What Is Gender Ideology?

I have long asserted that Gender Ideology is fundamentally a "straw man" construct that the political right has co-opted and turned into a bucket that they fill with all of their fears about transgender people (in much the same way that the word "transgenderism" is another term they love to throw around to invalidate transgender people).  

This morning, I went to Google and asked its AI to define "Gender Ideology", here's what it came back with: 

"Gender ideology" is a term primarily used by conservative, religious, and anti-LGBTQ+ groups to describe, and criticize, a set of beliefs regarding gender identity, sexual orientation, and reproductive rights. It is largely employed as a pejorative, catch-all phrase to frame modern understandings of gender—particularly those that decouple gender from biological sex—as a dangerous, artificial, or fabricated construct. 

Core Beliefs Criticized as "Gender Ideology"
Those who use the term "gender ideology" often argue it encompasses the following ideas: 

• Social Construction of Gender: The belief that gender roles and identities are not fixed by nature or biology, but are constructed by society and culture.
• Gender Identity over Biology: The assertion that a person's internal sense of their gender ("gender identity") is more definitive than their assigned sex at birth.
• Gender Fluidity: The concept that gender can be fluid, non-binary, or chosen, rather than strictly male or female.
• Separation of Sex and Gender: The distinction between biological sex (chromosomes/anatomy) and gender (socially constructed roles), which is foundational to gender studies.

Unsurprisingly, GLAAD notes that this is a term which is used not by either academic researchers in the area, nor by actual transgender people.  It is used primarily by the same actors who used the term "gay agenda" (similarly devoid of meaning for the people it is intended to attack).  

Looking closer at the broad ideas that "Gender Ideology" is charitably intended to encompass, we see a pattern that in domains like psychology and sociology we call "biopsychosocial" (BPS), where the concepts involved encompass the domains of biology (the physical), psychology (the individual), and sociological (the social) dimensions in a manner where they intersect with each other.  

About Those "Violent" Trans People

Over at The Western Standard, flag bearer for their anti-transgender propaganda Christopher Oldcorn wrote a column titled "The Transgender Shooter Epidemic - When Ideology Turns Violent". (Again, I'm not going to link to the article, I will provide screenshots of it at the end of this column. 

Mr. Oldcorn subtitles his column as "demanding honest discussion".  So, let's take him at his word for now.  

Well, Mr. Oldcorn, that's nice - you have a list of mass shootings where the perpetrators were transgender.  So what?  That's a handful of events over multiple years - the vast majority of mass shootings are carried out by cisgender, white, males.  Are you also advocating for an "honest discussion" of those events, or is it just about the transgender people? 

Oh, I see - even living with someone who is transgender is dangerous now, is it?  Oh, and watch out for those Furries - that's just one step removed from being transgender, isn't it? 

"... connected to a specific ideology" - that's quite a loaded phrase.  Except what Mr. Oldcorn is referring to is a political canard dreamed up by the political right - specifically "gender ideology".  I've argued repeatedly that gender ideology is largely a straw man construct that the right wing fills with all of their fears, misconceptions and ignorance about transgender people.  Mr. Oldcorn's version of gender ideology contains a specific fear that transgender people are "mentally unstable".  

What he is doing, of course, is whipping up the old bogeyman that anyone who experiences mental health concerns is "unstable" (and therefore "dangerous").  

Here is where I would start with insisting that Mr. Oldcorn provide citations to support his claims, and more specifically to spell out in detail what he means by "other serious mental health conditions", because he's being extremely broad here and making some inferences that may or may not be supported by his claims. 

For example, while we are aware that anxiety and depression occur at elevated rates among transgender people, but we also know that when those same people are treated with kindness and respect (including having access to gender affirming medical care), that concerns around suicide drop off significantly (Allen, Dodd, Moser, & Knoll, 2026).  (See how easy it is to provide actual evidence to support your claims, Christopher?)

We already know that when you start with the premise that the person's stated gender identity is valid, that things work a whole lot better.  But, let's go a little further here, because mental health concerns are much more complex than Mr. Oldcorn's simplistic view of them is.  For example, Mr. Oldcorn implies that if someone says they are transgender that no attention is given to other comorbid mental health conditions is given.  This is simply false.  

