Hundreds gathered outside Calgary City Hall on Saturday in opposition to the Alberta government’s proposed transgender policies.
The focus of the rally was rights for transgender children, in particular those undergoing — or planning to undergo — gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy.
Policies proposed by the UCP government last Thursday would ban gender reassignment surgery for those aged under 17 and hormone therapy for children aged 15 and under.
“The community feels very scared, there’s open discussions of having to flee the province,” said Victoria Bughholtz, an organizer of the rally.
She says that there’s also fear this is the beginning of a larger-scale attack on transgender communities.
“The UCP is following a very well-established playbook, that we’ve seen play out in the United States and Great Britain and other countries,” Bughholtz continued, “It’s unlikely that they will stop with this. So it is a major warning sign that things will probably get worse here for trans people.”
Also within the proposed policies, teens aged 16 and 17 may only undergo hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgeries with parental, physician and psychologist approvals. Parental consent would also be required for children aged 15 and under to alter their name or pronouns used by school teachers, administration and educational staff.
It would also be required that parents of children aged 16 or 17 be notified by school staff if they wish to alter their name or pronoun.
At a news conference Thursday, Premier Danielle Smith said the new policies are a way of protecting children from making irreversible decisions that would affect their biological development. Smith said that she believes the policies strike the right balance.
Article content
Calgary-Foothills NDP MLA Court Ellingson said the policies threaten the well-being of transgender teens.
“The requirement of parents to be notified puts trans youth in harm’s way,” said Ellingson. “We know that some of those youth will be driven from their homes and excommunicated from their birth families.”
He also said the policies would place additional pressures on teachers, who are already overwhelmed by growing and complex classrooms.
Bughholtz mentioned that the policies also create additional red tape, and that hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgeries are already strictly regulated and controlled by the medical profession.
“There’s already medical professional guidelines that govern all these aspects,” said Bughholtz, “Danielle Smith is not a doctor, she is not a physician, and she needs to stay out of this.
“This is completely opposed by the queer community, this will harm trans youth in our province.
Bughholtz says they want all of the proposed policies to be abandoned and suggested that a panel of medical scientists, along with representatives from the transgender community be formed.
“Allow us to make our recommendations, on what we need, and what is medically possible, and then to implement those,” she said.
Ellingson added: “We’re in this together, it’s about sending a message to the trans and queer youth that aren’t here today that they are not alone.”
– With files from Postmedia
Share this article in your social network
