Full Comment - Not all transgender people think Danielle Smith’s gender policies are unhinged

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00:01:58.720 Gender. It's the issue that we can't seem to stop talking about. 1.00

00:02:13.620 In some ways, we can't stop yelling at each other over it.

00:02:16.580 This is an issue that has dominated the headlines.

00:02:19.480 Seemingly came out of nowhere for some and then bubbled up and now it's boiling over.

00:02:23.560 Hello, my name is Brian Lilly and this is the Full Comment Podcast.

00:02:26.320 And today we're going to explore this issue of gender, the rules, where they should be, where they shouldn't be, who's going too far.

00:02:32.820 Are we even talking to each other or are we talking past each other?

00:02:36.620 That's something that I've been arguing for the last little while.

00:02:39.520 And why is the media all on one side about this?

00:02:43.760 Something that we saw when Pierre Polyev was asked questions about this, when he was talking about a completely different issue.

00:02:50.820 The media, when they got to him on this, were clearly on one side.

00:02:55.260 Mr. Polyev! Mr. Polyev!

00:02:56.880 Do you support age restrictions for puberty blockers and hormone therapies for trans kids?

00:03:02.140 I think that Justin Trudeau is trying to divide and distract Canadians by...

00:03:08.180 So is there room for discussion on this topic?

00:03:11.580 Julia Mallott is a transgender columnist, a parent, someone who's been talking about this actively for the last little while.

00:03:18.000 And someone that you're...

00:03:21.380 It doesn't matter which side you're on, you're going to agree with some of what she says and disagree with others.

00:03:26.520 So, Julia, thanks for the time today.

00:03:29.280 Thanks for having me.

00:03:30.260 Let me start with your assessment of Danielle Smith's policy.

00:03:35.240 I read your column in the National Post the other day.

00:03:39.040 You seem to be saying that you like some parts, but not others.

00:03:45.220 Definitely.

00:03:46.140 It is certainly the most comprehensive policy that we have seen to date in any Canadian province.

00:03:51.020 This is a topic that's been discussed everywhere, but has had legislation that has come forth in New Brunswick and in Saskatchewan.

00:03:57.540 But both of those focus solely on social transition in school or the change of names and pronouns and the acceptability of doing so without the knowledge or the consent of parents.

00:04:09.060 And that is included in the Alberta legislation.

00:04:11.440 But it also goes much, much further, moving into the realm of medical interventions of surgery and hormones.

00:04:17.680 It discusses sex education.

00:04:18.960 And it also discusses sports and biological males participating in women's sports.

00:04:23.600 So these are issues that have been hot topics in gender discourse now for several years, but we haven't yet seen them hit the political landscape in the way that it did with Alberta.

00:04:32.600 So there's been lots of commentary.

00:04:34.600 And for myself, I like to discuss them differently because they're not the same.

00:04:38.020 They're all related to transgender matters, but they're different issues that bring in different competing rights and different considerations.

00:04:44.280 Well, let's talk about the parental notification of schools.

00:04:50.800 This is something that in some cases policies have been in place, like to Toronto District School Board for 10 years.

00:04:58.360 And it explicitly says that regardless of the age of the child, and kids start school in age four in Toronto, regardless of the age of the child, if the child says, don't tell mommy and daddy, but I'm transitioning, then they're not allowed to say anything.

00:05:15.980 And to me, that is a policy that starts with the idea that parents are inherently dangerous to their children.

00:05:25.400 And so it's why I'm opposed to this idea and supportive of parental notification with safeguards for children who are at risk, which I believe that New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have.

00:05:41.040 I haven't seen the regulations in Alberta.

00:05:44.120 As a parent, where do you come down on that?

00:05:47.200 Do you want the kids to or the teachers not to notify parents or do you support notifying parents?

00:05:56.340 I think you nailed it when you said as a parent, where do I come down on that?

00:06:00.280 And I do have a 17-year-old daughter.

00:06:02.600 She is my adopted daughter.

00:06:03.880 I'm not old enough to have a 17-year-old kid myself.

00:06:06.320 But that has given me a unique perspective because I have a child who is in the system and I am transgender.

00:06:12.640 I felt this way in high school and I didn't want my parents to know.

00:06:16.200 But my parents also were not abusive.

00:06:18.320 My parents were loving.

00:06:19.220 They were very religious.

00:06:20.000 So I knew the conversation would be very difficult.

00:06:22.200 And I ultimately didn't have it until after I was out of school.

00:06:25.540 But they're my parents.

