The Conservatives need to ditch their transphobia
The grassroots of the Conservative Party of Canada approved two policies that would attack trans rights
Conventions are a time for the members of political parties to get together, talk about the beliefs that unite them, and push for policies to be the official stance of the party.
The Conservative Party of Canada had their annual convention earlier this month, and apparently, the belief that unites them is hating trans kids.
The grassroots members of the party — the people who are most engaged, the people who donate, volunteer, and vote Conservative — passed two anti-trans policies.
But first, what’s important to know is these policies aren’t necessarily going to be the position of the Conservative government should they win in 2025, or whenever the next election will be. It is just what the general membership of the party wants them to do if they win.
The first policy is something we’ve seen pop up often in the United States. It entails the Conservatives defining women as biological females in legislation and banning anyone not assigned female at birth from women’s washrooms, sports, prisons, and all sorts of other things. It passed with 87 per cent support.
The second policy directly targets trans kids. It would ban anyone under 18 years of age from getting gender affirming care. While the policy didn’t explain what types of gender affirming care would be blocked, anything legislated is a step too far. It passed with 69 per cent support.
That means the base of the Conservative Party is trying to bring in the now mainstream anti-trans sentiments from the United Kingdom and U.S. into Canadian politics.
We’ve got good news and bad news.
The bad news is there’s a real shot of the Conservative party winning the next election. The current 338 Canada projection has Conservatives around 179 seats, only 170 are needed for a majority government.
If that happens and they take these policies to heart, there’ll be a long battle for trans rights. It will cause genuine pain to trans people who deserve to feel safe. Not only will trans rights become a political question, but they will become a legal question because there is no way those policies wouldn’t wind up at the Supreme Court.
The other bad news is leaders of the Conservative party are apparently too afraid to say anything about their clearly transphobic base. Not a peep from the leader, deputy leader, or any MP.
Meanwhile Conservative premiers in New Brunswick, Ontario, and Saskatchewan have started waging war on trans youth who want to change their pronouns in school. The premier of Manitoba is campaigning on doing something similar if re-elected in October.
When people show you who they are, believe them. The conservatives are showing us that they don’t care about 2SLGBTQ+ rights.
But we shouldn’t be surprised, their leader voted against same-sex marriage several times as an MP in the early 2000s and they mailed flyers attacking a far-right People’s Party of Canada candidate for supporting Pride. They aren’t exactly trying to hide it.
Luckily it’s not all doom and gloom. That 338 poll is two years before an election and most people aren’t really paying attention yet. Once Canadians see the conservatives for who they are, like they did in 2019 and 2021, things might turn around for the next election.
In 2019, the issue of abortion was stuck to Andrew Scheer and he lost, and Erin O’Toole had to deal with his Conservative delegates voting to say climate change isn’t real. Canadians don’t like it when Conservatives get too kooky with their ideas and will reject them time and time again until they smarten up.
