Latest / Public Good / 3.6 "They're Banking On People Not Giving A Shit About Our Kids”

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3.6 "They're Banking On People Not Giving A Shit About Our Kids” · Public Good

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Shannon Moore.
0:01
Speaker 2: And I'm Justin Fraser.
0:03
Speaker 1: And this is Public Good on the Prairies.
0:14
Speaker 2: Today we're speaking about the ways the parental rights movement
0:16
Speaker 2: employs the facade of parenthood to alibi homophobic and transphobic
0:20
Speaker 2: views and to erase the views of parents and families
0:23
Speaker 2: who want public schools that uphold children's rights and human
0:26
Speaker 2: rights in inclusive of the rights of 2SLGBTQIA plus students, parents,
0:30
Speaker 2: and citizens. Our episode today focuses on the province of Alberta.
0:34
Speaker 2: In 2024, the United Conservative Party passed the Education Amendment Act,
0:39
Speaker 2: which requires parental consent for students under 16 to use
0:42
Speaker 2: different pronouns or chosen name at school, opt-ins for teaching
0:46
Speaker 2: about gender and sexuality, and ministerial approval for external presenters.
0:51
Speaker 2: In 2025, they passed Bill 9, which used the notwithstanding
0:55
Speaker 2: clause so that its regulations surrounding names and pronouns in schools,
0:58
Speaker 2: parental opt-in for sexual health education, and other restrictions on
1:02
Speaker 2: health and sport to stand despite violating their charter rights.
1:07
Speaker 1: Joining us to discuss this is Dr. Corinne Mason and Dr.
1:09
Speaker 1: Leah Hamilton. Corinne Mason, they, them, is professor and coordinator
1:14
Speaker 1: of women's and gender studies at Mount Royal University. Their
1:17
Speaker 1: current research program is inspired by two central curiosities. First,
1:22
Speaker 1: the anti-gender movement and anti-2SLGBTQIA plus policies and sentiments in Alberta,
1:28
Speaker 1: and two, the dismantling of EDI and increasing anti-2SLGBTQIA sentiments
1:33
Speaker 1: in Alberta post-secondary institutions. Leah Hamilton, she, her, is a
1:38
Speaker 1: professor in the Faculty of Business and Communication Studies at
1:41
Speaker 1: Mount Royal University. She is a community engaged scholar who
1:44
Speaker 1: works with newcomer communities and 2SLGBTQIA plus communities to better
1:49
Speaker 1: understand the impacts of policies and programs. She also researches
1:53
Speaker 1: public attitudes towards immigrants and 2SLGBTQIA plus communities. Her research
1:58
Speaker 1: is funded by SHERC. Together, Leah and Corinne are working
2:02
Speaker 1: on a two-year SHERC IDG project, which traces the impacts
2:05
Speaker 1: of the Alberta anti-2SLGBTQIA legislation and the parental rights movement
2:10
Speaker 1: fueling it on 2SLGBTQIA youth and their families. This study
2:15
Speaker 1: is an extension of a Calgary-based pilot study called Queer
2:17
Speaker 1: Parenting in the Time of Parental Rights. Leah and Corinne
2:21
Speaker 1: have a new publication in The Conversation. Canada is becoming
2:24
Speaker 1: less accepting of gender diversity. New Statistics Canada data shows.
2:35
Speaker 3: Dr. Corinne Mason and Dr. Leah Hamilton, welcome to Public
2:39
Speaker 3: Good on the Prairies.
2:40
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us.
2:43
Speaker 3: Corinne, on your substack, which I recommend everyone check out,
2:46
Speaker 3: you describe yourself as researchers who are concerned about the
2:50
Speaker 3: negative impacts of the parental rights movement, especially in the
2:54
Speaker 3: Alberta context. So I wonder if you could tell us
2:57
Speaker 3: a little bit about how this is manifesting in Alberta
2:59
Speaker 3: at this moment and the way this results in 2SLGBTQIA
3:04
Speaker 3: lives being legislated.
3:06
Speaker 2: Sure.
3:07
Speaker 4: So I think that the reason why we're interested in
3:09
Speaker 4: the parental rights movement as kind of a motivator for
3:13
Speaker 4: the legislation that we've seen targeting to us LGBTQI plus people,
3:18
Speaker 4: and specifically trans and gender diverse youth, what we're really
3:22
Speaker 4: looking at is the rhetoric and the packaging of that legislation,
3:26
Speaker 4: the ways in which the government has kind of like
3:29
Speaker 4: harnessed the rhetoric of the parental rights movement to justify
3:33
Speaker 4: its targeting of trans and gender diverse youth. And so
3:36
Speaker 4: we're really looking at the the impact of the movement
3:39
Speaker 4: on the legislation and the ways in which that kind
3:42
Speaker 4: of doesn't trickle down, but directly impacts trans youth and
3:45
Speaker 4: their families. And the part of why we're so interested
3:49
Speaker 4: in the parental rights movement as well is because it
3:53
Speaker 4: is so focused on supposedly protecting vulnerable children to the
4:01
Speaker 4: limit of of trans and gender diverse issues often in
4:06
Speaker 4: the Alberta context, not only, but often. And so we
4:09
Speaker 4: see parental rights groups that are explicitly like Christian nationalist.
4:15
Speaker 4: We see groups that have explicit kind of religious beliefs.
4:21
Speaker 4: motivations and are open about what it is that they're
4:24
Speaker 4: concerned with, especially like in school choice, but also in
4:28
Speaker 4: school choice on curriculum, not just where students go, but
4:31
Speaker 4: what the curriculum looks like in healthcare, and to lesser
4:34
Speaker 4: extent sports, but they're also interested in sports when it
4:37
Speaker 4: comes to trans women and girls specifically. And so I
4:40
Speaker 4: kind of see that what the Alberta government has done,
4:44
Speaker 4: the UCP has kind of legitimized this hate movement by
4:47
Speaker 4: introducing and mainstreaming its rhetoric as like a common sense approach,
4:54
Speaker 4: how we deal with the issues of sexual and gender
4:58
Speaker 4: diversity or what parental rights groups like to talk about
5:02
Speaker 4: as SOGI. So sexual orientation and gender identity is this
5:05
Speaker 4: kind of like boogeyman that's harming children across Alberta. Yeah, absolutely.
5:12
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Leah, I wondered if you wanted to add on
5:16
Speaker 3: to anything that Corinne has said in regards to the
5:18
Speaker 3: legislation and the way that it's affecting the lives of
5:22
Speaker 3: 2SLGBTQ people in Alberta or the way their lives are
5:25
Speaker 3: being legislated. Or if you wanted to step back, because
5:28
Speaker 3: I started with the substack, and just tell us a
5:30
Speaker 3: little bit about your research.
5:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure.
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Speaker 6: Corinne and I had been chatting about the upcoming legislation
5:38
Speaker 6: throughout January of 2024. And I remember vividly having conversations,
5:46
Speaker 6: trying to sort of speculate about what this legislation would
5:48
Speaker 6: look like. And we thought it would largely mirror what
5:52
Speaker 6: Premier Mo had done in Saskatchewan and what we've seen
5:55
Speaker 6: done in New Brunswick. So we were expecting this sort
5:59
Speaker 6: of school bill to come out. And I remember being
6:03
Speaker 6: in my car, listening to the announcement and hearing about
6:08
Speaker 6: how draconian the three bills were and how they expand
6:13
Speaker 6: so far beyond what we had predicted and being absolutely devastated.
6:20
Speaker 5: And I think Corinne and I were on the phone
6:23
Speaker 5: with each.
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Speaker 6: Other that night talking about this and supporting each other
6:28
Speaker 6: and just absolutely shocked by what we heard. And Corinne said,
6:34
Speaker 6: you know, what are we going to do in this moment?
6:37
Speaker 5: What skills do we have? What can we bring to this?
6:40
Speaker 5: And they said, you know, we're researchers.
6:42
Speaker 6: I think we work together and we start researching the
6:46
Speaker 6: impact of these bills. And so it was really that
6:50
Speaker 6: same night that this legislation was first announced at the
6:53
Speaker 6: end of January in 2024 that this.
6:56
Speaker 5: Project came to be. And we were really concerned with the.
7:01
Speaker 6: Government's rhetoric that these laws were designed to, you know,
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Speaker 6: so-called protect children and enshrine parental rights.
7:10
Speaker 5: And in thinking about that, we.
7:11
Speaker 6: Decided that we wanted to start talking to parents of
7:16
Speaker 6: 2SLGBTQIA plus youth and trans and parents of trans and
7:22
Speaker 6: gender diverse youth in particular. And we thought, well, let's
7:27
Speaker 6: actually hold what we call serial focus groups.
7:30
Speaker 5: So every other month.