00:06:27.060 And they are fundamentally my ideological steward as long as I am a child in their household.

00:06:32.080 And I think that is what gets missed in this conversation so much is that these children live at home with their parents.

00:06:38.980 That's where they spend most of their time.

00:06:40.800 That's where they get most of their guidance.

00:06:42.860 How do we expect this to work if we're now hiding something in the school, regardless of whether we should be hiding something in the school, even just practically?

00:06:50.020 How does that work for the teacher to implement an intervention?

00:06:53.660 All of the other students know.

00:06:55.420 And yet the parents are none the wiser.

00:06:58.980 This is going to come to a head at some point.

00:07:01.300 It's not going to be pretty.

00:07:02.440 It's going to cause more tensions.

00:07:04.800 And it's a violation of the trust that the parent has in the school system to educate their kids.

00:07:09.800 Okay, so you are in the same position as 78% of Canadians, according to the Angus Reid poll, which is the biggest one on this topic.

00:07:21.920 And yet, according to the prime minister, you're spewing right-wing hateful propaganda talking points that endanger children.

00:07:30.480 That is what I find most discouraging about this conversation, is that it quickly moves into this place of absolutes and extremes.

00:07:36.660 The talking point that most often comes back is to say, but what about families that are truly harmful?

00:07:41.740 What about those families where the kid really will be at danger if they were to come out at home?

00:07:46.500 And I know those families do exist.

00:07:49.120 I think that they are being overblown and we're making it sound like this is far more frequent than it is.

00:07:53.340 But I also know that those households do exist where there might be a bona fide concern.

00:07:57.940 What I don't understand is that we have a solution to this, which is children's aid services.

00:08:04.040 What we have done since the 80s in school is we have instructed our teachers to let children's aid services know if there's any potential risk in a house.

00:08:12.220 They don't need evidence.

00:08:13.120 They don't have to know.

00:08:14.200 They're not qualified to be able to assess that.

00:08:16.380 But they tell children's aid and children's aid has the responsibility to determine if there is a risk, if there is to support the family in mitigating that risk, whether that means removing the children or whether that means supporting the family to work through the issues.

00:08:28.620 And that has worked in every other case of potential abuse.

00:08:32.680 And all of a sudden, when it comes to conversations about transgender matters, we've said this one conversation needs to be different.

00:08:39.960 And if there's even a possible risk of abuse, we need to not remove the kid, but leave the kid and hide it from the parents.

00:08:46.840 And that just perplexes me because if there's a risk, we should handle it.

00:08:50.520 And if there's not a risk, then we are getting concerned about nothing.

00:08:54.000 It's interesting that you say there are a lot of absolutes.

00:08:58.740 One of my kids was telling me about someone who had transitioned.

00:09:02.340 And I said, well, who are they?

00:09:04.140 And they told me their new name.

00:09:05.540 I said, well, that doesn't tell me who the kid is.

00:09:07.620 Like, I know them as something else.

00:09:09.260 Well, I can't dead name them.

00:09:12.220 You're telling me who is now transitioning.

00:09:15.520 How am I going to know if I've known this child as Steve for 15 years that Steve is now Alice?

00:09:24.000 You've got to tell me otherwise.

00:09:26.120 But it was absolute.

00:09:28.740 It could never speak the name again.

00:09:30.500 And I thought, this is bizarre.

00:09:35.180 So I think you've zeroed in on something there, though, that within the LGBT movement has been well-meaning, but it really doesn't work.

00:09:42.740 And that is these attitudes that we can't touch things, like, as you said, dead names.

00:09:47.340 And not only is it not practical, it creates a way that people can get to you.

00:09:51.540 Like, I just tell people I used to be called Jason, because you can find that if you want to.

00:09:55.920 And when people try to hide those things, it can become a weapon that gets used against them.

00:09:59.620 And that's just the reality of it, is that I used to be named Jason.

00:10:02.620 Now I'm named Julia. 1.00

00:10:03.760 And if somebody wants to use that to try to get to me, well, then they're an asshole. 1.00

00:10:08.100 And I don't really want to hang out with them anyways. 0.99

00:10:09.440 But most people, that's not their intention.

00:10:11.000 Oh, and look, we're having the kind of respectful conversation that I've been advocating for a while, but there doesn't seem to be with a lot of people.

00:10:20.560 And I'll admit, from the other side as well, from people who are opposed to this, there are folks on both sides, they just want to yell past each other.

00:10:29.280 And we'll get into the politics of this in a bit, because I feel like a lot of the politicians are just using this to score wedge points against each other.

