Queer Organizations Sound Alarm over Conservative Anti-Trans Rhetoric

Transgender rights organizations are raising the alarm over what they say is anti-trans rhetoric coming from the Conservative Party of BC.

The Society for Advocacy for Gender-Affirming Healthcare, or SAGAH, issued a press release Tuesday compiling the times party members targeted transgender youth.

Queer Momentum took to social media to warn that B.C. Conservatives could introduce anti-transgender legislation similar to that in Alberta or Saskatchewan.

“The queer and trans community are anticipating that a B.C. Conservative government would ban health care for trans youth,” Clio Lake, a society director, told The Tyee. Lake holds a master’s in public health.

Alberta’s United Conservative Party has banned gender-affirming care for youth under 16, transgender girls from playing on amateur female sports teams and teachers from using the correct pronouns for trans students without parental permission. Premier Danielle Smith used the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ notwithstanding clause to pass these three laws.

The society’s press release said Conservative Party of BC interim leader Lorne Doerkson had blamed Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity 123, an anti-bullying resource for teachers, for sowing “division” and “confusion” in schools. Doerkson told CBC he wanted to see these resources removed from schools.

Doerkson also voted to allow three bills from Independent MLA Tara Armstrong that zeroed in on rights for transgender people and human rights more broadly to advance to debate in the legislature.

The first bill said the “promotion of gender ideology” was harmful and called for the ban of gender-affirming care for minors. The second bill proposed prohibiting youth from using new names and pronouns in school. The third bill called for B.C.’s Human Rights Code and Office of the Human Rights Commissioner to be abolished.

“The B.C. Conservatives just voted to legalize discrimination based on race, sex and other characteristics,” NDP MLA Ravi Kahlon wrote in a post at the time.

All three bills were blocked from moving forward when the BC NDP and Greens voted against them.

Lake said LGBTQ2S(IA)+ communities will assume the rights of transgender youth are at risk until they hear statements to the contrary from key Conservative candidates who have made discriminatory remarks. That includes interim leader Doerkson, health minister hopeful Anna Kindy, Kelowna Centre candidate Kristina Loewen and Chilliwack North candidate Heather Maahs, Lake said.

In 2022 Maahs said teaching sex and gender ideology was “for sure grooming” children. The NDP asked the Conservatives to drop Maahs because of these comments, but the party declined.

A 2024 letter to the editor published by Castanet alleged that during a door knocking, Loewen, who is running in Kelowna Centre, told the letter writer that SOGI was turning children transgender “en masse” and also said that books depicting gay sex violated the Criminal Code.

This spring, Kindy, who is running in North Island, met with representatives for LGB Alliance Canada to discuss “children, ethics and the distinction between sex and gender, as well as how ideology can impact medical ethics,” according to a Facebook post.

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has listed LGB Alliance Ireland and LGB Alliance Australia as hate groups and the organization broadly as “adamantly opposed to trans rights.” The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has not produced a list of hate groups specifically in Canada.

The Tyee reached out to the Conservative Party of BC for comment but did not hear back by press time.

During the 2024 provincial election, The Tyee reported that John Rustad, then-leader of the Conservative Party of BC, criticized surgical resources put towards gender-affirming care, despite the fact that transgender and non-binary people make up only 0.44 per cent of B.C.’s population and therefore require a tiny fraction of surgeries in the province. Rustad also said teaching children about sexual orientation and gender ideology was “divisive” and “a distraction.”

And shortly after Kerry-Lynne Findlay was elected Conservative Party of BC leader, she said she would “immediately ban the administration of medical and social gender transitions for children,” in a post on X. Findlay also took photos with Chris Elston, known as “Billboard Chris,” a noted anti-trans campaigner.

All of this adds up to “scary” messaging for transgender people, transgender youth and their families, Lake said.

“Language that questions the validity, rights or inclusion of transgender people fuels division and can contribute to increased discrimination against an already marginalized community,” said Ella Dufault, Queer Momentum B.C. organizer. “We should reject politics that scapegoat trans people and instead build a province grounded in respect, equality and human rights for all.”

Greens stand with the trans community

In an emailed statement, a BC Green Party spokesperson said the party unequivocally stood with the transgender community and would fight to ensure they can get the care they need. Party leader Emily Lowan previously spoke at SAGAH’s Trans Day of Visibility rally.

The Greens pledge to create strong public coverage for life-saving gender-affirming care across surgeries, hormones and puberty blockers, similar to the coverage in the Yukon, the spokesperson said. The Greens also promised to close loopholes to ban conversion therapy, which the party previously attempted to do in 2019.

The Greens stand against any attempt by the Conservatives to “gut SOGI, protections and health care for queer kids,” the spokesperson added. They also criticized the NDP’s name change ban and the closing of the pathway for B.C. residents to receive gender-affirming care in Montreal.

The Tyee reached out to the NDP for comment but did not hear back by press time.