On September 20, more than a hundred transphobic demonstrations took place across Canada, under the pretext of fighting against the ideology underlying educational content in sex education. The organizers of the 1 Million March 4 Children may not have managed to gather as much support as they would have liked, but the number of cities where they made their voices heard is impressive and speaks volumes about the state of our society.
Across the country, protests have encouraged the dissemination of violent remarks that are deeply hostile to the rights of trans people and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Participants of the 1 Million March 4 Children and those who speak out in their defense proclaim their right to freedom of expression. The problem is that these demonstrations do not coherently demand rights and freedoms, but manipulate their meaning to denigrate the rights of minoritized groups, an increasingly common technique. We will respond that it is about protecting children, not attacking trans people. But protect them from what exactly?
Organizers claim to be working to eliminate sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) education in schools. If it’s about educating children to respect the rights of all people and fighting against homophobia and transphobia, we don’t see where the harm is.
We will answer that children also have rights. Okay, so let’s take these rights seriously. Let us take seriously the coherence and interdependence of rights, the right to education, the right to be protected against all forms of discrimination, the right to have decent living conditions and to be protected against violence , racism, homophobia, sexism, mistreatment and exploitation.
The first victims of these protests are of course LGBTQ+ people. They are indeed the designated targets, as we can see elsewhere. In Florida, for example, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed no fewer than four new bills restricting LGBTQ+ rights.
Canada is not immune to these reactionary political ideas. And like in the United States, attacks against minoritized groups are just a step towards something even more violent. Political conservatism in Canada is gradually changing. After that of a healthy right, the Harper years imposed a change of direction which proposed putting aside the battles on the economy – since the neoliberal right had already won – to concentrate on morals.
The second stage of this political transformation is now about to elude the leaders of the conservative political parties, who are struggling to build an image that can inspire the populist right rather than being overtaken by it. Driven by the desire to please an angry electorate who do not differentiate between information and entertainment, right-wing politicians, at worst, support the demonstrators or, at best, call for calm and want to be sensitive to the concerns of the parents, without worrying too much about insults against LGBTQ+ groups. They say they listen to different opinions to fuel their thinking while rejecting out of hand the arguments and facts presented by the social sciences, seeing them as Wokist rantings.
Despite its family squabbles, political conservatism in Quebec and Canada is increasingly dominated by the rise of intolerant movements. In Quebec, like everywhere in Canada, there is a hard conservative right that takes full responsibility, particularly in the media. There is also what remains of a moderate conservative right, which still imagines itself living in a pub where you take your morning coffee behind the wheel of your big pickupgreeting neighbors we love because they have the same values, the same opinions and listen to the same radio along the same main roads.
But now, things just need to change a little and, as in the United States, this right will happily accept to see its quiet conservatism put aside in favor of a recovery of all the messages of intolerance, xenophobia, denial rights and refusal of institutions.
If the media and the political class play an important role in this sad story, the fact remains that we all have our share of responsibility. We cannot stand by when LGBTQ+ people are targeted. We cannot do it first of all for their sake, and also because it is very clear that these demonstrations are only one step among many other attacks to come against democratic equality and respect for fundamental rights.