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Speaker 6: Get together with the same group of parents so that
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Speaker 6: we can actually connect and these parents can develop rapport
7:40
Speaker 6: and trust with one another and we can actually look
7:43
Speaker 6: at how these impacts unfold over time. So since that time,
7:49
Speaker 6: after meeting with those parents seven times over the course
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Speaker 6: of a year, we've expanded the research to other cities
7:56
Speaker 6: in Alberta. We've expanded by running a survey as well
8:00
Speaker 6: to get some numbers and.
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Speaker 5: By doing one-on-one interviews.
8:04
Speaker 6: So really, we're trying to conduct this sort of comprehensive,
8:08
Speaker 6: rigorous research project into the short, medium, and long-term impacts
8:13
Speaker 6: of this legislation.
8:16
Speaker 3: Can you tell us, Leah, a little bit about who
8:18
Speaker 3: your research participants are? Like you say parents, but could
8:21
Speaker 3: you tell us a little bit about who are the
8:24
Speaker 3: parents that you're seeking to actually speak to?
8:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we recruited broadly, like the initial project, those
8:34
Speaker 6: serial focus groups I was talking about, were conducted with
8:38
Speaker 6: parents and caregivers of 2SLGBTQIA plus youth in Calgary and
8:43
Speaker 6: their surrounding area. But since that time, the other aspects
8:47
Speaker 6: of the project that I told you about, those are
8:50
Speaker 6: done with parents and caregivers across the entire province. But
8:54
Speaker 6: these parents were For the most part, the people that
8:58
Speaker 6: speak with us are parents and caregivers of trans and
9:01
Speaker 6: gender diverse youth, because these are the youth that are
9:05
Speaker 6: most impacted by this legislation. So even though we recruited
9:10
Speaker 6: very broadly using social media, personal networks, and so on,
9:15
Speaker 6: in groups that work for 2SLGBTQIA plus families and youth,
9:20
Speaker 6: it's the parents of the trans that are interested in
9:24
Speaker 6: this issue and want to speak with us. And we
9:27
Speaker 6: try to capture a diverse range of parents and caregivers,
9:33
Speaker 6: including trans parents, queer parents, and so on.
9:38
Speaker 4: I would say the only thing to add is that
9:41
Speaker 4: we hear from affirming parents. So our call-outs to parents,
9:46
Speaker 4: partly because of the way we've recruited, which is often
9:49
Speaker 4: through queer and trans serving organizations or pride organizations, but
9:55
Speaker 4: also broadly on social media and who has kind of
9:59
Speaker 4: shown up up to talk to us. Focus groups and
10:02
Speaker 4: in interviews have been affirming parents who are incredibly frustrated,
10:07
Speaker 4: incredibly worried about what's going on.
10:10
Speaker 3: Frustrated, I'm sure, about the ways in which the term
10:13
Speaker 3: parents is being used and they don't see themselves represented
10:16
Speaker 3: in it. And I know you probably draw on the
10:18
Speaker 3: work of Chris Mayo, who says parental rights proponents use
10:22
Speaker 3: of the term parents is intended to distract. from their
10:26
Speaker 3: lack of respect for parents who want to raise their
10:28
Speaker 3: own children to be respectful of diversity. And this is
10:32
Speaker 3: why often when I speak about parental rights, I call
10:34
Speaker 3: it a parent-targeted movement because it's often a movement who
10:38
Speaker 3: has other motivations, who's using that label of parents to
10:41
Speaker 3: veil the ways in which they silence parents writ large.
10:46
Speaker 2: Corinne, you asked the parent participants in your focus groups
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Speaker 2: what they knew about the parental rights movement. And so
10:52
Speaker 2: we're curious, like what, What did the participants identify as
10:55
Speaker 2: elements of the parental rights movement and how did they
10:58
Speaker 2: understand this movement?
11:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. It's actually really interesting to
11:03
Speaker 4: talk about right now because I'm currently revising an article
11:07
Speaker 4: that Leah and I wrote specifically on this issue. So
11:11
Speaker 4: taking up the data that we collected in those serial
11:14
Speaker 4: focus groups that Leah was talking about before with parents
11:17
Speaker 4: who had a lot to say about the parental rights movement.
11:20
Speaker 4: So I want to say, first of all, these parents
11:22
Speaker 4: are not just affirming. They are in the know. They
11:27
Speaker 4: know what's going on. They're critical about what's going on.
11:30
Speaker 4: They've got Strong analyses, I would welcome them into my
11:34
Speaker 4: classrooms to have discussions with students to demonstrate critical thinking.
11:39
Speaker 4: These parents have it. And so what I would say
11:42
Speaker 4: about what the parents think about the parental rights movement
11:46
Speaker 4: is I think a general consensus among parents that they
11:49
Speaker 4: see a lot of rhetoric in the US kind of
11:52
Speaker 4: like trickling up across the border or being harnessed by
11:55
Speaker 4: Canadian groups. They are very concerned that the rhetoric of
12:00
Speaker 4: parental rights as articulated by the UCP is a tactic
12:07
Speaker 4: for political gain. So one of the contextual or timeline
12:11
Speaker 4: pieces that I think is really important to note is
12:13
Speaker 4: that this legislation was announced in January 2024, and it
12:17
Speaker 4: wasn't tabled until the next October. So we're talking about
12:21
Speaker 4: eight months of speculation and worry and fear and stress
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Speaker 4: about what these bills were going to look like for parents.
12:27
Speaker 4: This also gave Danielle Smith eight months to basically like
12:31
Speaker 4: shore up her voter support for her leadership review, which
12:36
Speaker 4: happened that same fall that these were tabled. And so
12:40
Speaker 4: parents are very clear that their kids are being targeted
12:43
Speaker 4: for reasons that I think are specific to anti-trans sentiments
12:47
Speaker 4: and the rise of hate against trans communities in particular.
12:51
Speaker 4: But they're also very concerned about this suite of legislation
12:58
Speaker 4: being kind of a testing ground for other rights-based issues.
13:02
Speaker 4: And so one of the parents who we spoke to
13:06
Speaker 4: said something like, and I'm paraphrasing her quote, but like
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Speaker 4: the UCP is banking on people not giving a shit
13:13
Speaker 4: about our kids, meaning trans kids are the testing ground.
13:17
Speaker 4: Let's see how far we can push it. Let's see
13:19
Speaker 4: if we get any public response. We don't expect we
13:21
Speaker 4: will because people don't either know someone who's trans or
13:26
Speaker 4: don't have any experience with someone who's trans, don't know
13:29
Speaker 4: a trans youth and are just filled with myths and
13:31
Speaker 4: disinformation about trans issues like health care. And so they
13:35
Speaker 4: like parents see this as kind of being like step
13:38
Speaker 4: one to larger issues. rights-based concerns in the province. And
13:42
Speaker 4: lots of our parents spoke about abortion, so reproductive health
13:47
Speaker 4: and rights, as being kind of maybe the next step
13:49
Speaker 4: for the UCP government. And so this is kind of
13:52
Speaker 4: the opposite in terms of timeline of what's happened in
13:55
Speaker 4: the US. So they say, you know, they've told us that, look,
13:57
Speaker 4: like Roe versus Wade was overturned, and then we did
14:00
Speaker 4: trans health care. And in the Alberta context, they're saying, well,
14:03
Speaker 4: we're doing trans health care, and maybe abortion's coming next. Right.
14:08
Speaker 3: Which is why, as you say, it's so important that
14:10
Speaker 3: people see these fights as connected because maybe this particular
14:14
Speaker 3: one you don't quote unquote see as impacting you, but
14:17
Speaker 3: everyone's next that doesn't fit on the insider's definition. And
14:21
Speaker 3: I think that quote that you just said from your
14:24
Speaker 3: research participant when I read it in your sub stack,
14:26
Speaker 3: it was like, yeah, it is. it's kind of hoping
14:29
Speaker 3: that people's homophobia and heteronormativity will, will mean that they, they,
14:34
Speaker 3: that the fact that they have not been taught to
14:36
Speaker 3: give a shit about these kids means they won't respond
14:38
Speaker 3: or react. I thought it was such a powerful quote
14:40
Speaker 3: and why it is so important to actually speak to parents,
14:43
Speaker 3: not people using the costume of parental rights to advance
14:47
Speaker 3: their reforms. Um, Corinne, in your own writing, you speak
14:50
Speaker 3: about the history of the parental rights movement, you take
14:52
Speaker 3: it back to the 70s. Why do you think it's
14:54
Speaker 3: so important that people know that the current iteration of
14:57
Speaker 3: the parental rights movement is not the first iteration we've
15:00
Speaker 3: seen and to tie it back to the 70s?
15:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's really important. Maybe as an academic,
15:06
Speaker 4: I just want to like, point out systemic issues as
15:10
Speaker 4: not being kind of one offs or not individual, but
15:12
Speaker 4: within this longer history and connected to other movements, especially
15:17
Speaker 4: connecting the parental rights movement to civil rights struggles and
15:21
Speaker 4: anti-civil rights protests. So when we think about parental rights
15:26
Speaker 4: as something new, I think we really miss the fact
15:29
Speaker 4: that we've seen this rhetoric before. And the parental rights
15:33
Speaker 4: rhetoric has come into play Whenever it is that a
15:38
Speaker 4: marginalized group is claiming rights to public life and space
15:43
Speaker 4: and protections against discrimination, it is often white moms who
15:47
Speaker 4: are doing this kind of gender racialized labor of claiming
15:51
Speaker 4: that their kids are going to be harmed by their
15:54
Speaker 4: association with, their connection to, their proximity with other youth
15:59
Speaker 4: or other groups of people who are unlike them. And
16:03
Speaker 4: so you get white mothers saying, well, I don't want
16:06
Speaker 4: schools to be racially integrated because black kids are dangerous
16:09
Speaker 4: to my white kids. On what basis? Misinformation, disinformation, long
16:14
Speaker 4: histories of white supremacy. that allow for that, right, to
16:19
Speaker 4: circulate as common sense. And then we've got folks like
16:22
Speaker 4: Anita Bryant in the 1970s, who used the same tactic. She,
16:27
Speaker 4: like white people, always borrow from people of color. Not
16:29
Speaker 4: surprising that she's pulling, right, from civil rights struggles to
16:33
Speaker 4: make her arguments. But she was making the arguments that
16:37
Speaker 4: we shouldn't protect gays and lesbians, which would have been
16:40
Speaker 4: the terminology at the time, because children were being recruited
16:45
Speaker 4: into like the homosexual lifestyle. And that was really persuasive
16:50
Speaker 4: at the time because there was such a, like the
16:53
Speaker 4: focus on the family was so essential to that kind
16:56
Speaker 4: of anti-rights and language and movement. And I mean, it's
17:00
Speaker 4: the exact same thing now. We're doing the exact same
17:03
Speaker 4: thing now. We're focusing on the family. We've got parents
17:05
Speaker 4: claiming that their children are going to be harmed by
17:08
Speaker 4: their association to trans kids and, or to ideas about
17:13
Speaker 4: gender and sexual diversity. They're being sexualized and groomed by
17:17
Speaker 4: drag queens, you know, like children are going to be harmed.
17:23
Speaker 4: Queer and trans people are dangerous. We need to protect them.
17:26
Speaker 4: And what I think is really interesting in Alberta is
17:29
Speaker 4: that the conservative government has stood up and said, we
17:33
Speaker 4: will be the protectors of these vulnerable children. To the point,
17:38
Speaker 4: to the end of trans issues, right? Not about are
17:43
Speaker 4: we feeding kids in the morning? Are we funding education
17:46
Speaker 4: to make sure that vulnerable kids have access to inclusive education? No,
17:52
Speaker 4: but we will demonize trans people and drag queens.
17:55
Speaker 3: So you've pointed to the fact that looking back to
17:57
Speaker 3: history is important so we can see the tactics, we
17:59
Speaker 3: can see the parallels. But you've also pointed to, in
18:02
Speaker 3: speaking about the white moms, the ways in which the
18:05
Speaker 3: current iteration of parental rights in Canada ties to groups
18:09
Speaker 3: like Moms for Liberty in the United States, which is
18:12
Speaker 3: seen as a white supremacist group. So pointing to those
18:15
Speaker 3: connections is so important to kind of bust the myth
18:17
Speaker 3: that these are people that actually care about children. And
18:20
Speaker 3: when a government is doing something like passing legislation that
18:23
Speaker 3: harms children while underfunding at the same time, and then
18:26
Speaker 3: using that rights language as an alibi for their hate
18:30
Speaker 3: and discrimination. I think we have to try to demonstrate
18:33
Speaker 3: and expose the facade of the way that that's being done.
18:37
Speaker 3: And I think it's great that your work is doing that.
18:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, so maybe I can say two things about that.
18:42
Speaker 4: I think one thing that I didn't say about the
18:44
Speaker 4: kind of looking at the history that I think is
18:46
Speaker 4: really important is like, we progressives, folks who are invested
18:52
Speaker 4: in civil and human rights won both of those struggles, right?
18:57
Speaker 4: Against white supremacy in response to racial integration and against
19:02
Speaker 4: Anita Smith and her followers and whoever else was arguing
19:05
Speaker 4: against equal protections. And so I think that's really important
19:08
Speaker 4: to remember when it feels really bleak and sometimes... often
19:11
Speaker 4: it can feel really bleak. For parents of trans and
19:14
Speaker 4: gender diverse kids in particular in Alberta right now, it
19:17
Speaker 4: can feel really hard. But what I would say about
19:19
Speaker 4: this kind of like alibi, or this kind of like,
19:22
Speaker 4: I think you said costume earlier, which I thought was
19:24
Speaker 4: really interesting, because I do think we're we are doing theatre, right?
19:27
Speaker 4: We're doing political theatre at the expense of the lives
19:30
Speaker 4: of youth. But I do think that this is a performance.
19:33
Speaker 4: And so One of the reasons why I think parental
19:37
Speaker 4: rights is that kind of easy alibi is that although
19:41
Speaker 4: people are more emboldened to say racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-immigrant,
19:47
Speaker 4: you name the marginalized community, people have something to say
19:49
Speaker 4: about it. it and they feel like they can, that
19:51
Speaker 4: they have a license to say that, it is still
19:54
Speaker 4: difficult to say things about children. It's really difficult to
19:58
Speaker 4: say out loud, I am going to target trans kids.
20:03
Speaker 4: I'm going to take away their health care, their rights
20:06
Speaker 4: at school and their ability to play sports. I'm going
20:08
Speaker 4: to do that because we don't like them. It's really
20:10
Speaker 4: difficult to say that like childhood innocence or like the
20:13
Speaker 4: figure of the child, I think, is still so central
20:16
Speaker 4: to the ways that we think about the nuclear family
20:18
Speaker 4: and private property, even like patriarchy, thinking about the structure
20:23
Speaker 4: of the nuclear family. And so when we say parental
20:27
Speaker 4: rights or we say we're protecting children, we're kind of
20:30
Speaker 4: sidestepping that. and guising or kind of like masking the motivations, right?
20:37
Speaker 4: Which are hateful motivations, right? Parental rights groups are not
20:42
Speaker 4: like a group of really concerned soccer moms. They're not.
20:46
Speaker 4: They might also be soccer moms, but they are well-funded organizations.
20:50
Speaker 4: So you mentioned Moms for Liberty. That's like a massive
20:53
Speaker 4: organization that is rolling millions of dollars into chapters across
20:59
Speaker 4: the US to do what it is that they're doing.
21:02
Speaker 4: Our version of that is like Action for Canada, right?
21:05
Speaker 4: All over the nation. And I saw through some reporting
21:09
Speaker 4: that they have like a million dollar, they're a million
21:12
Speaker 4: dollar organization. Like they raise that much money. That's kind
21:17
Speaker 4: of like what they're working with. This is a funded
21:20
Speaker 4: lobby group. It isn't like moms and dads claim that,
21:25
Speaker 4: that they are, right? These people, but it's more than that.
21:28
Speaker 4: And it's way more tactical and it's way more calculated
21:32
Speaker 4: And it's way more funded.
21:33
Speaker 3: I wanted to jump in on your discussion of, you know,
21:36
Speaker 3: they've learned not to say the overt homophobic stuff. And
21:39
Speaker 3: I know Nash and Brown's work speaks about this in
21:42
Speaker 3: regards to hetero activism. It's like they've actually found ways
21:45
Speaker 3: to push through these reforms. And it's like, oh, that's
21:48
Speaker 3: now seen as impolite. So I'm now instead going to
21:51
Speaker 3: use this because I know that that will no longer work.
21:55
Speaker 3: And it's just still going after the same thing, but
21:57
Speaker 3: just finding different ways to do it.
21:59
Speaker 6: I'll just add to this and say, I think when
22:01
Speaker 6: we really look at the rhetoric that Premier Smith has
22:05
Speaker 6: been using, not only does she talk about protecting children,
22:11
Speaker 6: but specifically she talks about preserving choice and she talks
22:15
Speaker 6: about protecting fertility. And these pieces have been instrumental to
22:21
Speaker 6: garnering support for this legislation. And I think any time
22:25
Speaker 6: that the rhetoric of protecting children is used, it really
22:30
Speaker 6: gets the public riled up.
22:32
Speaker 5: It's very deliberate, it's very strategic, and it works.
22:38
Speaker 2: We appreciate that. This notion of rhetoric is coming up
22:41
Speaker 2: constantly in these interviews for Public Good on the Prairies.
