On "Novel" Readings Of The Constitution

One of the loudest criticisms of the Federal Attorney General's submission in English Montreal School Board, et al v. Quebec Attorney General is that it relies on "novel" interpretations of The Charter of Rights and Freedoms (The Charter) and the Canadian Constitution (The Constitution).  

I am going to explain why I think that line of reasoning is incorrect, and why the more "linear" interpretations that the critics are advocating for are in fact the "novel" interpretations which should be examined with suspicion.  

Supreme Court Hearings on Quebec Bill 21

 The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) is holding hearings in the matter English Montreal School Board, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, et al.  Before you yawn and walk away, this is probably the single most important SCC case in 20 years.  I've written about the arguments in some depth here.

Among the issues on the table is very much the question "Does the Charter of Rights and Freedoms truly apply to all Canadians, or do we have a patchwork of rights where provinces decide what rights are available to Canadians living in their borders?".  Do I have your attention yet? 

Let's talk about that:

The Dangers Of The UCP's MAID Legislation

I have lots to say about the UCP's Bill 18, which is clearly another piece of red meat legislation for the slavering Social Conservative base, but I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time critiquing the legislation for its declared purpose.  Beyond stating the obvious that this is the UCP stepping in between a patient and their care team, and removing personal autonomy from the patient - others will no doubt point out those issues (and probably already have).  

What I want to address is the much darker, more insidious aspect of this legislation.  

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.