Good morning, and thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak today.
As mentioned, my name is Fae Johnstone. I am a trans woman, I use “she” and “they” pronouns and I'm the executive director of the Society of Queer Momentum. When we saw the beginning of rising hate in Canada, we were one of the organizations that tapped in alongside our friends at Egale to support the response to governments and politicians restricting the rights and freedoms of vulnerable young people and their families.
I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to this committee for undertaking this study. It could not come at a more pivotal or urgent moment as we again see the rise of anti-2SLGBTQI+ hate. Unfortunately, we see both its normalization and its acceleration, and, now, its politicization by certain political parties and governments across Canada.
Every week I hear stories that break my heart: stories of terrified parents, scared kids and everyday Canadians who happen to be queer or trans who just want to live their lives and contribute to their communities but see this country becoming less safe and less free for them and their families. They are stories of rising violence that is not just targeting trans people but is rippling through the full queer community.
Since the 1960s, Canada and much of the world has been on a slow march towards freedom, human rights and equality for queer and trans people. Now we have unfortunately entered a period of global backlash. Transgender people are the convenient target. Bluntly, we look a little bit more different. We are often more visibly gender-nonconforming. I am a 5'11", broad-shouldered, deep-voiced trans lady, and I think I'm a great example of this, and I love that about myself and my community. Because of who we are and how we look, we force people to confront the hostility and stigma that many hold towards gender and sexual diversity. We represent through our very existence a rejection of the systemic misogyny, homophobia and transphobia that are unfortunately still embedded in Canadian society.
That, unfortunately, makes us a convenient target for those who dislike the possibilities and freedom that we embody, but while we are a convenient target, this is about so much more than 1% of the population. This rise in anti-queer and anti-trans hate, driven unfortunately by social conservative and far-right groups and their proxies, seeks to achieve three critical goals.
The first is to roll back acceptance of the broader LGBTQ community using the demonization and dehumanization of transgender people as a stepping stone to achieve broader regression.
The second is that they hope to use fear and misinformation to rationalize government interference in the fundamental rights, freedoms and health care access of diverse Canadians; to weaken the protection of minority rights; and to normalize governments overriding our bodily autonomy and putting themselves between families and the health care their kids need.
I would urge committee members to understand that there is a longer game at play here, and that the agenda these organizations and groups are pushing is not just about trans people but about restricting access to reproductive rights and health services, as well as restricting or weakening our human rights framework that keeps minorities of all sorts safe from hate and from government involvement in and restriction of our freedoms.
What scares me most in Canada today is witnessing this hateful agenda becoming mainstream. We have seen certain politicians, including members of legislative assemblies, members of provincial parliaments and, indeed, members of Parliament in the House of Commons aiding and abetting the rise of anti-queer and anti-trans hate with misleading slogans and dog whistles that embolden and normalize hate. Their purpose here is sometimes simple political self-interest. They cue their support to these groups in hopes that they'll show up at the doors and support particular parties, but in other situations we see politicians—