Dear John,

It’s no secret that 2SLGBTQI communities, our rights, and our freedoms are under attack – and we need your support to help secure our basic human rights.

Across Canada there has been an exponential rise in anti-2SLGBTQI hate that can be traced back to movements in other jurisdictions around the world, including the US and the UK. There is a direct link between the anti-trans legislation we’ve seen in larger countries and the policies and policy proposals we have seen in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. 

Now, we are more worried than ever about this trend with recent news out of the US and the UK; a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States that allows the state of Idaho law to go into effect that can subject physicians to up to 10 years in prison if they provide gender-affirming care to young people, and the deeply harmful Cass Review, which UK trans rights organization TransActual has called “fatally flawed.” This Idaho law and the Cass Review both contradict standards set by many international medical bodies, including the Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS), the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Egale Canada condemns these moves to restrict gender-affirming care and we will fight tirelessly to protect our 2SLGBTQI communities and their right to access care. 

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary and lifesaving for those who need it. Despite decades of research supporting this, some of our political leaders in Canada are going against our shared values of inclusion and the right to health care for all, by copying their international counterparts in order to cause chaos and division. We are deeply concerned about this, and everyone in Canada should be too. Egale has fought alongside our 2SLGBTQI communities for our rights but we must not forget that our rights can easily be taken away.