My Journey With Health And Fitness – No Space For Hate Here

I’m not going to start with a gentle story of what is going on today, instead I am getting right into this post. My husband was concerned about me doing this because he is worried the trolls will be after me. I explained that if I didn’t stand up to hatred, those being attacked could be persecuted so I am just going to have to deal with whatever happens after I hit publish.

Yesterday I told my husband about the first time I met a transgender person. I was in my early 20’s working at a financial institution and this woman comes up to the side counter to talk with me. She had a cheque drawn on our branch to cash but the only id she had was her driver’s license and it was in her dead name (and of course her birth gender). I was young and hadn’t ever dealt with anything like this before but I immediately recognized that she was extremely uncomfortable having to explain her situation so I did my best to be sympathetic. Ultimately I consulted with my manager as to what to do and we found a way to cash the cheque without violating our own policy and rules. Funny, until yesterday I had completely forgotten that encounter.

I want to be clear, in order to simplify this post for readers who may not have the knowledge I do, I shall refer to the community I am discussing as queer and trans. This in no way is an attempt to exclude the broader community that I am covering, I think it just makes it a bit easier. I hope this does not offend anyone.

So yesterday in Canada a group of protesters tried to attack the queer and trans community. They did so under the auspice of saying that SOGI123 (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) in classrooms did all sorts of evil things or that parents should be involved in their child’s choice of SO or GI. Now to be clear, the point of SOGI is to educate students on what sexual orientation and gender identity mean to help build an inclusive society. It is not ‘grooming’ kids, it simply tries to help them understand that other kids might be different. This includes teaching them the importance of pronouns to someone who has a different gender identity than what they appear. It does not encourage kids to be queer or trans and I struggle to understand how anyone could think that learning about such things could cause a kid to all of a sudden change but that seems to be the argument.

The inclusive community across the country came out in counter protest. I saw so many cities where the number of counter protesters was far larger than the number of protesters and that made me feel a little better. I saw signs from the protesters talking about parental rights (um, there is no such thing under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms), about how children belong to parents (they so do not) and then of course the religious discourse. It was disconcerting to see the hate that was being hurled against the queer and trans community and I was somewhat ashamed at how my country has allowed this to happen and will proudly stand to stop it from going forward.

I think some of this started because two of our provinces have enacted legislation saying that anyone under 16 cannot change their names or pronouns in school without parental consent. Basically what they are saying is the school is allowed to ‘out’ students. Wow, let’s keep causing psychological damage to the young queer and trans community because you know, that is what a progressive society does. I wish every single person had to read the scientific studies about the damage this kind of crap does to the people in the queer and trans community.

I’m sorry but from what I saw yesterday this was all about homophobia and transphobia. There is absolutely no justification for what these protesters were saying. I ask you all to embrace the queer and trans community and agree that in your space there is no place for hate, period. I truly believe that if we all can’t find the strength to do this now the damage done to young people in the community will be irreparable.