00:10:39.340 What about the kids at the end?

00:10:41.820 Because that's mostly what we're talking about are the kids.

00:10:45.000 So that's the school and the notification issue.

00:10:50.560 On puberty blockers, you did a video.

00:10:54.520 And on this, you say there's got to be more nuance.

00:10:58.700 I, you know, hormones are a very powerful thing.

00:11:03.320 They can mess your body up in so many different ways.

00:11:09.260 Even something as simple and benign as the birth control pill can have incredible impacts on women's bodies. 1.00

00:11:16.340 And that is a low dose.

00:11:18.680 I have real concerns about giving eight-year-olds puberty blockers.

00:11:24.860 What kind of nuance are you looking for in this?

00:11:28.700 I would say the hormone conversation is certainly the most difficult, at least for me.

00:11:34.660 And I don't know where I stand.

00:11:36.820 And I'm prepared to say that because I think it's nuanced and complex.

00:11:40.720 And I don't know what the right path is forward.

00:11:42.960 And I wish we had more conversations that came from that place.

00:11:46.160 Because most of what I see, like you described, are from either one side that says we have to do this.

00:11:51.300 It saves lives.

00:11:52.360 If we don't do this, people will commit suicide.

00:11:55.920 And there's no path forward but to make hormones available to every child who, at any point in their life, feels that they need them.

00:12:02.680 And on the other side, we now have the talking point, which is these are just too dangerous.

00:12:07.840 There's nothing we can do to have any sort of safety or discretion around how they're used.

00:12:12.440 They need to just go away until you're an adult.

00:12:14.360 And I wish that I could take that second stance because more or less, that's where I stand on the surgeries.

00:12:20.780 When it comes to the gender-affirming surgeries, whether that's top surgery or bottom surgery or any facial cosmetic surgeries or otherwise,

00:12:28.400 I don't see much of an argument to move forward with them in childhood because these are invasive.

00:12:35.200 They have all the risks that surgeries can have.

00:12:37.420 And there is not any big loss to waiting.

00:12:41.280 The loss between doing a genital surgery when you are 12 and doing one when you're 25 is you didn't get to have the genitals you wanted for 13 years.

00:12:49.800 But that's it.

00:12:51.060 That's really the only difference.

00:12:52.600 And so I would say we should wait.

00:12:54.400 We should be very sure.

00:12:55.600 And we should do everything we can to make sure this is the right path before we lead someone down.

00:12:59.500 The difference with hormones that gets overlooked so frequently is that if you do not go on puberty blockers pre-puberty and if you are not on cross-sex hormones, that ship has sailed once you're an adult.

00:13:13.780 I'm the perfect example.

00:13:15.040 I always felt this way.

00:13:16.780 I always knew how I felt about my gender, but I did not start transitioning until I was 28 years old.

00:13:22.440 So I was an adult, and that means that I am 5 for 10.

00:13:25.720 And that means that I have broader shoulders.

00:13:27.240 And that means my voice is lower and all of these elements of my face and my body structure that at this point are not fully changeable, even if I were to pursue surgery after surgery after surgery, which I haven't done.

00:13:40.060 And that's a tough life.

00:13:42.180 So for people who are gender dysphoric, it is easier to do this earlier than it is to do it later.

00:13:47.920 Now, that doesn't mean that I'm necessarily in favor of this because, of course, what if they're wrong?

00:13:52.200 What if they have a feeling when they're 12 and it goes away?

00:13:54.440 So I do want to be very, very cautious.

00:13:56.120 But what I find most frustrating in this conversation is that the positions that come forward, like we've heard from Polyev, like we heard from Smith, that take a hardline position against hormones, they don't acknowledge this fact of why children want it.

00:14:09.160 They don't acknowledge that when you are like myself and you do transition as an adult, we still live in a country that's pretty cruel to you, especially if you are presenting as a woman, because we have made that mean a lot of things.

00:14:21.100 I was in the news last week for my daughter's appendicitis.

00:14:24.380 She had a really long wait time and I did a number of pieces about Ontario healthcare and the failures there.

00:14:30.000 And I was shocked and disappointed by how many times the conversation went into my physical appearance, whether I am a fetishized pervert, whether I'm suitable to have a kid at all, purely based on my appearance.

00:14:41.500 And these weren't even transgender stories.

00:14:43.620 This is just a parent who's upset with the healthcare system.

00:14:46.780 And as long as that's the discourse we're having, of course, kids are going to desperately feel the drive towards this.