Gender Affirming Care (GAC) is about dealing with the experiences of someone's gender dysphoria.  If a particular individual's anxiety or depression symptoms are driven by their gender dysphoria (either in whole or in part), then yes, there is a reason to expect that GAC will alleviate those symptoms to some extent.  However, anxiety or depression are often more complex and driven by multiple factors in the person's life.  So, yes, there are certainly reasons that you would address those issues concurrently with providing GAC.  Unfortunately, Mr. Oldcorn seems to be stuck in the idea that you deal with these things "one at a time", and in his apparent way of thinking, you deal with gender last (because ... reasons?)

Further, Mr. Oldcorn wants us to think that there's an "epidemic" of transgender violence going around.  There isn't - even if I add up all of these cases, they still don't even add up to a drop in the bucket of mass shootings when you add in those conducted by straight, white, cisgender males.  Worse, Mr. Oldcorn has fallen into making a correlation fallacy.  In his argument, the shooters were transgender, and therefore that was the reason for their actions.  Using that same logic, should we not be extremely concerned about cisgender men who are in possession of firearms - after all they are by far the most common perpetrators of mass shootings?  

The tell on the dishonesty of Oldcorns argument is that he hasn't provided a single shred of evidence that tells us that these events had anything at all to do with the shooter's gender identity beyond coincidence.  

Of course Oldcorn has to pull out questions about the characteristics of the victims.  As if mass shooters are picking out targets based on beliefs and ideology.  Again, Mr. Oldcorn might want to spend some quality time looking at mass shooting cases and the motives of the shooters.  

I am not going to speculate on what drove any one person to violence here.  The reality is that every story is unique.  We should strive to understand the broad picture of what is going on that provokes mass shootings, rather than grasping at straws.  As I pointed out earlier, if Mr. Oldcorn is so concerned about transgender shooters, where is his concern about cisgender male shooters who are by far the vast majority of shooters. 

To the best of my knowledge, there is no clinical evidence that supports the idea that transgender identity is in any meaningful way connected to a person becoming violent.  Without more substantive evidence, all Mr. Oldcorn seems to be doing is making a supposition - which really isn't terribly useful.  

Further, one might want to consider the barrage of hate being directed at the transgender community overall, whether that is ill-informed columns like Mr. Oldcorn's which insinuate things about the transgender community that simply don't make any sense, street pastors who spread fear and ignorance about transgender people, or legislatures who choose to attack the transgender community because they make a convenient target to attack that throws a bit of "red meat" to a voter base that demands such.  

While it seems unlikely that the hate itself is a direct cause of the actions of a handful of shooters who happen to be transgender, it does speak to a broad pattern of public hostility towards a small group that is poorly understood.  Perhaps Mr. Oldcorn would like to reflect on the impact of his "oh-so-earnest" protestations that he "just wants a conversation" before he writes his next anti-transgender column. 

References

Allen, L. R., Dodd, C. G., Moser, C. N., Knoll, M. M. (2026) Changes in Suicidality among Transgender Adolescents Following Hormone Therapy: An Extended Study. Journal of Pediatrics 289.  

Appendix - Original Column

This column was published on February 17, 2026 and captured from the Western Standard's website on February 19, 2026.  

Barry Neufeld and the Wages of Being Evil

Two BC Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) decisions came down last week, and they're important for a number of reasons.  Both are in the matter of Chilliwack Teacher's Association v. Barry Neufeld.  

Decision 10

Decision 11

This all goes back to when Neufeld was a School Trustee in Chilliwack and began actively publishing anti-transgender, anti-2SLGBTQ material online.  I won't spend a bunch of time tearing into Neufeld's claims - they are in the large the usual assortment of bogus claims about 2SLGBTQ people and transgender people in particular.  

