An edited version of this article originally appeared in The Hub.
By Brian Lee Crowley, March 12, 2024
The premiers of New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have courageously put themselves on the line to protect the interests of children and parents in the face of attacks by the woke exponents of gender ideology. In response to questioning, federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has said he supports the premiers and opposes much of the woke agenda but opines that, really, it’s mostly in the hands of the provinces and municipalities. That there is little he could do as prime minister.
He is wrong. Now that he has made himself at least a rhetorical ally of those pushing back against this ideology, he needs to get up to speed on at least three ways in which a potential Conservative government in Ottawa will actually be called on to respond to woke culture’s attacks on the rights of women and children.
But first, what exactly does gender ideology (GI) demand in terms of public policy? GI’s adherents believe people’s feelings trump objective facts. If you are born male but “feel” that you are nevertheless a woman (or “self-identify” as one) everyone else must acquiesce in your feeling, no matter what the practical consequences or how fleeting your “feeling” is. What are just some of those consequences?
Sport
Male-bodied athletes, who enjoy significant physical advantages over athletes born female, must nevertheless be permitted to compete in women’s sport. The result? Women’s sport is increasingly colonized by mediocre male athletes who can nevertheless become dominant figures in their sport overnight; stealing training, competitive berths, prizes, and scholarships intended for genuine female athletes.
Prisons
Prison inmates who were born male may, with remarkably few restrictions, self-identify as women and serve out their sentence in a women’s prison. The result? A number of male-bodied prisoners, including sex offenders, can and have self-identified their way into female facilities where their aggression and physical strength permit them to terrorize female prisoners who cannot escape them.
Gender confusion in the young
If sex is not real, but just a matter of whatever you feel yourself to be, the feelings of children and youth about what their “real” gender is should not be questioned but only “affirmed.” And when feelings reign supreme over physical facts, if a child born, say, male “feels” like a girl, then that child was “born in the wrong body.”
That in turn makes such a child’s gender identity a medical condition that calls for immediate “affirmative care” to bring their body into accordance with their feelings. This can include puberty blockers and even surgery, both of which can and do have permanent life-altering consequences. Yet, as with many medical conditions, patients often experience spontaneous changes. In the case of gender dysphoric children there have been many cases where, in the absence of medical intervention, their gender identity has converged on their biological sex.
Sadly, no intervention can actually turn a body from one sex into another; as a dimorphic species, our body’s sex is indelibly imprinted right down to the cellular level. Therefore there are inherent limits to what, if anything, “gender affirming” care can accomplish, and the doubtful benefits are accompanied by serious documented risks. All “gender-affirming” care can do is leave a male-bodied person with a damaged male body, and vice versa.
What a Conservative government could do
On all three of these issues, a future Conservative government in Ottawa would have major work to do.
To begin, the new government could repudiate all attempts by the bureaucracy to transform the definition of “woman” from one of objective fact (a woman is an adult human female) to a subjective feeling. The federal Department of Justice, for example, currently defines women as “All people who identify as women.”
On the sport file, a new government would need to start with the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), an independent, national, not-for-profit that receives the majority of its funding from the federal government.
Many administrative sporting bodies in Canada followed the recommendation of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport that athletes should be able to self-identify into the sex category of their choice. This was well outside the original mandate of the CCES, which was to police anti-doping rules.
Having been captured by gender ideologues, its recommendations on self-identification in sport were based on a laughably bad and unscientific argument devastatingly mocked internationally.
A new government in Ottawa would help to put things right by refusing to fund the CCES or by demanding it return to its anti-doping mandate. Then Ottawa must, under ministerial authority, release revised recommendations that protect the integrity of women’s sport and the safety of female athletes. Those recommendations should include the creation of an open sport category in which trans athletes would be free to compete.
Ottawa also gives money and other support to many national and regional sports organizations. Such support should be limited to those sporting groups that follow these new recommendations. Canada’s representatives in international sporting bodies should be expected to support rule-making by these bodies that only biological women may compete in women’s sport.
Finally, human rights legislation such as Bill C-16 should be amended to make it clear that recognizing the right of trans people to live lives of dignity free of discrimination is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of sex-based sport categories.
While they are at it, they should also amend that same legislation to make it clear that shelters intended to provide refuge for female victims of male violence, such as rape crisis centres, are entitled to limit their clientele to women. Those women should also be able to demand that shelter services, including counselling, be provided by women.
Unbelievably, Vancouver Rape Relief seems to be one of the last major women’s shelters still operating on such rules in the entire country. For their uncompromising courage they have had to forgo essentially all federal, provincial and municipal government grants for their rape shelter and programming to ensure that their clientele is not traumatized a second time by being forced to deal with male-bodied front line staff. The funding for their transition house, by contrast, remains intact.
With respect to prisons, it is important to note that the current policy supporting gender self-identification was not the result of a reasoned policy adopted by an open process after a thoughtful examination of the evidence. Rather it was done under the radar as the result of a commitment Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made on the fly in response to a question he received on the topic at a public event.
The rules allowing male prisoners to self-identify into women’s prisons are embodied in an administrative policy and can easily be revoked and replaced with ones that protect both the safety and dignity of female prisoners. No legislation is required.
If necessary, a third category of prison arrangement could be created for trans-identifying prisoners, although once the incentive to self-identification is removed one might expect the number of such claims to fall dramatically.
Finally, on the subject of so-called gender-affirming care, Ottawa must amend Bill C-4, the conversion therapy bill. MPs were warned at the time of the bill’s adoption that, while there was wide agreement with its main purpose (to rightly outlaw conversion therapy for gay people), the bill’s terms were too broadly drawn.
In particular, the medical community is of the view that any treatment that might suggest, say, waiting to see if gender dysphoric children grow out of their gender dysphoria, or sending a child for counselling to understand the origins and meaning of their feeling of being in the wrong body, or even considering another diagnosis such as depression or anxiety, constitutes conversion therapy. Ditto for parents who oppose rushed affirmative care on the grounds that their child is too young to understand the life-long ramifications of hormone treatment or surgery.
In these circumstances a poorly designed law is preventing medical professionals and parents from exercising their professional and moral responsibility to act in the best interests of these children. Ottawa caused this problem; only Ottawa can fix it.
Three premiers have now put their political futures on the line to speak up about the damage gender ideology is wreaking. In so doing these premiers have Canadians behind them. Overwhelming majorities oppose these extreme and poorly thought-out policies often adopted by stealth. Pierre Poilievre needs to do more than say that he agrees but cannot do much to help. He can do a lot. The question is will he?
Brian Lee Crowley is the managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
