The announcement made Tuesday morning by the Quebec government of the people who will make up its committee of “wise men” on gender identity is terribly worrying.
The Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy, says that the choice of these people aims for greater objectivity and wishes to avoid representation. To say this is to say that the many expert researchers on the subject that we are fortunate to have in Quebec, among others at the Canada Research Chair on transgender children and their families, cannot be objective.
This is to say this without questioning the validity and objectivity of people who agree to embark on this matter without knowing enough about it to oppose the total absence of those principally concerned. The government’s promises of objectivity will be difficult to keep when such bias against trans people is found in the very composition of the committee.
It is not a question of the competence of these three “wise men”, but a question of point of view. Just as a committee of men is poorly placed to clearly see the issues that affect women’s daily lives, a committee of white people is poorly placed to understand the realities of those who are not white and a committee of cisgender people (who are not not trans) is poorly placed to fully see the depth of the issues experienced by trans and non-binary people. Hence the importance of mixing points of view, of mixing perspectives, of not completely excluding trans people from a committee that directly concerns them.
Trans and non-binary people also know how to be objective. However, we do not believe them capable of it. Removing them from a committee that is looking at issues that concern them is a way of ensuring that certain biases are reproduced, of confining the points of view of trans people to silence, is of ensuring that blind spots are maintained .
What the government announced Tuesday morning is that it does not believe in the relevance and competence of trans people when it probes the realities they experience on a daily basis. What the government has announced is that expert researchers on trans issues are not sufficiently objective to be part of its “wise men”.
What the government announced Tuesday morning was that it would look into the case of trans people without them. Minister Roy may say that no setback in the rights of trans and non-binary people will take place, but we can seriously question the state of these rights when a committee is formed to look into the issue. without any trans person being deemed serious, reliable and objective enough to be part of it.
What value is the Quebec government prepared to give to trans people? Can trans people be “wise” enough for the Quebec government?