On Monday, we learned that the Quebec government was making an about-face by authorizing the RAMQ and the SAAQ to write the X marker on the identity documents of non-binary people. We are delighted to learn that the government is finally allowing the identification documents of non-binary people to be matched with their birth certificates. His initial intention to wait until the end of the work of the Committee of Elders on Gender Identity in 2025 to allow this worried us deeply.
However, we remain concerned that, to comply with its own law, the government has chosen to wait for a decision and recommendations from an external committee. Remember that the Committee should not take a position on legal issues and that the president of the Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights had already put pressure on the government to comply with the law adopted in 2022. Please remember that Quebec was the only Canadian province not to allow the endorsement X on driver’s licenses.
We also question the retention of the sex marker assigned at birth in the alphanumeric code of certain cards. This element of the file which still remains unresolved, even though this is no longer the case for binary trans people, requires a response. We fear once again having to face a possible difference in treatment and an exceptional rule for non-binary people.
Faced with the potential abuses and the increase not only in hate speech, but also in misinformation regarding trans issues, particularly for minors, we have no other choice but to demand that these issues be taken seriously. and the importance they deserve.
It still seems inconceivable to us that people other than those who are directly concerned by these issues are mandated to take a position on the rights and the place occupied by trans and non-binary people in our society.
The insecurity caused by possible rollbacks in the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities has a significant impact on the mental health and well-being of people in these communities.
We hope that the government will continue its close collaboration with stakeholders in the field in order to fully understand the difficulties and problems faced by trans and non-binary people and their loved ones and that questions as fundamental as the right to exist fully and authentically not shaken by transantagonist discourses.
* Signed this letter: Geneviève Ste-Marie, general management of TransEstrie, Alexandre Rainville, general management of Young Creative Identities, Céleste Trianon, activist, general management of Juritrans, Claude Amiot, president of Entraide Trans, Saguenay–Lac-Saint -Jean, Mykaell Blais, general management of Trans Mauricie Centre-du-Québec, Cédric Champagne, coordinator of Divers-Gens, Estrie, Lionel Lehouillier, activist and president of Trans Outaouais, Victoria Legault, general director of Aide aux trans du Québec (ATQ) and G. James Galantino, general director of the Conseil québécois LGBT