On March 31st, we mark Transgender Day of Visibility - a day of recognition aimed at uplifting transgender people and celebrating their contributions to communities across the nation. But in this era of rising hate and backlash, trans visibility has been manipulated by far right groups to roll back our rights, strip away acceptance and vilify our entire community.
Now, we need our allies to be visible with us - to speak up for our freedom and rights. When far right and authoritarian forces come for trans people, they weaken the norms and principles that uphold our democratic, pluralistic and multicultural society.
Trans people are no strangers to hate - surviving and overcoming hate is the legacy of our community and our movement. For decades, up to the late 2000s, if we weren’t invisible we were vilified. We were a symbol of perversion and deviance - of everything you didn’t want to be. Back then, when people came out as trans, they lost their jobs, their homes and their families. Rejection wasn’t just the norm, it was the expectation.
And then, from 2010 to about 2018, we experienced hope. We became a different kind of symbol, one of progress - the next logical group deserving acceptance following the gay rights movement. For many trans Canadians, this was a period of deep hope, joy and optimism. We thought the world was ready to give us freedom, to welcome us with open arms.
trans people saw a possible future, one where the next generation would be able to come out without paying the steep price our elders did
In those years, trans people saw a possible future, one where the next generation would be able to come out without paying the steep price our elders did. We secured federal human rights protections. We saw positive representation of trans people in the media. Workplaces included us in anti-harassment training and passed policies to advance our inclusion. Acceptance was growing. We dared to hope, and to dream.
with increasing success, anti-rights groups have used the same tactics they have targeted many other communities with, to vilify trans people:
Then it all came crashing down around us. In the blink of an eye, we went from a symbol of progress to a community under attack.
Over the last five years, and with increasing success, anti-rights groups have used the same tactics they have targeted many other communities with, to vilify trans people: using fear, misinformation and incendiary claims to justify the restriction of rights, freedom and dignity for whole communities. It’s a familiar playbook, one used against gay activists in the 90s and Muslim communities in the 2000s. It is morally bankrupt, but unfortunately effective.
As a community, we have quickly learned that our visibility won’t save us, because awareness and understanding were only an inch deep. Our acceptance was a thin facade and seemingly overnight, the far right turned examples of our inclusion into symbols of the supposed threat we posed.
Inclusive school education was maliciously maligned as “grooming”. Policies to enable youth to come out safely at school were framed as “anti-parent”. Human rights protections became “censorship”. Evidence-based healthcare became “experimental interventions”. Suddenly, we were the chief target of a resurgent far right movement that branded us as a dangerous ideology and turned us into a problem to be solved instead of a community just seeking freedom, rights and equality.
Now, hate-motivated violence targeting trans communities is the highest in recent memory. Public support has declined, and two Canadian governments have suspended the charter-protected rights of transgender youth. These are concerning developments for transgender Canadians, but should equally concern everyday Canadians who believe in freedom, equality and inclusion.
the anti-trans backlash we’re witnessing today is a cynical ploy to push an insidious agenda.
In Alberta, the provincial government has enacted legislation such that transgender youth sit in classrooms where they literally have less rights than their cisgender (non-trans) peers. There, the government has successfully placed a politician in the family doctor’s office, banning care some young people need and violating the sacrosanct relationship between physicians and their patients.
At its heart, the anti-trans backlash we’re witnessing today isn’t actually about trans people - it’s a cynical ploy to take advantage of the public’s lack of familiarity with transgender people and issues to push an insidious agenda. That agenda will lead to less rights, restricted freedom and a culture hostile to diversity of all kinds - where anyone not white, not straight, and not conformist will be vilified.
In their vision of Canada, social conservatives get to decide who deserves the freedom to be themselves, to live with dignity and access medically-necessary healthcare. In that version of Canada, the state has inordinate powers over its peoples - the power to limit rights, curtail freedoms and impose its ideology on the public. While these powers are being rationalized through the targeting of trans people, the underlying agenda most certainly doesn’t stop there.
attacks on trans rights set the stage
In America, we’ve seen how attacks on trans rights set the stage for attacks on abortion, marriage equality and minority rights, and for a broader culture war aimed at re-entrenching the homophobia, transphobia and misogyny that defined North America for generations.
At the end of the day, these kinds of attacks might be focused on trans people, but it never ends with us. We are simply a convenient excuse, a useful boogeyman for social conservatives who hate everything we stand for: gender and sexual liberation, bodily autonomy, an end to patriarchy and a world where you can live, love and fuck freely.
I could go on and on about the lies spread about trans people, about how the backlash of the past few years has broken my heart and harmed my community, but instead, I want to tell you about the community I know and love.
Trans people have no universal defining traits, but if we did, they would be our courage and our dream of freedom. The courage to be ourselves no matter the cost, in a world where we know we will be made to pay a steep price not just once but throughout our entire lives. And the dream of a Canada where everyone - regardless of gender, race, class or culture - is free to be themselves, to look, live and love how they want.
We are your neighbours, bus drivers, factory workers and nurses.
We are your neighbours, bus drivers, factory workers and nurses. As Trans Day of Visibility approaches, I implore you to remember our humanity, to have a healthy suspicion about the accusations made about us, and to remain focused on building a Canada where freedom, equality and human rights are afforded to all.
Trans people aren't going anywhere, but each of us, as Canadians, can help shape their future in this country, and decide what kind of nation we want to be in so doing. Will it be one where trans people are demonized and vilified once again, or one where they are finally free?
Trans Day Of Visibility Events
Halifax: from @hfx.trans.events, all on March 31:
- 12-12:15pm: raising of the trans pride flag with NDP MLA Lisa LaChance! At Province House.
- 2pm-4pm T.R.A.N.S.'s Annual Spring Social. At 989 Young Avenue
- 3-5pm: Trans Femme Connection's (TFC) Trans Day of Snack 🍪 where trans folks can get a free snack, hangout with folks like them, and celebrate another year of being ourselves in a chill environment. The snacks and the surprise at Rumours, later, are paid for courtesy of TFC's fundraiser which raised 500$! At Glitterbean.
- 5pm: RadPride's Trans Day of Visibility March 🏳️⚧️✊🏳️⚧️ where trans folks and allies will walk and gather for guest speakers. Bring your flags, voices, and lovely selves to show this city we will not be erased! Gather at Victoria Park.
- 7pm: Trans Tuesday - Visibility and Videogames. Hangout with trans folks, play some retro videogames (i.e. Golden Axe, Streets of Rage), and celebrate another year of self-love and community! We also may have a tasty surprise for y'all :3 At Rumours.
- 7pm screening of Will & Harper followed by a Q&A session and discussion. At Bedford United Church.
Truro, March 31:
- 7:00pm: An evening of poetry, spoken word and song celebrating the talent and creativity of Trans, Non-Binary, and Two-Spirit folks! At The Commune Snackbar, 563 Prince St.
