If the most basic tenet of human freedom is to be who you are without harassment, violence, or discrimination, then limiting the ability of any certain number of people to be recognized and treated with simple, basic human dignity must be in opposition to that core belief.
This legislation is targeting one specific and very small minority group and limiting their ability, by mandate, to exist in this province free from abuse or ridicule. That is antithetical to freedom.
There are so many excuses from the people in favour of this that barely amount to more than, “I just don’t want it in my face or hear about it” when, as far as I can tell, trans people just want to live as who they are and their existence be acknowledged with dignity.
They used to say “it’s just too in my face” or whatever about Black people wanting to vote and not be lynched, or more recently Indigenous people being recognized as the first people of the lands we all inhabit. Or LGBTQ people’s choice to marry who they love. Or women’s bodily autonomy.
Or, in fact, an individual’s freedom to choose not to get vaccinated. But that’s a choice, not your identity.
Eventually, the people who chose to not be vaccinated were vindicated, for good or ill (lots of people dying from covid still, we’re just bored of it).
So if we all legit believe in our own personal freedom, we have to oppose this provincial legislation because we’re pretty much creating laws that restrict trans peoples’ freedom to exist.
And how does it really help our day to day to day lives or livelihoods?
It’s not gonna make your bills go away, ain’t gonna fix your car, won’t help any work get done any faster, except the work of limiting freedom.
People always go, “what if the government comes for you” and then they cheer for the government going after someone else with a legitimate urge to harm them.
I guess believe what you want, Christ or Universe or Spaghetti or whatever, but taking dignity from other people ain’t gonna make your life any better.
It’s only gonna make someone else’s really hard. And there are already enough people being mean to them, so I guess the gov wants to too.
And if it keeps all us “everyday Albertans” mad at other everyday Albertans who just aren’t the same as us, well, better still in the eyes of the people who get to make actual laws that satisfy those who need us divided so we never agree to work together, and their houses all get bigger.
The world is changing, but trans people have always been here. And *our* culture has always forced people whose lives we disapprove of away, because we think we occupy some moral high ground for being what we figure is normal.
Change is evolution. It’s also a choice we make.
TwoEars/OneMouth 