The case as framed by the original complaint is interesting because the Chilliwack Teacher's Association (CTA) filed a complaint on behalf of a class of its membership rather than individual complaints.  Given that Neufeld was a person in a position of public power, this is a bit different than your average discrimination case involving direct attacks on an individual.  Neufeld appears to have used his position as a public figure to amplify his messaging, and it had direct impact on staff working for the Chilliwack school system who were members of the 2SLGBTQ community as a whole.  Consequently, what we have is a form of "class action" human rights complaint which is a bit unusual. 

My goal here is not to "relitigate" the decisions of the BCHRT - I'm certain that Neufeld will be appealing these into the courts with the assistance of any number of right wing legal agitprop organizations like Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) that routinely take on these cases both to grift donation money and in the hopes of driving a wedge into the existing body of case law.  The outcome of those appeals remains to be seen. 

However, I'm seeing a lot of people expressing "shock and outrage" over the amount of the awards, which runs to some $750,000.  However, I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the bigger issue.  Most discrimination cases involve actions that affect an individual, or possibly a couple of people.  

Here we have a case where the impact is much different because the actions taken by Neufeld affected teachers within the Chilliwack school system - not a single individual, but rather many individuals who were in the school system's employ at the time Neufeld was campaigning against 2SLGBTQ recognition in the schools.  

This is, to my knowledge, the first time in Canada that a discrimination case has been filed where the victims are not recorded as individuals who have been directly affected, but as members of a class of individuals who were directly and indirectly affected by the impugned activities.  This is what makes the amount of the fine so high.  Instead of the BCHRT assessing each case individually and handing out penalties, the amount is to be distributed by the CTA to its affected members.  This is not unlike a "class action lawsuit", where the amount of compensation per individual may not be a lot, but when there are a sizeable number of individuals in the Class, the gross amount can appear to be a "huge sum".  

Where this becomes interesting is in terms of its importance in future human rights case law.  It provides a means to pursue someone where they are attacking a class of individuals rather than actual individuals with their rhetoric.  In general, human rights law in Canada focuses on individual rights and has tended not to recognize attacks on identifiable groups very well.  

Neufeld made accusations in his publications that stated flat out that 2SLGBTQ people were pedophiles, or worse.  These aren't nuanced statements - they are cases where he deliberately associated 2SLGBTQ people as a whole with acts and behaviours that are both criminal and profoundly harmful to the victims.  It is not a small matter to accuse an individual of being a pedophile, it is no less harmful to accuse an entire class of people of such - especially from a person who is in a position of public power.

I have mused in the past about the need for some kind of "class libel" law in Canada where global aspersions against a class of people are often the tool of choice in justifying legislative attacks on those minorities.  In these cases, we often find - as we have seen with Barry Neufeld in BC, and certain pastors in Alberta, a tendency to claim that they are "merely expressing deeply held religious beliefs".  To me, these claims are the refuge of scoundrels - an escape hatch where anything can be justified by claiming it's "religious".  

"Deeply held religious beliefs" are fine - I don't actually care what a person believes.  However, there is a line that is crossed when those beliefs become justification for attacking the rights and freedoms of others in society.  If you want to believe that "all trans people are pedophiles", knock yourself out.  However, if you then turn around and demand that those same transgender people be banned from using public washrooms based on that belief, that's a different matter (especially when those "deeply held beliefs" have as much validity as claiming the world is flat).

Public figures need to understand that even if they "sincerely believe" something, there is a higher standard that they must hew to given their influence and sway.  Just because they "believe" something does not grant carte blanche to simply spew whatever they believe.  They have a duty and responsibility to ensure that their public utterances are in fact grounded in reason and fact, not supposition.  

Words continue to have great power, and can be used to cause great harm.  That is ultimately the underlying lesson here - and perhaps we have a precedent here that can be used in the future when other public figures use their position to foment hate and fear. 

Understanding Alberta Separatist Claims As Gaslighting

The arguments that the Alberta separatists make to justify their positions are carefully crafted to seem almost reasonable, while at the same time are actually distorting the picture entirely to support their claims of "legitimate grievances".  This is a form of gaslighting which Albertans are being subjected to on a scale most have never seen before.  Gaslighting is using manipulation to cause someone to question their own perception of reality (I have linked to the Wikipedia definition because it's in fairly straightforward language without getting bogged down in the details and nuances that you would find in more psychological analyses of the topic.) 

