In other situations, we see politicians amplifying this rhetoric because they have a shared agenda. Those social conservatives who have been quiet in the days since marriage equality are getting loud again. Their agenda, again, is not just about trans people. It's about a world where they would, if they could and if they can, roll back marriage equality, the rights of transgender people, reproductive rights and the social acceptance of queer and trans folks.
I would challenge, bluntly, any Conservative member of Parliament on this committee to look me in the eye and say that Pierre Poilievre's comments about gender ideology are anything short of propagating conspiracy and hostility towards queer and trans people. Those comments throw gasoline on the fire of rising hate, even as we see the freedom and the rights of members of our community restricted. Many of us, as you have heard, are terrified about the direction Canada is headed in.
I would urge those same MPs to tweet their support of transgender rights, and our right to dignity and freedom, and watch what happens next. Watch when your supporters turn on you and accuse you of supporting pedophilia, grooming and all sorts of related filth simply for supporting a minority's freedom. Watch as you are reprimanded by members of your leader's staff for showing your support for transgender people.
I am scared of where we are headed if anti-queer and anti-trans hate rises. I know where it leads. It leads to acts of extreme violence that result in lost lives, made possible by a tsunami of everyday acts of exclusion, discrimination and violence that will make life a living hell for transgender and queer people on this land.
I believe in a Canada where everyone is free; where we've shed our age-old hostility to gender and sexual diversity; where we treat our neighbours with respect, even if they, their families and their lives look different from ours. I dream of a Canada where my community doesn't have to come to spaces like this and plead that you'll see our humanity; that you'll see our right to dignity; and that you'll help us address a rise that threatens all that I love about this country—one that I have grown up in, in small towns and big cities, and that has welcomed me as the human that I am.
We have indeed come so far. We simply want to be left alone, to be able to contribute to our communities, to grow up in healthy families and to live happy, fulfilling lives. We have come so far, but we need you, as our leaders across political parties, because this should not be a partisan issue, to rise above the vitriol and resist the normalization of hate at the expense of queer people's humanity.
Thank you so much.