22:46
Speaker 2: And Leah, I would love to hear a little bit
22:48
Speaker 2: more from you about this research of, you know, you're
22:51
Speaker 2: speaking to parents of 2SLGBTQIA plus children, you know, but
22:54
Speaker 2: the impact of the climate in Alberta, which is quite unique.
22:58
Speaker 2: You made the connection earlier to Saskatchewan and to New Brunswick,
23:00
Speaker 2: which I think is quite helpful. You know, this legislation
23:03
Speaker 2: in Alberta, the impact of this climate on your participants' children.
23:07
Speaker 2: And we'd love to hear more about some of the
23:09
Speaker 2: elements that have struck you from these conversations.
23:14
Speaker 6: One of the things that struck us immediately was that
23:18
Speaker 6: parents reported that the damage was done as soon as
23:22
Speaker 6: this legislation was announced.
23:24
Speaker 5: So if you can imagine youth, some were.
23:28
Speaker 6: Pre-puberty at the time, learning that they wouldn't have access
23:31
Speaker 6: to puberty blockers that they thought they would have access to,
23:35
Speaker 6: or other trans girls realizing that they were not going
23:40
Speaker 6: to be allowed to play their sport was absolutely devastating
23:45
Speaker 6: as soon as that announcement came out. And then there
23:47
Speaker 6: was this really protracted waiting period. It took almost two years.
23:52
Speaker 6: for some of the pieces to be fully implemented. So
23:57
Speaker 6: one of the things that we learned, and this was
24:00
Speaker 6: through the survey that we did, was parents were asked
24:04
Speaker 6: how accepting Alberta was before the legislation was announced and
24:09
Speaker 6: then how accepting it is now. And there was such
24:13
Speaker 6: a difference where prior to the announcement, 19% of parents
24:17
Speaker 6: said Alberta was unaccepting and that number increased to 85%.
24:22
Speaker 6: after the legislation was announced. So from 19% to 85%,
24:28
Speaker 6: basically overnight is what happened. And I think, I know
24:33
Speaker 6: things weren't perfect before 2024, they weren't, but now parents
24:38
Speaker 6: look back at that sort of pre 2024 sociocultural climate
24:42
Speaker 6: here as relatively safe, relatively affirming that their youth experiences
24:48
Speaker 6: in sports, in schools, in the religious institutions and other
24:52
Speaker 6: contexts were actually pretty positive. So there's been a massive
24:56
Speaker 6: swing very quickly.
24:57
Speaker 5: In the province.
24:58
Speaker 6: And I think the legislation has also had a big
25:02
Speaker 6: impact on visibility. So about 62% of parents are now
25:08
Speaker 6: reporting that their child had kept their identity hidden over
25:12
Speaker 6: the last year. And when we speak with parents in
25:15
Speaker 6: focus groups and interviews, they talk about how these kids
25:18
Speaker 6: that were once out and proud and very visible have
25:22
Speaker 6: gone back into the closet or gone back into hiding
25:26
Speaker 6: and even make requests of their parents, like, please take
25:28
Speaker 6: that trans flag off your water bottle. Please stop wearing
25:31
Speaker 6: the Protect Trans Kids t-shirt. I just don't want anyone
25:34
Speaker 6: to know. I want to fly under the radar. So
25:37
Speaker 6: I think parents are describing how their trans and gender
25:42
Speaker 6: diverse youth are really afraid of being targeted because they
25:47
Speaker 6: have very high rates of experiencing harassment and bullying now.
25:51
Speaker 6: So they no longer want to be out. Just a
25:54
Speaker 6: couple other things to mention about what we're finding is
25:58
Speaker 6: parents are reporting that their youth's emotional wellness has significantly
26:03
Speaker 6: deteriorated since this legislation was announced.
26:07
Speaker 5: And we have many, many.
26:10
Speaker 6: Conversations about youth losing access to puberty blockers and HRT.
26:16
Speaker 6: Many of the parents in our serial focus groups had
26:20
Speaker 6: trans and gender diverse youth who were under 12 years
26:23
Speaker 6: of age when we started speaking with them. So they
26:25
Speaker 6: were significantly negatively impacted by Bill 26 and losing access
26:31
Speaker 6: to trans-affirming health care.
26:34
Speaker 2: I think there's something critical there about the very act
26:38
Speaker 2: of just announcing the legislation that the impact that an
26:42
Speaker 2: announcement has, right? Like this isn't legislated yet, from my understanding,
26:48
Speaker 2: and the chilling effect that this has, the repercussions across
26:53
Speaker 2: the province, and I would argue beyond, right? Because the reality,
26:57
Speaker 2: speaking from some other provinces, we're watching Alberta to kind
27:01
Speaker 2: of see where things, how are things unfolding here. And
27:04
Speaker 2: so I really appreciate that note that the announcement of
27:07
Speaker 2: the legislation, how it went from 19 to 85%, those
27:11
Speaker 2: types of impacts that it's having on families.
27:15
Speaker 4: On students.
27:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was just going to build on what you said.
27:19
Speaker 6: And just today, Corinne and I published a piece in
27:22
Speaker 6: The Conversation that looks at New Statistics Canada data demonstrating
27:27
Speaker 6: that public opinion in Canada as a whole toward gender
27:31
Speaker 6: diversity has decreased significantly. And again, this is due to
27:36
Speaker 6: this rhetoric by leaders, by politicians. So you're right, it
27:40
Speaker 6: is not limited to Alberta. The effects trickle into the
27:44
Speaker 6: entire nation.
27:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Alberta is not existing in a vacuum. And it's,
27:48
Speaker 3: you know, we have already mentioned months for liberty in
27:50
Speaker 3: that broader context beyond beyond our borders, and obviously, the
27:54
Speaker 3: connections to Saskatchewan and New Brunswick that were raised earlier.
27:57
Speaker 3: So I really want to draw out some of the
28:00
Speaker 3: data fragments that you folks elicited from this group, because
28:03
Speaker 3: I found them so powerful. And this first one harkens
28:06
Speaker 3: back to what we what we spoke about earlier, the
28:08
Speaker 3: idea that this legislation right now may appear to only
28:11
Speaker 3: affect one group of people, but you know, the knee
28:13
Speaker 3: molar quote first they came for, right? And one of
28:16
Speaker 3: your participants said, quote, I just can't wrap my head
28:20
Speaker 3: around why parents of cisgender kids haven't taken the time
28:23
Speaker 3: to really understand how this is going to affect them,
28:26
Speaker 3: how it's going to affect their cis children, how their
28:28
Speaker 3: daughter is going to be too fast, too strong, too masculine.
28:33
Speaker 3: And of course, we wish people would just care for
28:35
Speaker 3: other people to care for other people and not that
28:37
Speaker 3: it had to be about them. But I think this quote,
28:41
Speaker 3: this data fragment really demonstrates how it isn't just about
28:46
Speaker 3: being on the bodies of 2SLGBTQIA kids. There's other things
28:50
Speaker 3: going on here. And I wondered if you could speak
28:51
Speaker 3: about that fragment or about that ripple echo effect that
28:55
Speaker 3: we're seeing.
28:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, of course, this legislation primarily and disproportionately
29:02
Speaker 6: impacts transgender and gender diverse youth, with Bill 29 impacting
29:08
Speaker 6: trans girls and women.
29:09
Speaker 5: And the legislation also.
29:11
Speaker 6: Impacts 2SLGBTQIA plus youth more broadly, particularly when we think
29:15
Speaker 6: about the opt-in sexual health education and all the other
29:19
Speaker 6: aspects of Bill 27. But I think this legislation will
29:23
Speaker 6: and has negatively impacted cisgender girls and women, too. We
29:28
Speaker 6: know that there's so much data about consent-based sexual health
29:32
Speaker 6: education and how this reduces sexual assault and STIs and
29:36
Speaker 6: so on. a whole cohort of boys risks not receiving
29:41
Speaker 6: this education. And Bill 29, as you alluded to, will
29:45
Speaker 6: also impact cis girls who may face gender challenges in
29:50
Speaker 6: sports when a parent on another team or a parent
29:53
Speaker 6: of another competitor decides that that cis girl looks too big, too.
29:58
Speaker 5: Fast, too tall, too muscular, and so on.
30:01
Speaker 6: So absolutely, this will negatively impact other youth as well.
30:06
Speaker 4: And adults. Yeah, I think like opening up girls in
30:09
Speaker 4: particular to public scrutiny, it's like hard enough to be
30:15
Speaker 4: a tween, right? So this is 12 and up. It's
30:18
Speaker 4: hard enough to be a teen, a tween. I mean,
30:21
Speaker 4: life is hard generally to be under any kind of
30:23
Speaker 4: public scrutiny. But the kinds of pressures that teenagers already face,
30:28
Speaker 4: that girls in particular, folks who are socialized as girls
30:32
Speaker 4: face around body image, body dysmorphia, issues of just self-worth, self-esteem.