I think it's worth taking apart some of their complaints and explaining exactly how they are twisting things in order to create their arguments, in the hopes of convincing people that Alberta is really hard done by in confederation.  I'll explain in more detail why I see this as a form of manipulation through distortion as we go through the example. 

The Seemingly Endless Saga Of Canada Buying New Fighter Jets

Those moderately familiar with the seemingly endless saga of replacing our aging fleet of F-18 fighters cannot be faulted for thinking "just get on with the job!".  It has been back and forth for what seems like decades.  (It has been - the F-35 development program started in the 1990s and the debates over whether Canada should buy them have been raging since 2010 or so.  

That was then, this is now.  In 2010, the US was a reliable partner for trade and defence.  Then January 2025 happened, and all that changed. The geopolitical context shifted as the US entered Trump's second term as president.  Alliances that had been tried and true since WWII were called into question, the US started throwing up trade barriers everywhere, and so on.  

Suddenly, Canada's earlier decision to replace the F-18s with F-35s fell into question, and in fact our whole approach to defence did.  An ally we had long looked at as "a good neighbour" suddenly was making noises about annexing Canada.

The parameters of the decision around the F-35 changed enormously.  Concerns about everything from parts supply and maintenance to rumours of Washington having a "kill switch" available that rightly spooked a lot of people.  The newly elected government in Canada, led by Mark Carney committed to reviewing the F-35 decision.  

In response, Sweden's Saab group sweetened its offer around the Gripen - promising partnership and helping Canada set up a military aviation manufacturing capacity, where the F-35 deal ultimately restricts Canada's ability to service its own aircraft, with regular servicing having to be done by Lockheed Martin, and there is no visibility for Canada into the software systems that manage the aircraft.  Suddenly, even if the F-35 is the technologically superior aircraft, it is no longer clear that it would be suitable for Canada, especially if Canada finds itself in a standoff with its neighbour.  

Amid the backdrop of negotiations with the US for a renewed CUSMA, ongoing threats from the Trump administration, and the Canadian government reaching out around the world to forge new trade agreements outside of the multilateral agreements like CUSMA, Canadians are getting increasingly concerned about decisions that would tie us more closely to the US.

Like the Auto Strategy that the government released a few weeks ago, the new Military Strategy released this week marks a sharp turn away from the existing structures that depend so much on the US.  It's an ambitious plan, one that will shift Canada's economic and military posture significantly (and one that will no doubt make certain corners of the Trump Administration angry).  

Unjust Laws and Restricting Rights Unnecessarily

Alberta has already begun restricting transgender rights, and in the wake of the shooting in Tumbler Ridge this week,  I fully expect that the UCP government will move to further restrict transgender rights in Alberta - there's already plenty of noise on various conservative discussion forums demanding "action", and if there's one thing that Danielle Smith is good at, it is doing her party's bidding when it is at its most loathsome.  

I have spent considerable time analyzing those laws, and at best they are ill-thought out reactionary responses to imagined problems rather than actual issues.  However, in a country where politicians can legitimately override rights by invoking the Notwithstanding clause, what can we the public do to undo the damage done by a reactionary government?  

Correlation Fallacy and the Tumbler Ridge Tragedy

Yesterday, a person in Tumbler Ridge, BC went into the high school and shot a large number of people, killing 6 at the school, and injuring dozens more.  This is after they had shot and killed two family members in their home. 

Today, we learned that the shooter was a young transgender woman who had dropped out of high school a few years ago.  Predictably, our friends over at The Western Standard jumped on this to argue that somehow transgender identity is therefore intrinsically dangerous. (I won't link to material I consider overt hate literature - a series of screen copies will be provided at the end of this which will contain the offending column).  

The writer, Christopher Oldcorn, has been carrying the "anti-transgender banner" for Western Standard since at least 2022, possibly earlier.  His working thesis here seems to be "well, because the shooter was transgender, clearly gender affirming care doesn't work", or something to that effect.