00:14:52.160 And to just come out and say, no hormones are allowed, no blockers are allowed, and ignore what that means for these kids.

00:14:58.260 It's a missed opportunity because we could have a policy that does take a stance on hormones that's either completely restricting or at least very restrictive, except for in pretty clear-cut cases.

00:15:08.880 But pair that with policies that say, and when you don't pass as an adult, it's okay because look at what we're doing to make sure that we can change the discourse.

00:15:17.260 And none of that conversation is happening.

00:15:18.620 Well, how do we get to that point?

00:15:20.920 Because any opposition to puberty blockers and hormone therapy is met with, then you want kids to die. 0.81

00:15:29.260 And they will commit suicide.

00:15:30.960 And I've looked at some of the studies on that, and some of them are very weak studies.

00:15:38.140 Not the type of thing that we should actually be basing policy on.

00:15:41.880 The type of studies that are enough to make you say, you know what, we should look into this further.

00:15:46.560 But not something that you base a policy as life-altering as this on.

00:15:53.100 I agree.

00:15:53.900 I completely agree in the sense that things can be overblown.

00:15:58.620 That both sides are using these really, really heavy talking points to, as you said earlier, gain political points.

00:16:04.120 And if not, then at least gain traction in where they want to see these conversations go.

00:16:08.900 And I think that's unhelpful.

00:16:10.160 Because both sides use the talking point of wanting to protect kids.

00:16:14.400 They want to protect kids.

00:16:15.600 They want kids to be safe.

00:16:16.440 And I actually believe that both sides mean this.

00:16:18.900 They're just looking at a small snapshot.

00:16:20.380 One side is looking at kids who they know are severely dysphoric, as I was as a kid, and say, how do we protect Jason?

00:16:27.820 Because I was very, very emotionally and mentally messed up after my childhood.

00:16:32.720 And I divorced in my 20s.

00:16:35.080 And I was a really bad husband because of what I had not processed.

00:16:38.720 And so I do think that there's something to be said there.

00:16:41.160 But then, of course, on the other side, there's also people who regret these transitions, who have pulled out of it and have taken pathways, who have had surgeries or hormones in ways that they now regret.

00:16:51.180 And that's tragic, too.

00:16:52.640 And I think both of those conversations need to happen at the same time.

00:16:56.460 And what we have instead is one side focuses only on the regret and the risk.

00:17:00.600 The other side focuses only on the dysphoria.

00:17:03.540 And we're talking over each other.

00:17:05.080 I think that's what's happening on so many sides here.

00:17:11.720 I've spoken to psychologists and psychiatrists who have dealt with patients who are gender dysphoric.

00:17:20.600 Until recently, it was, they tell me, mostly young males. 0.95

00:17:26.320 And most of them would end up being gay men. 0.71

00:17:29.820 And some would transition later on.

00:17:31.820 But that they were having, they were struggling with their sexuality and accepting that they were gay men.

00:17:40.640 A couple of things on that.

00:17:42.540 One, with the push towards affirming care, they say it's dangerous for them to even examine how the patient is feeling anymore.

00:17:54.560 That they don't feel that they can do a proper practice.

00:17:56.820 That you've immediately got to say, oh, okay, well, if that's how you feel, let's go to this.

00:18:05.480 Have we just taken away?

00:18:10.940 Are we rushing too far towards this idea of affirming care that you even question?

00:18:17.620 Because you've referenced this several times in the conversation.

00:18:21.260 People have feelings.

00:18:22.440 People have questions.

00:18:23.460 People have doubts.

00:18:25.000 That's part of dysphoria.

00:18:27.040 And you've got to explore what that is.

00:18:29.940 But just automatically rushing to, okay, well, then here's what we're going to do for you.

00:18:35.720 Is that the right approach?

00:18:37.080 I love where you're going with that.

00:18:42.200 I have an engineering background.

00:18:44.100 And I did many years of education looking at decision making and various mathematical and computational ways that we can make good decisions.

00:18:51.820 In terms of looking at the data and taking that devil's advocate approach to say, is this the right path forward?

00:18:57.340 Not just let's do this because this feels good.

00:19:00.420 And that's how I conduct everything in my life.

00:19:03.100 We're currently looking at buying a house.

00:19:05.020 This isn't a different city.

00:19:05.840 This would change my whole family's life.

00:19:08.520 And so we're taking that devil's advocate position of we want this house, but is this good for us?

00:19:13.500 What are the ways this could go wrong to see if we can create a reason not to do it?

