Let's be honest about the UCP'S new transgender regulations
There was a time last year when the biggest issue on the culture war front was the matter of drag performers reading children's books to kids at local public libraries. There were intense protests against these events in numerous cities — so intense, in fact, that Calgary crafted a bylaw specifically to keep these protests at a greater distance from the libraries.
Whatever moral or religious objections these protesters had, calling on such events to be prohibited is very much a case of “government knows best.” If the concept of “parental rights” had entered the debate, it clearly would have applied not to the protesters but to those parents who chose to attend with their own children.
No one else was forced to attend.
There is an interesting and noteworthy overlap between those who saw fit to oppose the choices of other parents and those who have now positioned themselves as champions and enthusiastic supporters of parental rights. Maybe this really isn't about parental rights at all.
This all concerns Alberta's sweeping new gender identity policy, which one cabinet minister bluntly described as a choice between parental rights and government knows best. Certainly, no one in government opposed drag reading events, nor would it be fair to accuse every proponent of this new policy of holding such views. But even within the confines of this policy, there is an inherent contradiction between a desire to enhance parental rights and decisions that erode it.
As it pertains to school, this very much increases the involvement of parents. There will be a new opt-in policy for any sex-ed curriculum or discussion of sexuality or gender issues, meaning that parents must first approve their child's participation. And, of course, there will be mandatory parental consent or notification if a student wishes to be referred to by a different name or pronoun.
Yet, when it comes to medical treatments and interventions for transgendered youth, the government is muscling in on territory currently occupied by parents. Whereas parents were previously the ones to have the final say — in conjunction with doctors — on such interventions, the province is now taking that decision out of their hands through new age limits and restrictions.
There is a reasonable discussion to be had around age-appropriate material in schools or the extent to which parents need to be made aware of certain issues. It may also be reasonable to look at the parameters around the aforementioned treatments and interventions, and whether there's a need to proceed more cautiously in these areas.
But these are not, strictly speaking, parental-rights issues. If that was the main underlying thrust of this whole conversation, we'd be hearing much more pushback from the ostensible proponents of parental rights about the areas where it's being chipped away.
The government is just as guilty of this double standard. They're the ones who designed this policy and are trying to have it both ways. The premier recently took a swipe at “anyone who is trying to put roadblocks in that child-parent relationship,” and yet one of the express aims of her own policy is to create those roadblocks.
Of course, we all understand the importance of the child-parent relationships, and that makes the whole concept of “parental rights” sound very appealing.
After all, who would argue that parents shouldn't have rights?
It's all very reminiscent of the “family values” politics of the 1990s. Families are important, as are values, but “family values” was more about a branding exercise for a more ardent form of social conservatism.
There are clearly social conservatives who have their fingerprints on Alberta's new policy, in addition to those loudly supporting it (including one prominent group who celebrated this as a “massive blow to transgender ideology”).
Let's just try to be a little more honest about that fact.