About That Consultation Thing

I'm sure that we all heard Premier Smith claim that she has consulted widely on the draconian anti-transgender policies that she announced last week.  

Now it starts to come out exactly whom she consulted with - and surprise, surprise, it's not exactly a group of people well-qualified to help guide the development of government policy on a topic like transgender youth.  

Let's take a closer look, shall we? 

NOTE:  I am not going to talk about this in the deceptive language of "parental rights" because that shifts the focus away from the persons most affected by this policy - transgender youth. 

Let's start with the Global News article from February 4, 2024, mentions two people who are members of the Alberta 2SLGBTQ community.  One is a TV host, the other an oil executive.  

From the TV host, we get the following quote: 

“I think the nice thing that will come out of the policy, especially around teachers having to inform and get consent around pronouns, I think the beautiful thing that will come out of this is that it will force the conversation,” Oulton continued. “It kind of makes sure that everyone in that child’s village, so to speak, is there to support them and is there to uplift them. The premier did a really good job in that seven-minute video of reiterating that you are loved, you are supported and we are here for you.” [Emphasis added]

I cannot even begin to say how furious this one comment made me.  There are a number of points to be made here, and they're all significant.  As a gay man, this person should have known far better than to make this statement.

The position taken makes the false assumption that just because someone is a parent that they will always be supportive and loving towards their child. Sadly, as far too much 2SLGBTQ history shows us, that is not the case. People get kicked out of their homes when their gender or sexual identity isn't what parents expected (or believed must be the case); other parents try to beat the queer out of their child; still others send them off to "camp" to be "therapied out of being queer".  It happens far more often than many would like to think about, and the person that pays the price is the child - who, if they survive will carry a lifetime of shame, guilt, and pain because of how they were treated by those whom they were supposed to be able to trust. 

The obvious problem here is that the policy does not centre the child.  Instead, it takes the decision away from the child and puts the teacher under the obligation to notify parents - regardless of whether the child feels that is safe.  

Forcing a conversation when either the child, or the parents, may not be ready for it creates an environment that is almost guaranteed to fail catastrophically.  The other omission in the policy on this front is the unwillingness to put in place appropriate therapeutic supports for the individual and their families.  Anybody who thinks this is a "trivial omission in an otherwise good policy" is mistaken - it's a deliberate omission because this government doesn't believe trans people are real.  

The other person who claims to have been consulted is an oil and gas executive. She's trans, but beyond that, I'm not sure what her qualifications are in this topic space.  Global News quotes her as follows: 

“I’ve explained it a couple of times this way, if you could promise me that this 13-year-old who is identifying as trans will grow up to be a trans adult, then they would benefit from starting treatment earlier. The issue is that we really don’t know for sure who is going to persist in their trans identity into adulthood and there’s a lot of harm in treating people who turn out not to be trans and then de-transition later on and go to regret it later on.”

 Ah yes, the old "detransition and regret" saw.  So-called "rates of regret" for transgender people undergoing treatment are low - lower by far than most other medical interventions.  However, let's take a look at the idea of "promise" here.  No treatment has guarantees associated with it.  At best we end up with "degrees of certainty" - that's true in cancer treatment, and it's true with other complex therapies.  The idea that there are absolutes is laughable, but it's exactly what I would expect from someone whose background isn't in the caregiving professions.  

The reality is that affirmative care has significant benefits.  The handwringing over "possible regret" is vastly overwrought.  I'm not saying that those who choose to detransition should be ignored here.  They deserve support and access to treatment that fulfils their needs too.  However, there is precious little evidence that suggests that the numbers of such cases is high enough to justify limiting access to affirmative treatment. 

But, consultation here shouldn't just be with a couple of seemingly party-aligned members of the 2SLGBTQ community - much less two members who apparently lack any significant relevant background in the subject at hand.  Where were the consultations with clinicians who work with transgender youth on a day to day basis?  Where were the consultations with educators who work with transgender students?  Those groups seem to have been conveniently ignored, or the few that were consulted just happened to be aligned with the UCP's opening assumptions in formulating this "policy".