This week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made good on her threat to move ahead with a slew of anti-trans policies and legislation. In a social media post on Twitter (now “X”), she announced her government’s plans to “introduce critical legislation” later this month: preventing trans minors under 16 from accessing safe and medically necessary puberty blockers; requiring parental opt-in before teachers mention gender identity or human sexuality in the classroom; and prohibiting trans women and girls from participating in women’s sports; among other discriminatory policy measures.
It’s a move that panders to the most extreme, most right-wing, and most bigoted members of Smith’s UCP base—you know, the people who honestly believe that the United States Government is deploying chemtrails over Alberta’s skies. And trans people are going to suffer the consequences.
The problem with Alberta’s ongoing war against the trans community
To begin with, of course these laws and policies will have a very direct, very negative impact on trans youth, in particular. But more than that, the government’s very public embrace of anti-trans bigotry has given members of the broader Alberta public cover to embrace and enact their own bigotries against a group of people that, as the Supreme Court recently recognized, is “among the most marginalized in Canadian society.”
After all, if the Premier of Alberta is against trans people existing in public life, then why shouldn’t everyone else be, too?
And let’s be very, very clear about something: Under Danielle Smith’s leadership, the Government of Alberta is attempting to legislate trans people out of existence.
That’s why, for example, this government wants to ban puberty blockers. Because if trans youth don’t have access to puberty blockers, it will be that much more difficult for them to grow into trans adults. That’s why, too, this government wants to require schools to obtain parental consent before teachers affirm a student’s chosen name and pronouns. Because then trans children who might not be able to come out safely at home might not come out at all.
Let’s be cognizant of something else, too: The effect of these anti-trans laws and policies is to expose trans people to a substantially increased risk of death. New research in the journal nature human behaviour has established a causal link between anti-trans laws in the United States and an up to 72% increase in suicide attempts amongst that country’s trans and nonbinary youth. Anti-trans laws and policies kill children, and the Government of Alberta intends to enact them within the month.
Because, if this government can eradicate trans children, they will be able to eradicate the next generation of trans adults.
It’s a horrific plan, indeed, a genocidal one. It’s a plan that must be opposed by every Canadian with a conscience. But it’s a plan that, by all indications, will soon command the full force of law.
I have to believe, however, that the plan is one that will necessarily fail. Not because lawyers, or judges, or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms will come to the rescue. My view of the law is far too jaundiced for me to believe that.
Rather, the Government of Alberta will fail to eradicate trans people because trans people are stronger and more united, in the end, than this government and its best laid plans.
I have to believe that, anyways.
Because, as a trans woman myself, I know firsthand that the only alternative is to die by my own hand. Because, as a trans woman in community with other trans people, I know that the only alternative is to concede the inevitability of my friends and chosen family dying by their own hands. And those alternatives are unacceptable to me.
Which is why, today, this trans Albertan is not afraid. She is resolved to fight for trans futures, now.
How to take action to protect trans people in Alberta
The time has come for every Canadian with a conscience to stand up and be counted. You are either for the Government of Alberta’s death-dealing policies or for a future that has trans people—trans children included—in it. There is no middle ground.
Let everyone who stands for life:
- Call upon their elected officials at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels to oppose the Government of Alberta’s anti-trans agenda;
- Make trans-inclusive practices a part of their everyday life, such as by sharing their pronouns when introducing themselves or being explicit that the organizations they manage are welcoming of every person regardless of their gender identity or expression;
- Donate their money to, or volunteer their time working with, provincial and national organizations that support Alberta’s trans and non-binary community, in court and in our day-to-day lives;
- Insist that only those organizations, agencies, and persons that are against the Government of Alberta’s anti-trans laws and policies be permitted in queer spaces, including Pride marches;
- Resist those laws and policies through peaceful acts of civil disobedience, such as, for teachers and school administrators, by refusing to out students to their families despite what the Government of Alberta says; and
- Campaign and vote against the United Conservative Party in every Alberta election going forward.
There is a future for trans people in Alberta. But there cannot be a future for the United Conservative Party in Alberta. Let us now unite, organize, and mobilize to make sure that’s the case.
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