30:40
Speaker 4: And then you And then you let grandpa from wherever
30:44
Speaker 4: yell at you that you look like a boy and
30:48
Speaker 4: you shouldn't be on the girls team. Tell me how
30:51
Speaker 4: that protects girls because every single girl, cis or trans
30:56
Speaker 4: on that field, everybody in that like spectator space hears
31:01
Speaker 4: that harassment and that harassment becomes normalized because it's legislated.
31:07
Speaker 4: You are legally allowed to harass people in public. that
31:11
Speaker 4: diminishes the ability for people who are discriminated against, who
31:16
Speaker 4: are harassed in public spaces, to be able to call
31:20
Speaker 4: that out, to defend themselves legally or otherwise. So I
31:24
Speaker 4: think we should all be very concerned about criminalization of
31:28
Speaker 4: public harassment and that regulation of whose body gets to
31:32
Speaker 4: be in public life. I have a lot of concerns
31:35
Speaker 4: about what might be coming next.
31:40
Speaker 2: One of your participants spoke about the misunderstanding of the
31:43
Speaker 2: limits of parental rights and this legislative reality of children's rights.
31:47
Speaker 2: So again, to quote from one of your participants, they say, well,
31:52
Speaker 2: parents have a right to raise their children, to protect
31:54
Speaker 2: their children, to teach their children, to ensure that they
31:57
Speaker 2: can grow up in as safe an environment as possible. However,
32:01
Speaker 2: if you give parents a right that trumps the kid's
32:04
Speaker 2: ability to learn about the world that they're living in,
32:07
Speaker 2: then you're going to end up with educationally stunted children
32:10
Speaker 2: who have no idea how to react to anything. And
32:13
Speaker 2: so how is a lot of this legislation resting on
32:15
Speaker 2: misunderstandings of the rights of children, and then further to
32:19
Speaker 2: that to the obligations of public schools?
32:23
Speaker 4: In terms of what this participant is articulating is again,
32:27
Speaker 4: that kind of like the broad impact of this legislation
32:32
Speaker 4: on youth and their families beyond trans and gender diverse communities.
32:37
Speaker 4: And so If we think about sexual health education as
32:42
Speaker 4: being an optional learning, right? Central to our lives, central
32:47
Speaker 4: to our relationships, central to how we build and form
32:51
Speaker 4: romantic or sexual relationships. Like that is like, this is
32:55
Speaker 4: not algebra. Like I'll never do algebra, but boy, do I,
32:59
Speaker 4: I'm glad I learned about consent. Do you know what
33:01
Speaker 4: I mean? That shapes my day-to-day living. And so when
33:04
Speaker 4: we think about the lack of that education on an
33:07
Speaker 4: entire population of students, what we might see in the
33:11
Speaker 4: future is terrifying to me in terms of the ways
33:15
Speaker 4: that students will be unequipped for something that may be
33:19
Speaker 4: very central to their lives and that they might not
33:21
Speaker 4: get elsewhere. I think what this parent is also saying
33:25
Speaker 4: is that these ideas whatever these ideas, these people, whatever
33:30
Speaker 4: the fear is, right, of learning that other people exist,
33:34
Speaker 4: that differences are real, and that we are required to
33:39
Speaker 4: respect one another in our society, like with a social contract,
33:44
Speaker 4: those kids are going to graduate high school, and they
33:46
Speaker 4: will be hit by difference wherever they are, they're going
33:49
Speaker 4: to go to work, and they're going to see it,
33:51
Speaker 4: they're going to go to university or college, they're going
33:54
Speaker 4: to see it. Right. They're going to volunteer wherever they're
33:57
Speaker 4: going to travel. It doesn't matter what they're going to do.
33:59
Speaker 4: Like their house might not reflect the diversity of Alberta.
34:05
Speaker 4: But when they leave those places and they will, they
34:10
Speaker 4: will have no idea how to interact with other people.
34:17
Speaker 4: And so when we think about like educational stunting, it's
34:20
Speaker 4: social and cultural stunting as well. And I think that's
34:23
Speaker 4: going to be really, really difficult for those kids who
34:25
Speaker 4: don't have access. And I think a lot of that
34:27
Speaker 4: access to some of it's deliberate. Like, I don't want
34:29
Speaker 4: my kid to have sexual health education. I don't want
34:32
Speaker 4: them to learn anything about sexual or gender diversity. No,
34:36
Speaker 4: we do not opt in. A lot of parents just
34:39
Speaker 4: don't sign the form because it doesn't come home.
34:42
Speaker 5: They forgot about it.
34:42
Speaker 4: Like, how many times have we like as parents been like, oh, yeah,
34:45
Speaker 4: there is a field trip. Where's that form? And so, yeah.
34:49
Speaker 4: And I think as teachers, like, you know, the other
34:50
Speaker 4: end of what that looks like. My partner is a
34:53
Speaker 4: teacher and had half the class in their first term
34:58
Speaker 4: of teaching sexual health education after this law was passed
35:02
Speaker 4: and 50% of the students weren't in the room. And
35:05
Speaker 4: also just thinking about like overcrowded classrooms and classrooms literally
35:10
Speaker 4: in hallways and on stages and, you know, the cafeteria
35:14
Speaker 4: and Where are you putting 50% of those students who
35:17
Speaker 4: didn't get their form in? And who's supervising them? And
35:21
Speaker 4: what are they being taught? I think for teachers, it's
35:24
Speaker 4: a logistical nightmare. And I think for the future of
35:27
Speaker 4: the well-being of Albertans, it's a nightmare.
35:31
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And I really appreciate that you're pointing to the
35:34
Speaker 3: fact of You know, what are the conditions? And is
35:37
Speaker 3: it purposeful to make it an opt-in because they know
35:39
Speaker 3: the difficulty of opt-in when you're dealing with kids and forms?
35:42
Speaker 3: I think for any teacher listening to this right now,
35:44
Speaker 3: they will be clapping because that is a huge factor.
35:47
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, Shulman writes about this, right?
35:49
Speaker 3: Just because a parent doesn't want a kid to learn something,
35:52
Speaker 3: as you've spoken about, Corinne, they don't have the right
35:54
Speaker 3: to overrule a kid's desire to learn about something. And
35:56
Speaker 3: children do have rights. Canada ratified the UN Convention on
36:00
Speaker 3: the Rights of the Child. parental rights are never mentioned
36:03
Speaker 3: in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nor in human
36:05
Speaker 3: rights legislation in the province does it ever say parental rights.
36:08
Speaker 3: The only place it says it, and parental rights groups
36:11
Speaker 3: love to use this, is a 1948 document for which
36:14
Speaker 3: there's been three legislative documents since that have secured the
36:17
Speaker 3: rights of children, right? And they just ignore that fact.
36:21
Speaker 2: Colonel Lee, we're also struck by the way one of
36:22
Speaker 2: your participants spoke about colonialism and how that underlies this
36:27
Speaker 2: regulation of the body. And Either of you can take
36:30
Speaker 2: this or both. Can you say more about this element
36:32
Speaker 2: of your findings?
36:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this is a great example of just
36:36
Speaker 4: like how important the insights and expertise of parents of
36:41
Speaker 4: transgender diverse kids in particular are in this moment. I
36:45
Speaker 4: think we kind of like go to academics like myself
36:48
Speaker 4: or we think about like who has expertise. People who
36:51
Speaker 4: are parenting these kids have expertise. wild amounts of expertise
36:55
Speaker 4: and their voices are rarely if ever heard on these topics.
36:59
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I think this is a really great
37:01
Speaker 4: example of somebody who's had just such an apt intervention
37:04
Speaker 4: into a focus group conversation that I think challenged and
37:08
Speaker 4: changed the way that other parents in the room were
37:11
Speaker 4: even thinking about their frustrations, disagreements, and fear of the legislation.
37:17
Speaker 4: And so an Indigenous participant was speaking about Bill 27
37:21
Speaker 4: as being akin to residential schools. And so for this participant,
37:27
Speaker 4: seeing this opt-in for sexual health education was a way
37:32
Speaker 4: to enable sexual abuse and other abuses of power. And
37:38
Speaker 4: so for this person, that harkened back to their families,
37:43
Speaker 4: communities' experiences with abuses of power, with high rates of
37:47
Speaker 4: sexual violence in residential schools. And so what they articulated
37:52
Speaker 4: in this focus group was that there's a direct line
37:56
Speaker 4: between what the Alberta government is doing today to what
37:59
Speaker 4: we've seen, again, to do this kind of historical reporting
38:02
Speaker 4: or tracing, what we've seen in the past. And so
38:05
Speaker 4: they saw that Bill 27, the education bill, is really
38:08
Speaker 4: a rollback. One thing that was also like such a
38:11
Speaker 4: gift in this conversation was that another parent was talking
38:16
Speaker 4: about power over children and how much of a Western
38:19
Speaker 4: colonial white supremacist frame that that is. This idea that
38:24
Speaker 4: you can control your child, you can control their identity,
38:28
Speaker 4: what they learn, where they go, who plays sports, what
38:34
Speaker 4: health care they can have is absolutely an antithesis. to
38:40
Speaker 4: indigenous worldviews in which one communities not individuals are parenting
38:45
Speaker 4: right are caretaking for kids but that those kids are
38:51
Speaker 4: a gift that you do not own that it's like
38:53
Speaker 4: your responsibility to make sure that they grow up in
38:57
Speaker 4: safe and healthy environments in which they live their authenticity
39:01
Speaker 4: and all and all of their individual gifts are allowed
39:04
Speaker 4: to flourish and so i think um Yeah, one thing
39:08
Speaker 4: I always think about is like at the same time
39:11
Speaker 4: as we're talking about decolonization or indigenizing, and I'm not
39:16
Speaker 4: saying the UCP talks about that or cares about that,
39:18
Speaker 4: because we know that that's not true, especially around separation.
