Transgender advocates say consultation lacking ahead of youth policy changes

Rowan Morris of Trans Rights YEG speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the Alberta government’s transgender youth legislation.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: We're having a conversation ahead of the government introducing its gender policies legislation. What are you bracing for?

Rowan Morris: I'm really bracing for the social impact this is going to have on my community. Despite whatever comes through the legislature, at the end of the day, whatever is enshrined in policy, the negative impacts that this is going to have on the mental health of transgender people in Alberta is going to be felt for years to come.

MH: Albertans knew this was coming, the premier made that much evident in a video that she posted roughly nine months ago. How much of a window did that open to having a conversation around what this legislation looks like?

RM: For the gender diverse community in Alberta, it hasn't really been a conversation between us and the UCP. Many of us haven't been spoken to on this, and many of us disagree with this, but what it has opened up is the opportunity for members of the gender diverse community to come together and really organize with one another. The community that has come out of that video being released in January has been monumental.

MH: You knocked on the door said, ‘hey, we want to have a voice here’, and what was the response?

RM: The response was bigger than we ever could have anticipated. When that video came out I was sitting in my living room and I just thought, I can't just let this happen to me, I can't just let my rights be debated in front of me.

We decided to put together a response and we were able to bring together about 1,000 people over four days and since then, we've had significant involvement and a lot of uptake in the educational pieces that we've put out about this legislation and gender diverse Albertans.

MH: Regardless of what this policy looks like, when it is eventually passed in this fall sitting of the legislature, why is it worrisome? The government says it's motivated to ensure future choices are preserved before minors potentially make permanent, life-altering decisions. How's that sit with you?

RM: We make permanent, life-altering decisions every single day, and currently in the legislature, they've been talking about the importance of personal medical autonomy for Albertans throughout the Bill of Rights.

It isn't lost on my community that transgender people are not considered rightful of that personal medical autonomy as well, and for the motivation of this legislation to be preserving choice and giving people time to make that decision, removing resources such as puberty blockers and education in schools about these identities is only going to create more confusion and could lead to some permanent decisions that are severely detrimental.

Transitioning is not something that's severely detrimental, but things such as self-harm, increased risk behavior, the increased risk of suicide, those are also permanent decisions that can amount from this policy being enshrined.

MH: This is legislation geared toward youth. You're a young adult. How do you find this legislation potentially filtering into your own life?

RM: When policies like these are even discussed, the motivation for hate against these communities rises. It doesn't matter what minority community it is, we saw the rise in hate against many people of Asian descent when COVID started, my community is feeling this.

I've experienced street harassment, I've experienced discrimination, I've been asked to leave establishments, and that really impacts your self-esteem and dignity as a young person.

It's hard enough to figure out who you are when you're not trans. It's even harder when there's people telling you that you don't have the authority to be making those decisions about yourself.

MH: UCP members are gathering in Red Deer this weekend for their annual general meeting. There's a leadership review as well for the premier, but also, policy is up for discussion. There are a number of policies here that are generating attention, banning transgender people from women's washrooms, prohibiting non-binary gender identifiers on government documents, ensuring trans medical treatments are not publicly funded.

Those policies are non-binding on the government but what does that say to you about the political dynamic in Alberta right now?

RM: It says to me that it's incredibly uninformed. A lot of these policies that are being proposed at the AGM are rooted in misinformation, disinformation and hate-based rhetoric against transgender people.

To ban transwomen from washrooms is implying that transwomen are a threat to women's washrooms, which factually is not true. To remove X identifiers from government documents is denying intersex people the ability to be correctly written down and identified.

It's denying that people have existed for centuries in gender diversity. There are mummies coming out of Egypt who have stuffed cotton in their wrapping to look like breasts so that they were buried in an affirming way, Two Spirit people have existed since time immemorial.

To imply that these policies are here to help is also to imply that our community has not existed for very long and that we’re a threat.

MH: What message do you take to the steps of the legislature? What messages you will convey?

RM: The same messages that they're conveying in there right now. It’s that bodily autonomy, medical autonomy, freedom, are Albertan values, and that applies to all Albertans, including transgender ones.