Two B.C. lawyers say Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s policies on transgender people are offensive to human rights protections and are breaches of their charter rights.
Susanna Quail and barbara findlay are members of Lawyers Against Transphobia, which rejects such policies, arguing they “run roughshod over the entire medical profession and the entire education system.”
“Equality used to mean something,” the group said. “Discrimination used to be against the law. But the Alberta government doesn’t care.”
“Canada’s guarantees to all Canadians that their governments will respect their rights to equality is a fundamental part of the Canadian Constitution,” the group added. “Any government initiative to discriminate against a marginalized community is an affront to the dignity and equality of every citizen.”
The policies at issue include banning gender-affirming surgeries for minors aged 17 and under; also, not allowing hormone therapies and puberty blockers for children aged 15 and under.
Further, parental notification and consent would be required for schools to alter the name or pronouns of any child under age 15.
As well, parents would have to "opt-in" their children when teachers are planning to teach about sexuality, gender identity and sexual orientation. Meanwhile, transgender women would be banned from competing in women's sports leagues.
The lawyers allege those proposals would:
• discriminate against trans youth by substituting her (Smith's) own judgment for the judgment of medical professionals who deliver gender-affirming care;
• discriminatorily deny the autonomy of trans students and the judgment of teachers by requiring teachers to ‘out’ trans students to their parents;
• deny students the right to learn about sexual orientation and gender identities different than their own; and,
• discriminate against trans women in sport on the basis of no evidence at all.
“In making those changes, the Alberta government is knowingly, and cynically, breaching the equality rights of transgender people under the Charter of Rights,” the lawyers said.
Other lawyers involved
The lawyers said they join with former Court of Appeal justice Sheila Greckol who has said these changes “sends a strong and sinister message to Albertans that it is permissible, even acceptable, to discriminate on the basis of gender identity. To members of the trans community, the message is they are less than equal members of our society.”
Greckol and Douglas Stollery, a widely recognized lawyer and Order of Canada recipient, criticized Smith’s policies in a Feb. 13 Edmonton Journal commentary.
They wrote that Smith’s policies harkened back to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Delwin Vriend case where the court ruled that province’s refusal to extend the umbrella of anti-discrimination protections to the 2SLGBTQ community was unconstitutional.
Vriend was employed as a laboratory coordinator by an Alberta college.
In 1990, in response to an inquiry by the president of the college, he disclosed that he was homosexual.
“In early 1991, the college’s board of governors adopted a position statement on homosexuality, and shortly thereafter, the president of the college requested V’s resignation. (Vriend) declined to resign, and his employment was terminated by the college,” the high court decision said.
“Fear of discrimination will logically lead to concealment of true identity and this must be harmful to personal confidence and self-esteem,” the high court said.
“Compounding that effect is the implicit message conveyed by the exclusion, that gays and lesbians, unlike other individuals, are not worthy of protection. This is clearly an example of a distinction which demeans the individual and strengthens and perpetrates the view that gays and lesbians are less worthy of protection as individuals in Canada’s society.
“The potential harm to the dignity and perceived worth of gay and lesbian individuals constitutes a particularly cruel form of discrimination,” the Supreme Court of Canada decision said.
Now, however, Lawyers Against Transphobia said Smith is substituting her own judgment for the judgment of doctors who work with transgender youth.
“She interferes with the professional judgment of teachers whose job it is to protect their students," the group said. “Smith is meddling with the law in Alberta about the rights of youth to consent to medical treatment. If a youth is a mature minor, they are entitled to direct their own medical care.”
The group said Smith’s policy to ‘out’ trans kids at school to their parents will put children whose parents don’t support them at risk.
“Those kids literally have nowhere else to go to be safe,” the group said.
“And her policy outlawing trans women in sports are a blatant, cynical, and groundless attempt to paint trans women as a threat to cisgender women in sport.”
Smith’s press secretary Sam Blackett did not respond to Glacier Media's request for comment.