39:21
Speaker 4: We know that that's not the case. But I do
39:24
Speaker 4: think we need that decolonial, anti-colonial, anti-white supremacy. analysis of
39:31
Speaker 4: the parental rights movement. And I'm really glad that this
39:33
Speaker 4: parent brought that conversation to the fore because it really,
39:36
Speaker 4: I think, helped guide our own analysis of what it
39:39
Speaker 4: is that's happening in Alberta and how it does connect
39:42
Speaker 4: to other kinds of authoritarian fascist projects like Alberta separation
39:48
Speaker 4: without consult. of indigenous nations that have binding treaties with
39:54
Speaker 4: the crown.
39:55
Speaker 3: This particular series that we're doing is called Public Good
39:58
Speaker 3: on the Prairies. And we want to look at how
40:00
Speaker 3: the parental rights movement and some of the examples of privatization,
40:04
Speaker 3: et cetera, are manifesting distinctly in our provinces. I don't
40:08
Speaker 3: know if you folks are keeping up with Manitoba politics,
40:11
Speaker 3: but unfortunately, Hanover School Division just tried to pass a
40:15
Speaker 3: mature minor consent, like they were taking away the rights
40:18
Speaker 3: of children. Going back to Corinne, what you were talking about,
40:21
Speaker 3: it's really about controlling kids. They wanted to take the
40:23
Speaker 3: rights of children to actually speak for themselves after the
40:27
Speaker 3: provincial age allows them to. The school division was trying
40:29
Speaker 3: to override that. Thankfully, the provincial government stepped in and
40:34
Speaker 3: overruled that. But I wondered if you could speak a
40:37
Speaker 3: little bit about how this whole awful is manifesting distinctly
40:42
Speaker 3: in Alberta. And do you think it's important to look
40:44
Speaker 3: at Alberta separate from the other provinces?
40:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do think there's something distinctly Albertan about what's
40:51
Speaker 4: going on here. No, I take that back. It is
40:54
Speaker 4: not distinctly Albertan. It is distinctly the UCP's politics in
40:59
Speaker 4: contemporary Alberta. I think what's manifested here and what's been
41:03
Speaker 4: allowed to occur is based on a longer history of
41:09
Speaker 4: Alberta politics and the kind of interwoven nature of school choice,
41:16
Speaker 4: religious schools, and the public funding of alternative schools in
41:23
Speaker 4: the province. And so there is something very specific about
41:27
Speaker 4: Alberta's history that allows for this conversation, especially around parental
41:32
Speaker 4: rights over education. So what kids are learning about as,
41:37
Speaker 4: you know, being connected to this like larger conversation, or
41:39
Speaker 4: maybe something that people are already kind of have an
41:42
Speaker 4: embedded in their sense of what Alberta offers and what
41:46
Speaker 4: makes Alberta different. I do have a paper coming out this,
41:51
Speaker 4: anytime now with my colleague, Dr. Lisa Gasson Gardner, who
41:55
Speaker 4: is a religious studies scholar. And so we kind of
41:57
Speaker 4: paired up our skills to write about the book bands
42:01
Speaker 4: in K-12 education and really try to work through a
42:05
Speaker 4: way to define specifically Christian nationalism as Canada specific is
42:11
Speaker 4: not just something that's like, mirroring what's going on in
42:13
Speaker 4: the U.S., but that actually has like a distinctly Canadian
42:17
Speaker 4: kind of flavor to it. And to place that in
42:20
Speaker 4: Alberta as this place where because of this longer history
42:24
Speaker 4: of school choice and because of the ways that our
42:27
Speaker 4: public funding of education goes to majorly alternative schools, charter schools,
42:32
Speaker 4: private and otherwise, that the kinds of conversations that happen
42:36
Speaker 4: here politically and in terms of public discourse are different
42:38
Speaker 4: than what's happening in other locations. So I do think
42:41
Speaker 4: it is There's something about Alberta that allows this to happen,
42:45
Speaker 4: but it also is not Albertan. I think that we
42:48
Speaker 4: are in this position of dealing with a very loud
42:51
Speaker 4: and organized majority that, like you said, does have the
42:54
Speaker 4: ear of the government. We know from information requests that
42:58
Speaker 4: these are the parental rights organizations like Action for Canada
43:02
Speaker 4: and Parental Choice in Education are the lobbyists behind the
43:06
Speaker 4: K-12 book ban. It's not a group of parents that
43:09
Speaker 4: are concerned. It is four emails or five emails. That
43:13
Speaker 4: was enough to move the Minister of Education on that issue.
43:16
Speaker 4: On that issue. I don't know how to move the
43:20
Speaker 4: Minister of Education on other issues, but on banning so-called
43:23
Speaker 4: sexually explicit books, happy to do it, right? And so, yeah,
43:27
Speaker 4: I think it's very interesting to see this play out
43:31
Speaker 4: in Alberta first, not because I think it's hard to
43:34
Speaker 4: live with, let me tell you. Like it's brutal to
43:36
Speaker 4: live in. But I always say to friends outside of
43:39
Speaker 4: the province that like they are one election away from
43:42
Speaker 4: what's happening here. So like do not get comfy. Do
43:46
Speaker 4: not get complacent. Do not think that Alberta is so
43:49
Speaker 4: special in its fascism. It's not. It's not. This is
43:54
Speaker 4: a global movement. It is localized differently in every place
43:59
Speaker 4: that this kind of anti-gender, anti-gender ideology rhetoric shows up.
44:03
Speaker 4: But this is, Alberta did not make this up. Right.
44:07
Speaker 4: This is not the UCP's brainwork.
44:10
Speaker 2: And that's a really important point that you surface there, Corinne,
44:13
Speaker 2: about you're one election away. And I recently I moved
44:17
Speaker 2: to B.C. and right after we moved here, we had
44:21
Speaker 2: a provincial election. And that was exactly this rise of
44:25
Speaker 2: the Conservative Party here from the ashes out of nowhere,
44:29
Speaker 2: in a sense. And we were one or two seats
44:31
Speaker 2: away from a Conservative majority that were going along. really
44:36
Speaker 2: similar lines, rhetorical lines of, of what the UCP has
44:39
Speaker 2: done in Alberta. And, uh, we were spared from that,
44:43
Speaker 2: but it's still, I feel like we're on this precipice. Uh,
44:46
Speaker 2: and I think we feel that throughout the prairies and,
44:49
Speaker 2: and it, it can be scary, you know, and, and
44:53
Speaker 2: it can be scary in really material ways and that's
44:56
Speaker 2: enacted and different people feel this differently because obviously they're
45:00
Speaker 2: targeted in, in potentially more extreme ways than, than, than others. And, Leah,
45:06
Speaker 2: turning to you for this last question, in your writing,
45:09
Speaker 2: both of you, this article from 2023, you state, this
45:12
Speaker 2: is a quote, that 2SLGBTQIA plus children and youth are
45:16
Speaker 2: being targeted by hate-motivated extremism under the guise of parental rights.
45:22
Speaker 2: And there are several concrete actions Canadians can take to
45:26
Speaker 2: combat this movement. And we would love to hear as
45:29
Speaker 2: this kind of final question, what are some of those
45:31
Speaker 2: concrete actions that we can take to push back, to resist.
45:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, building on what you said, Corinne, about being
45:39
Speaker 6: one election away, I think people think a lot about
45:43
Speaker 6: how they're going to vote in the next provincial or
45:46
Speaker 6: territorial and federal elections. And of course, these matter a lot,
45:49
Speaker 6: but don't underestimate municipal elections and your school board trustees.
45:54
Speaker 6: Very important to do your background research when you're going
45:57
Speaker 6: to vote for trustees and Email them, ask them where
46:00
Speaker 6: they stand on these issues, on this legislation, on book bans,
46:04
Speaker 6: on the privatization of education, and so on. Other concrete
46:09
Speaker 6: actions that people can take are really to speak up,
46:13
Speaker 6: become a better ally, defend trans youth, defend, you know,
46:18
Speaker 6: combat misinformation and disinformation, intervene in those everyday conversations.
