As Alberta Adopts Common-Sense Rules for Trans-Identified Children, Social-Justice Hash-Taggers Rend Garments (Again)

Let’s take a look at some of the rhetorical gambits on display

On January 31, Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, unveiled new policies for treatment of trans-identified children. These include a ban on sex-change surgery for those under 17 and a ban on hormone therapy for those under 16. She also announced policies directed at protecting female sports categories from biological boys and men who identify as girls and women.

And, crucially, her government will now require that parents are notified about school course materials on gender identity and sexuality. Parents will also have to give their consent before schools switch names or pronouns for children under 16.

Before going further, I’ll say that Smith has embraced some fairly dubious ideas in the past—including conspiracy theories associated with fringe internet subcultures. In most of my political views, I’m a typical Toronto-based small-L liberal. If I were an Alberta voter, I’d have serious concerns about voting for her government (which I’d then have to balance against my serious concerns about her NDP opponents).

But I’m not an Alberta voter. So I have the luxury of cherry-picking the issues she gets right and wrong. And this is an issue that falls into the first of those two categories.

Policies that protect parents’ rights when it comes to decisions that could send their children down the road to surgery, lifelong drugs, medical complications, and sterilization are completely justified. They’re also—obviously—extremely popular.

Moreover, her policy of restricting medical therapies when it comes to trans-identified children is broadly in line with recent developments in many advanced European countries, which have investigated—and rejected—the blithe assurances from WPATH and other trans-activist groups (which is effectively what these bodies have become) that “gender-affirming” policies are safe and reversible.

They’re not. And they’re not.

For years now, the rhetorical strategy among trans-boosting activists has been to smear dissenters as transphobes and ideologically motivated outliers. But from a statistical point of view, that no longer makes any sense: Alberta now joins New Brunswick, Ontario, and Saskatchewan in taking steps to roll back the excesses of affirmation-only policies. Those provinces account for more than half of Canada’s population, and Quebec will likely join that list soon. That would leave David Eby’s NDP government in British Columbia as (population-wise) the only major outlier. (Eby, like Justin Trudeau, has banged on about trans rights so often that it seems unlikely he’ll ever be able to course correct. In both cases, reform will likely have to wait till these two men have been removed from office.)

But that hasn’t stopped prominent figures from suggesting that it’s Smith who’s the radical. And a survey of their responses reminds us of some of the specious tactics that have been used to discredit the policies she advocates.

1. CBC: ‘Expert’ Says …

The idea here is that Smith’s decision flies in the face of neutral expertise. In fact, as noted above, Alberta’s decision is consistent with the trend observed in other western nations, including the politically progressive nations of Europe (something to remember the next time someone says that Smith is going down the “MAGA” route on this). UK’s Tavistock scandal, in particular, has been a huge wake-up call for Europeans of all political stripes.

It’s also worth noting that the “expert” trotted out by the CBC here, one Fae Johnstone, is not an expert at all, but rather an obnoxious government-funded street activist who harasses women online. Which tells you a lot about where media such as the CBC are getting their “expertise.”

2. I Love Your Kids (Even Though I’ve Never Met Them)

This gambit is probably the most unsettling—and passive aggressive, as it suggests that anyone who disagrees with a policy that allows a child unfettered access to drugs and surgery (as well as the social and pedagogical waypoints that lead thereto) is bereft of “love.” And so we’re asked to believe that this isn’t even a question of policy disagreement per se, but a sort of test to see who is more love-y.

It’s worth noting here that Smith herself felt it necessary to pay lip service to this rhetorical device in her own announcement—which (as the irrepressible Chanel Pfahl has noted) shows how far into our culture this kind of cultish language has penetrated.

The whole premise that Canadians elect politicians to “love” us, or our children, is bizarre. My MP and MPP have never met me or my kids. They don’t “love” us, and I would find it unsettling if they said they did. Nor do I expect them to “love” whole classes of citizens, be they trans, non-trans, gay, straight, Jewish, red-haired, left-handed, or dyslexic. Supporting any such group is a political gesture. It isn’t based on the loving interpersonal emotions that govern our affectionate and intimate relationships with family members and friends whom we’ve known for years. Deliberately blurring these two types of feelings is what cults do, insofar as political and ideological obedience is seen as a gateway to inwardly experienced rhapsodies.

3. This is How the Holocaust Started

I’m always tempted to call these people Uncle Leos, but I’m worried that readers under 40 simply don’t understand Seinfeld references. So I’ll just say that comparing a common-sense policy on trans-identified kids with Nazis marking Jews for extermination is grotesque.

It’s even more grotesque when one considers that many of those being encouraged by teachers and peers to think that they were “born in the wrong body” are in fact just gay or lesbian teenagers who are confused or distressed about adolescence (which is why so many LGB activists are fleeing the T). A disproportionate number of them are autistic. And if one were forced to decide which side were comparable to Nazis—those pushing children toward sterilization and ghoulish surgeries, versus those taking a more cautious approach—I’m pretty sure the sound of goose-stepping would be coming from Lise Gotell’s side.

Fortunately, we don’t have to make that choice, as adults should be able to debate contentious policy topics without claiming the other side is taking cues from Hitler.

4. Smith is Plotting a Trans ‘Genocide’

This one is so loony that no one will believe me unless they actually watch the video.

H/T to Cosmin Dzsurdzsa for finding it.

5. You’re Killing Children / Here I Come on My White Horse to Save Them

The claim that failing to instantly “affirm” trans-presenting children will cause them to commit suicide has been a propaganda mainstay for years in this area. Fortunately, it’s recently gone into decline thanks to the widespread pushback from those who’ve argued (correctly) that the claim is based on shoddy studies—and, more generally, that it’s a manipulative and lurid form of argumentation.

But for some politicians, the temptation to present themselves as (literally) life-saving saviours proves irresistible.

6. Stop Using Trans Children as a Political Football (Even Though That’s Exactly What We’ve Been Doing for Years)

The hypocrisy here is mind-boggling. For almost a decade, left-leaning Canadian politicians have been using every letter and number of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ spectrum (yes, that’s what the Liberals call it now) as a political prop. From drag shows to four-month long “pride seasons,” it’s become the rainbow bunting of Liberal and NDP re-election campaigns. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why policy-making has, till recently, been so one-sided: It’s seen as an easy and flashy way to get votes from young, low-information Instagrammers who’ve been taught to see pronoun pins as badges of enlightenment.

But now that the shoe’s on the other foot, and Canadians are starting to realize that course correction is necessary, we’re all instructed to shut up about the issue. Sorry, Seamus, but that’s not how politics works.

7. I’m More Disappointed Than Angry

Here’s Trudeau’s Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, Marci Ien—yes, the same Ien who peacocked her rainbow bona fides by celebrating a mortifying all-ages drag show in Parliament—telling us how “disappointed” she is.

Well, if that’s the case, Ms. Ien, then you and your fellow Liberals should definitely run on this issue in the next election.

Run hard on it. Tell Canadian parents that you know better than they do about who their children really are.

Let’s see how that turns out. We’re all curious.