Culture War

Parliment hill during ottawa pride | Hayley Knight

A vocally transphobic movement has taken over as the predominant voices of culture war the last decade. In bad faith, podcasters and influencers have used transphobic rhetoric as a platform to build a brand. Pushing “anti-woke” and transphobic narratives in order to create a divide in a society and an “us vs them” mentality which in turn attracts people to their audience.

They create a false narrative of an enemy, and tell you that it will hurt you if you don’t do anything about it, and in turn people keep coming back to them for information. How sincere these people are in their motivations is only known to them, but creating an enemy out of nothing is a known political tactic that unfortunately holds a lot of power.

When people like JK Rowling, who have garnered massive followings attempt to direct their audience at a group, people who are loyal to those influential people sway politically, and vice versa. People who already agree with those views will in turn cause that person's audience to grow. Culture-war echoes its namesake, it is indeed warfare, and in a war the only true winners are the ones selling the weapons. People like Trump aren’t in politics to achieve anything politically, they are in this to gain power.

Canadian transphobic risk assessment map | Celeste trianon

Transphobic legislation isn’t simply an issue limited to the United States. In 2024, Alberta Canada passed Bill 26, which aims to ban sexual reassignment surgery and heavily restrict access to hormone replacement therapy for transgender individuals. The bill marks a horrifying step back for trans healthcare in Canada, and is representative of a growing disdain for trans people from the Canadian government. While Alberta is, yes, one province, it is not the only move being made by provincial and federal governments in Canada to create anti-queer legislation.

Celeste Trianon, Canadian trans activist, maintains a map tracking states of potential risk for different provinces. More and more, Canadian conservative representatives are adopting anti-trans views as a platform. Pierre Polievre stated that trans women have “no place in women's sports,” and has heavily pushed for single sex spaces which will force separation and segregation for all trans individuals, both transmasculine and transfeminine, as well as alienating and erasing non-binary individuals completely from the equation.

It’s All of Us

Transphobic rhetoric and legislation do not just affect queer people though. Cisgendered heterosexual men and women also see the negative repercussions of transphobia with women and members of racial minorities being disproportionately affected. When you forcibly categorize genders into rigid definitions and small qualitative boxes, and then claim that anything that deviates from those narrow classifications is in need of destruction, you make way for harm to reach the people who don’t fit your qualifications despite not existing within the group you are referring to. Fascist ideals that claim men and women need to fit their perfect “beautiful” idea of what it means to be a man or woman serve to isolate and harm even cis people who deviate from that attractive archetype. When you claim women can only be the white, blonde, thin barbie with 0 body hair, that leaves very little room for women who are overweight, or have brown hair, or forgot to shave their legs.

Dani Davis is a cisgender woman accused of being trans and subsequently fired from her job at Walmart because she is a 6'4 woman, a height deemed “irregular” for cis women.

“Transphobia and misogyny have always been two sides of the same coin. I notice it’s a cis man that’s going into the bathroom and you that’s getting punished for it. I’m so sorry. This has always been about punishing women, cis and trans, for not fitting standards of femininity they want to enforce,” wrote a supporter of Dani’s.

ottawa capital hill during pride | Hayley Knight

What We Can Do

It's not hopeless though. Every day more and more people take up the fight against transphobia, and you can too. Look up bills in your area, district, province that may harm trans people. Write to your representatives encouraging them to push against harmful legislation. Get in touch with your local queer communities, gather trans allys, attend protests, create art in support of trans people, spread trans focused works or works by trans authors and artists, lift up the voices of your trans friends. Take action to support trans people and make them visible. Let people know that trans people are humans and are here to stay.