46:25
Speaker 5: This is really critical.
46:27
Speaker 6: I think also creating and protecting the affirming schools and
46:32
Speaker 6: spaces that do exist. Protecting gender-inclusive bathrooms and change rooms
46:38
Speaker 6: is really important at this moment. And I think supporting
46:44
Speaker 6: trans youth artists and trans youth musicians and listening to
46:49
Speaker 6: youth and amplifying their voices, believing that when they tell
46:53
Speaker 6: you They need access to gender-affirming health care. And I
46:58
Speaker 6: think just continuing to resist this rhetoric and these movements
47:02
Speaker 6: in all the ways that we can.
47:05
Speaker 4: Can I say one larger action that people might be
47:08
Speaker 4: able to take? I just want to echo what Leah said.
47:10
Speaker 4: I think checking in on the trans youth in your lives,
47:14
Speaker 4: I'm going to get emotional. It's lonely out there for
47:17
Speaker 4: them and their families. It's really hard. And it's really
47:19
Speaker 4: hard to explain what it is that people are going through.
47:22
Speaker 4: And so.
47:24
Speaker 4: A check-in is enough just to say, I hate this
47:28
Speaker 4: for you. I'm sorry this is happening. I'm here for you.
47:31
Speaker 4: Send us a pizza. We would be, our families are
47:34
Speaker 4: prior doing other kinds of systems navigation. And then the
47:38
Speaker 4: more kind of like larger thing I would say is
47:40
Speaker 4: that Queer Momentum, which is a national organization fighting for
47:44
Speaker 4: the rights of queer and trans people and two-spirit people
47:46
Speaker 4: are launching a call for a human rights investigation at
47:52
Speaker 4: the federal level about what's going on in Alberta, specifically
47:58
Speaker 4: around the denial of healthcare to trans youth. I think
48:01
Speaker 4: it's really important for folks to know that puberty blockers
48:05
Speaker 4: are still available to youth in Alberta, just not for
48:09
Speaker 4: trans youth. If my kid was not trans, we could
48:13
Speaker 4: get puberty blockers tomorrow, right? And so I think we've
48:17
Speaker 4: got a clear case of discrimination and every signature on
48:20
Speaker 4: that petition matters. There's a lot of Hail Marys in
48:24
Speaker 4: this moment, but I will take every single one of them.
48:28
Speaker 4: I think we're trying every single angle and that's one
48:31
Speaker 4: that folks can easily, easily participate in.
48:35
Speaker 2: Really helpful. Thank you, Leah and Corinne, for taking the
48:38
Speaker 2: time to share about your incredibly important work and your research.
48:42
Speaker 2: For our listeners, we've included links to Dr. Hamilton's and Dr.
48:45
Speaker 2: Mason's writing in the show notes. We We encourage you
48:47
Speaker 2: to check those out. A lot of them are open access,
48:50
Speaker 2: accessible pieces that really highlight in tangible ways what's going
48:55
Speaker 2: on in Alberta, ways that we can take action. So again,
48:58
Speaker 2: Leah and Corinne, thank you so much for joining us today.
49:00
Speaker 4: Thank you.
49:06
Speaker 2: Shannon, what stands out to you coming out of that
49:08
Speaker 2: conversation with Corinne and Leah?
49:11
Speaker 3: Well, I think I already mentioned this in the interview itself,
49:13
Speaker 3: that I was struck by that intimate moment that they
49:18
Speaker 3: shared with us about calling one another when this legislation
49:21
Speaker 3: came out, how they'd sort of been holding that tension
49:24
Speaker 3: in their bodies of waiting for it to come out.
49:27
Speaker 3: And then when it came out and they called one
49:29
Speaker 3: another in the car to process it, and I already
49:32
Speaker 3: raised this in the interview itself, but it made me
49:34
Speaker 3: think about the political, pedagogic and emotional labor of doing
49:39
Speaker 3: this work. And I think that labor is something that
49:42
Speaker 3: we need to be talking about a little bit more.
49:44
Speaker 3: And it raises the idea of why we need a
49:49
Speaker 3: collective in this moment. If we can recognize that as
49:52
Speaker 3: educators and, and activists and academics, whatever title you're using
49:57
Speaker 3: for yourself. If you're somebody that's trying to advance human rights,
50:01
Speaker 3: if you're somebody that's trying to incorporate discussions of gender
50:04
Speaker 3: and sexuality in your classroom, if you're trying to advance
50:07
Speaker 3: a research informed comprehensive sex ed curriculum, all of that
50:11
Speaker 3: in this moment takes extra emotional labor. And the reason
50:16
Speaker 3: it takes extra emotional labor is because of the political
50:19
Speaker 3: context that we exist in that produces that chilling effect
50:22
Speaker 3: that teachers are experiencing, or it produces this angst about,
50:27
Speaker 3: you know, how do I pedagogically set this up in
50:29
Speaker 3: my classroom in a way that I think will land
50:32
Speaker 3: on my students ears so that they're open to listening,
50:35
Speaker 3: like all of the extra labor that is being done
50:38
Speaker 3: to just uphold human rights. And I just, I think
50:42
Speaker 3: that I'm glad that they have each other, but I'm
50:44
Speaker 3: also fucking pissed that two awesome human beings have to
50:48
Speaker 3: console one another because their provincial government is enacting legislation
50:51
Speaker 3: that is an assault on them and their families.
50:54
Speaker 2: What's the need for a collective coming out of that situation?
50:57
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, if, and this is something that Jennifer
50:59
Speaker 3: Watt and I have found in our work about teaching
51:02
Speaker 3: against the conditions that normalize gender-based sexual violence is as
51:06
Speaker 3: a teacher doing this work, because there is all of
51:09
Speaker 3: that extra labor, I think the impulse can be, well,
51:12
Speaker 3: I'm already working so hard. It would add more labor
51:15
Speaker 3: if I try to keep this collective up, right? If
51:18
Speaker 3: I try to then, oh, I've had all this labor
51:21
Speaker 3: in my day. But I'm then going to, in the evening,
51:23
Speaker 3: have a big phone call with a friend who needs
51:25
Speaker 3: to talk about the way that this has landed on
51:27
Speaker 3: them in their classrooms or it's landed on their families. Well,
51:29
Speaker 3: that actually adds more labor. And so I think it
51:32
Speaker 3: actually can become a reason people do not engage in
51:35
Speaker 3: collectives because it is more labor. But I think more
51:38
Speaker 3: than ever, these collectives are important because they help us
51:42
Speaker 3: process that labor better. They do help lessen the labor
51:46
Speaker 3: a little bit, and they also make us steadfast in
51:50
Speaker 3: this work. So when it can feel too difficult, sometimes
51:53
Speaker 3: it is those people that we're speaking to on the phone,
51:56
Speaker 3: in our cars, on our drives home, or in our classrooms,
52:00
Speaker 3: you know, or in our day-to-day lives in general that
52:02
Speaker 3: can help us sustain through this work, I think is
52:05
Speaker 3: really important.
52:06
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:08
Speaker 3: I don't know. That's what I wanted to say about labor.
52:10
Speaker 3: It's something that has emerged in my own research, this
52:13
Speaker 3: increased labor because of the divisive political context. And when
52:18
Speaker 3: you are existing in areas in which your provincial government
52:23
Speaker 3: is enacting policies that undermine human rights, obviously labor is needed.
52:28
Speaker 3: Obviously you need to push back against that, but how
52:30
Speaker 3: do you push back against a provincial government when you
52:34
Speaker 3: feel like you're just one tiny person. And I think
52:36
Speaker 3: that again becomes why we need a collective because it
52:39
Speaker 3: makes it easier for governments to continue to do things
52:44
Speaker 3: that go against our rights as citizens if we don't
52:48
Speaker 3: actually work in collective with one another. Anything you want
52:51
Speaker 3: to say about labor or the collective?
52:55
Speaker 2: This can be so isolating, some of these conversations and scary.
53:01
Speaker 2: And especially when your very humanity is called into question,
53:06
Speaker 2: where you're trying to fight for your humanity. And so
53:11
Speaker 2: I think that the labor takes on even more urgency
53:17
Speaker 2: in these moments and that the consequences are even more scary.
53:23
Speaker 2: And I think perhaps this is a call to those
53:27
Speaker 2: whose humanity isn't questioned. through things like the parental rights movement,
53:32
Speaker 2: to step up and to do more in allyship and
53:38
Speaker 2: in solidarity.
53:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really appreciated that point that Corinne made very
53:43
Speaker 3: powerfully at the end of our discussion, which is like
53:46
Speaker 3: check in on the people whose very right to exist
53:49
Speaker 3: in society is being placed in question by these policies.