00:19:17.760 And this is how health care has always worked as well.

00:19:20.380 There's lots of procedures that we can do for bonafide health reasons that have potential risks.

00:19:25.200 So the doctor takes that devil's advocate position to say, is it worth doing this complex surgery for various bypasses and stuff?

00:19:35.100 And ultimately tries to land where the outcome is the most likely to be successful.

00:19:40.200 And this is what we used to do in transgender matters as well.

00:19:43.720 We used to not proceed until we were at that point.

00:19:47.360 We would meet with people for many appointments, maybe many years.

00:19:50.400 We would assess where the psychology was at.

00:19:52.480 We would assess where their mind was at in terms of what they were expecting to come out of this.

00:19:56.320 Do they have realistic expectations or do they have unrealistic expectations?

00:19:59.860 And in the end, the doctor would decide how to proceed based on that patient aligned with their fiduciary to try to look at what's best for this individual.

00:20:07.920 You're right, though, that we have moved to a place of affirmation that says, since people define their own identity, no one gets to touch that.

00:20:15.980 And even doing that work to look for comorbidities and look for anything that might be exacerbating the situation is harmful and that is discriminative and we can't do it.

00:20:25.800 And that does scare me because people do change their minds.

00:20:29.660 Adults change their minds and kids certainly change their minds.

00:20:31.960 And if we really want to provide the best health outcomes, then we do need doctors and psychologists to play devil's advocate a bit and say, okay, you want to transition.

00:20:40.660 Let's look at all the reasons why maybe you shouldn't.

00:20:42.520 And that isn't because no one should transition.

00:20:45.720 I believe there's lots of people who should.

00:20:47.600 I am much happier now.

00:20:48.800 And I know lots of people who are much happier now, but that isn't always the case.

00:20:54.100 It's definitely a different path that we've gone on.

00:20:58.040 And so it's one that I worry about being put into the school system effectively as well.

00:21:07.940 And then that added element of, okay, and let's not tell the parents.

00:21:13.440 I just think that that'll lead to bad places.

00:21:17.940 Julia, thanks for the conversation.

00:21:19.640 We need to take a quick break.

00:21:20.700 But when we come back, I want to get your thoughts on some other aspects of Danielle Smith's policy, especially when it comes to the issue of sport.

00:21:32.300 I'm looking forward to it.

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00:22:19.040 The issue of transgendered athletes in sports, Julia, is definitely a hot topic.

00:22:25.760 It has taken off in the States, more so than here.

00:22:29.960 But, you know, we've seen the podiums where, you know, it'll be a women's sports competition and two of the three people on the podium are biological males.

00:22:41.080 A video sent to me last week of a women's rugby team and this big beast of a player just knocking the woman over. 1.00

00:22:51.180 And he's like, well, that's a biological male.

00:22:52.640 Well, when Smith released her policy, Global News was quick to come out and say, no, science shows that women have the upper hand on this, that men are not necessarily bigger and stronger. 0.51

00:23:07.480 It's like they closed their eyes and said, you know, the opposite of what's actually true.

00:23:14.000 What are your thoughts on biological males in women's sports? 0.70

00:23:17.000 So for a long time, I just avoided the sports conversation, partially because I didn't care because I am not good at sports.

00:23:24.220 I don't enjoy watching sports because it's not a topic that I cared about.

00:23:27.860 And I'm like, oh, people want to keep talking about it.

00:23:29.440 But then I saw exactly what you're describing in terms of some of the national level competitions.

00:23:34.560 The most famous, of course, being Riley Gaines versus Leah Thomas.

00:23:38.100 This is one of the swimming.

00:23:39.420 I don't even know which one because I don't know sports, but they're competing at the national level for swimming.

00:23:43.780 Leah Thomas is transgender and she ends up winning.

00:23:46.700 And people were very upset about that.

00:23:48.480 And I get why they're upset about that, because men are taller on average.

00:23:53.920 Men are stronger on average.

00:23:55.160 These should not be controversial things.

00:23:56.860 That's pretty well known.

00:23:57.760 And at that level, at the professional level, it kind of makes sense that if you have your best trained biological female and your best trained biological male in a sport like swimming, the taller, stronger individual is going to win.

00:24:10.720 So that is a concern.

00:24:12.240 And I think it's fair to bring it up.

00:24:15.620 And we need to have real conversations about that.

00:24:19.020 I've also noticed that in many of these conversations around policy that usually focus around transgender women,

00:24:25.100 people tend to take this all or nothing approach as though that's a concern.

