woman at a support group or transition house would lose out in the end because they wouldn't accept help from someone who was born a man, Jay said.

"Most women just wouldn't say anything, they'd just disappear," she said. "That's our fear."

Members of women's groups are concerned that they'll be forced to close if transgendered women are allowed to work or volunteer there, Jay said.

That was the case for the Vancouver Lesbian Connection, which closed two years ago after a man who hadn't yet had surgery to become a woman launched a complaint against that group for banning him from its drop-in centre.

Susan Mamela won a $3,000 settlement and has said he will not have surgery to become a woman.

Nixon said outside the hearing that she decided to become a peer counsellor at Rape Relief after working through her own issues of having been battered.

"I was looking to give back because I saw that the work those women did was so important."

Nixon said she was accepted into the training program after a phone and personal interview but was excluded after 20 minutes into the training after someone questioned her gender.