53:54
Speaker 3: And just see how they're doing, that that is just
53:57
Speaker 3: such an easy way to be an ally. When you
53:59
Speaker 3: hear that a politician has said something or new legislation
54:03
Speaker 3: has been enacted to just check in on the people
54:05
Speaker 3: that you think are the most impacted by this directly,
54:09
Speaker 3: but then also to recognize that we're all going to
54:12
Speaker 3: be impacted by these, that an assault on one person
54:15
Speaker 3: is an assault on all citizens as we've seen. I
54:18
Speaker 3: thought it was kind of funny in the interview. I
54:20
Speaker 3: know you're going to be like funny in this interview
54:22
Speaker 3: because it was such a powerful and important interview, but
54:24
Speaker 3: I did think it was funny that Corinne said, you know,
54:27
Speaker 3: it's still difficult to say things about children that our
54:30
Speaker 3: society has found it palatable to say awful things about
54:32
Speaker 3: almost every other group. It's like all of a sudden
54:35
Speaker 3: there's license to say things about people out loud that
54:38
Speaker 3: we kind of thought had gone away or hopefully had
54:40
Speaker 3: gone away, but that it's still difficult to say things,
54:43
Speaker 3: shit on children, to say bad things about children. You
54:46
Speaker 3: can shit on almost all other groups of people, but
54:48
Speaker 3: not kids. And I just thought that was, An interesting point,
54:51
Speaker 3: but I just also think in context of what we
54:53
Speaker 3: were talking about is all of these policies are children
54:57
Speaker 3: being spoken about and having things done to them under
55:01
Speaker 3: the guise of protecting them. And I think that's such
55:03
Speaker 3: a rhetorical tactic to say we're doing this for the
55:05
Speaker 3: safety of kids when actually all of this makes kids
55:08
Speaker 3: less safe and stepping back and going, what are the
55:12
Speaker 3: ways in which we can actually make education safer? and
55:16
Speaker 3: more representative of the needs of children rather than just
55:19
Speaker 3: pushing through policies that make lives harder for children and
55:22
Speaker 3: calling it for the good of kids. I think that's
55:24
Speaker 3: such a rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric that we continue to talk
55:27
Speaker 3: about is like how these groups are advancing policies under
55:32
Speaker 3: the guise of doing something good for people when it
55:34
Speaker 3: actually does the opposite. Was there something in the interview
55:37
Speaker 3: that really struck you?
55:39
Speaker 2: Corinne had a quote that's worth repeating and riffing on
55:42
Speaker 2: for a minute. when they were talking about curriculum and
55:45
Speaker 2: what students might or should learn, they said, I love
55:48
Speaker 2: this quote, that I'll never do algebra, but boy, am
55:51
Speaker 2: I glad I learned about consent. Big sigh there, because
55:56
Speaker 2: it opens up questions again of what is the purpose
55:59
Speaker 2: of public education and what are we doing and what
56:01
Speaker 2: should we be doing in our classrooms? And I think
56:03
Speaker 2: over the decades, we've witnessed a continual curricular reform toward
56:07
Speaker 2: back to basics. This increased emphasis on literacy and numeracy, STEM,
56:13
Speaker 2: at the expense of other subjects, vocational training. And I
56:17
Speaker 2: should be explicit that most of my background is that
56:19
Speaker 2: of a music educator. So I exist in a field
56:21
Speaker 2: that's continually marginalized within the broader project of public schooling.
56:28
Speaker 2: And so perhaps I have a chip on my shoulder,
56:29
Speaker 2: but at the same time, what is the purpose of
56:32
Speaker 2: public education? And according to taken for granted neoliberal discourses,
56:36
Speaker 2: according to the OECD, et cetera, all these different groups,
56:39
Speaker 2: a huge reason that public education exists or that just
56:42
Speaker 2: education exists is to train students to successfully participate in
56:48
Speaker 2: the economy. And that purpose is actually explicit in curriculum
56:54
Speaker 2: documents across the country. It's a stated goal. And back
56:58
Speaker 2: to Corinne's quote, the skills a student learns during algebra
57:01
Speaker 2: are especially useful within a particular capitalist economy. Same with STEM,
57:07
Speaker 2: same with whatever back to basics curricular focus we're talking about.
57:09
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying these are bad things. These are
57:11
Speaker 2: really helpful things. I'm glad I can do some algebra myself.
57:14
Speaker 2: I'm glad that I am literate and can form a
57:19
Speaker 2: coherent sentence. Maybe not when I'm speaking, but hopefully at
57:22
Speaker 2: least in my writing. And so I'm not arguing that
57:25
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be learning these things in schools, but what
57:28
Speaker 2: are we potentially excluding through their hyper inclusion? And I
57:33
Speaker 2: think that's, such a reductive vision of what public education can, might,
57:37
Speaker 2: or arguably should be. Corinne saying, I'm glad I learned
57:40
Speaker 2: about consent is so important because likewise, I would rather
57:44
Speaker 2: students leave my classroom at the end of the year
57:46
Speaker 2: as people who can engage in the world with criticality,
57:49
Speaker 2: with care, with respect. And to me, that's far more
57:52
Speaker 2: important than perhaps the ability to write academic prose or
57:57
Speaker 2: in my music context, can they improvise using all the
58:01
Speaker 2: diatonic modes. Is that what's really important when they walk
58:05
Speaker 2: out of my classroom? So if we're continually limiting curriculum
58:08
Speaker 2: toward these narrow visions of a capitalist future, which I
58:11
Speaker 2: think the parental rights movement is doing, especially the neolibs
58:15
Speaker 2: involved in there in terms of economizing and privatizing education
58:18
Speaker 2: in those ways, I fear that we're going to end
58:21
Speaker 2: up with this largely uneducated yet overly schooled populace. And sure,
58:27
Speaker 2: they'd be fantastic at doing advanced calculus, But to what end?
58:31
Speaker 2: And are we fostering the critical thinking skills necessary to
58:35
Speaker 2: navigate an increasingly complex world filled with misinformation and disinformation?
58:41
Speaker 2: I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
58:44
Speaker 3: No, I just think this conversation of the purpose of
58:47
Speaker 3: education has come up in every discussion that we've had.
58:50
Speaker 3: The idea that we need to step back and ask ourselves,
58:54
Speaker 3: what are we doing here? What is it important that
58:57
Speaker 3: students learn to exist? not just to exist in an economy, right?
59:04
Speaker 3: And Dwayne Donald makes that, I'm going to misquote him,
59:08
Speaker 3: but he makes the point we don't, live in a society,
59:11
Speaker 3: we live in an economy. And I think that is
59:13
Speaker 3: what we've sort of done is we've allowed an economic
59:17
Speaker 3: lens to to pollute everything that we're doing in schools.
59:21
Speaker 3: And we've allowed that lens to alter what we're doing
59:27
Speaker 3: in our classrooms. And as you've very clearly pointed out,
59:30
Speaker 3: and our guests have pointed out, you know, that has
59:32
Speaker 3: an effect on on our broader society. And it could
59:36
Speaker 3: make people that should be interested in discussions of human rights,
59:39
Speaker 3: turn away from these discussions, because they think, well, what
59:42
Speaker 3: does that have to do with what I care in
59:44
Speaker 3: regards to education, right? I really loved, and I think
59:48
Speaker 3: this came up in our discussion with Heather Ganshorn as well,
59:51
Speaker 3: this idea of the arrogance that people outside of Alberta
59:55
Speaker 3: have about Alberta. And I loved it when Corinne and
59:59
Speaker 3: Leah said to everyone outside of Alberta, you are one
1:00:03
Speaker 3: election away. And so not to look at what is
1:00:07
Speaker 3: happening in Alberta as some anomaly in our nation, but
1:00:12
Speaker 3: rather to say, And as you pointed out in the interview,
1:00:15
Speaker 3: being from BC or living in BC right now, not
1:00:19
Speaker 3: from BC, but living in BC right now, that, you know,
1:00:21
Speaker 3: it almost happened in BC too. That the place in
1:00:24
Speaker 3: Canada that's seen as the most West Coast woke of
1:00:28
Speaker 3: all of the nation, it almost happened here, you know?
1:00:31
Speaker 3: So I just think that's a really important offering to
1:00:35
Speaker 3: our listeners to think about how we are all one
1:00:38
Speaker 3: election away from some of these policies being enacted. And
1:00:42
Speaker 3: so why that is, makes us all beholden to fighting
1:00:46
Speaker 3: what's happening in Alberta. We all need to be paying
1:00:48
Speaker 3: more attention to be more attuned to what's going on
1:00:50
Speaker 3: across Canada. Because you could be next.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: On that note.
1:00:59
Speaker 3: Until next time.
1:01:00
Speaker 2: Until next time.
1:01:03
Speaker 3: Until next time.