In his column for CTVNews.ca, for NDP leader Tom Mulcair calls out senior politicians he accuses of using the issue of gender identity to gain support of certain voters, at the expense of the fundamental right to equality.
Some young people feel threatened and are worried about expressing their gender identity with their parents. They ask to be recognized at school by neutral or plural pronouns that avoid a binary reference, because that’s not how they see themselves. It’s not who they are. They can and should feel safe at school. Their peers are often their best allies.
No one who has ever had a friend or family member experience hatred and derision because of their gender identity will ever fall into the trap being set by Premiers Higgs and Moe. It’s called empathy.
It’s such an incredibly basic point that virtually anyone should be able to understand. To ignore it is to shunt compassion in favour of appealing to narcissism. For those who demand that students ought to be exposed to their parents, it is dispelling the legitimate concerns that these kids and teens might be put into a dangerous situation in hostile households. For what, exactly? So parents can exert that they own another human being?
At best, this desperate need to deprive the student’s privacy is done out of a feeling of compassion; that a parent might want to help guide and support their child. At worst, the parent wants to ‘cure’ their child, lest they want to face God’s wrath. Neither is justifiable, and we ought not to hedge our politics on appealing to these attitudes.