Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression is explicitly prohibited in Canadian law and was recently confirmed in a slew of groundbreaking wins in Canada as anti-LGBT activists lose test after test.

Access to medical care and child abuse

In late February, B.C.’s supreme court ruled in favour of a transgender teen who wanted to access hormone therapy despite his father’s objections, and stated that misgendering and preventing a kid from transitioning could be considered child abuse. Efforts by Kari Simpson and hate group Culture Guard to discredit highly-regarded professionals for simply doing their job might help polarize traditional conservative mindsets held by people who have limited access to facts, but this is not a new phenomenon, not has it been working over the long term beyond funding her lifestyle.

Regardless of the angry blowback from people in the conservative and libertarian fringes, denying a child’s identity on explicitly prohibited grounds or witholding medical care are both recognized to be family abuse against the child in Canada.

As Canadian courts have repeatedly upheld, freedom of expression and freedom of religion do not extend to acts of publishing hate propaganda or othet discrimination against people on the grounds of explicitly prohibited discrimination.

Hate propaganda

As BC Human Rights Tribunal member Cousineau recently noted in its Oger v Whatcott ruling upholding gender identity as an explicitly-prohibited grounds of discrimination in Canada, anti-transgender propaganda “is a modern version of a ‘whites only’ sign” that has no place in a modern democracy such as Canada.

As I noted in my testimony, “I’m a transgender woman. People kill transgender women because of who we are. And they start with this. And it’s impossible to tell whether this is the ramblings of a person who’s likely to do that, or if it’s not. After this flyer came out, I had to worry what Mr. Whatcott looked like, but I also had to worry about other people who maybe gave him credibility.“

Discrimination in services

Hilla Kerner at Vancouver City Hall confirms Vancouver Rape Relief discriminates in publicly-funded services against women who are transgender

The fury of the extreme-right right social conservative community on discovering that they do not hold Dominion over Canadian society is reflected by the cacophony of accusations lacking the slightest substance, but the rights of people to live our lives free of discrimination stand every legal test.

Maybe it’s time for the ultra conservative groups to reconsider where they stand on inclusion before their cherished organizations collapse from the predictable outcomes of discrimination.