00:24:30.460 So the only path forward is to say biological males cannot compete in women's sports and just end there.

00:24:37.900 And what I like to remind people in this conversation is that sports is a lot of different things.

00:24:44.260 National swimming competitions for adults are not the same as a grade seven volleyball team in a school for intramural purposes.

00:24:51.900 And I bring those up because that, I think, is where the real conversation needs nuance.

00:24:57.040 Myself growing up, I felt marginalized because I couldn't be in the social circles I was connected to.

00:25:03.240 I was friends with the girls.

00:25:04.260 They were my friends with the people that I socialized with.

00:25:07.360 But I wouldn't be able to be on that team because I was a boy.

00:25:09.940 And we have to acknowledge that a grade seven volleyball team is not just about competition.

00:25:14.180 It's also about camaraderie.

00:25:15.580 It's about teamwork.

00:25:16.180 And there is an exclusive element when we say, and they're sex-based, just because that's kind of customarily how we've decided to do it.

00:25:23.660 Well, look, you'll see a lot of the intramural sports that people participate in this city.

00:25:29.800 And often it's co-ed and there's rules.

00:25:33.240 You've got to have so many from each side.

00:25:36.820 But what I found interesting about Danielle Smith's policy was she didn't say all or nothing. 0.98

00:25:43.940 And in fact, I found that throughout Smith's was attacked viciously as if she had just stood up and said, transgender people are the worst ever, and we're going to chase them out of Alberta.

00:25:58.840 That was not what her speech was, the video that she released.

00:26:03.180 And she said that there should be competition for women, but we also need to make sure that there are places where everyone can play. 0.84

00:26:13.940 And I think that got lost.

00:26:17.400 The idea that weightlifting has become the most recent one, Canadian female weightlifter, powerlifter is upset because now she's going up against people that were born and did not transition and were on puberty blockers.

00:26:35.760 They're huge.

00:26:36.900 They can lift more iron than she can. 1.00

00:26:39.480 And I get why.

00:26:42.040 So would you say that there should be maybe rules around this stopping it at the national or international level competition?

00:26:53.360 Or do we nuance?

00:26:55.500 Do we say some sports it's acceptable, some sports it's not?

00:26:58.300 Well, so the argument with sports always comes down to safety and fairness.

00:27:04.360 Is it safe to have somebody who is much bigger or much stronger competing?

00:27:08.000 And is it fair to have someone who is much stronger or much bigger?

00:27:10.800 Like the rugby example.

00:27:11.880 Like the powerlifting example.

00:27:13.020 These are good examples in those domains.

00:27:15.480 And those are well put.

00:27:18.600 And those are valid.

00:27:20.040 What I notice, though, sometimes is that they ignore the fact that you can raise safety and fairness concerns within a sex bracketed category as well.

00:27:29.360 Who's going to win that powerlifting competition?

00:27:31.480 The strongest female.

00:27:33.040 Why is she the strongest female? 1.00

00:27:34.120 Well, because she's bigger, because she has higher levels of testosterone naturally, because whatever reason they are, she's probably a safety hazard to some smaller women in certain sports. 1.00

00:27:43.720 But no one's saying that we shouldn't allow a 90-pound female and a 180-pound female to do other sports together because of safety concerns. 0.88

00:27:52.120 Although there is, actually.

00:27:53.460 When you look at something like wrestling, that's what we've done for a long time.

00:27:55.860 We have weight classes recognizing that a 300-pound wrestler and a 90-pound wrestler is not going to be fair or safe competition, regardless who's of which sex.

00:28:04.380 That's just, that is a sport where your weight is so related to your ability to be effective in the sport.

00:28:10.240 And I think that is a key to how we should be thinking about this.

00:28:13.700 On a sport-by-sport basis, we've got to look at this and say, does your biological sex have a huge impact?

00:28:19.640 Sometimes the answer is yes.

00:28:20.720 And when that is yes, like we should account for that.

00:28:23.160 Other times, maybe it's not so clear.

00:28:25.860 We've got to the place that this conversation has become so charged.

00:28:29.120 It's not even just sports.

00:28:30.620 Last year, the International Chess Organization, whatever they're called, they announced that transgender women can't compete in chess anymore. 0.94

00:28:38.340 And when you get to that point, it's like, okay, this conversation's gone a bit wacky because that's very different.

00:28:43.280 I didn't realize there were gendered categories for chess. 0.99

00:28:47.960 There are.

00:28:48.760 And that comes historically because chess was a men's thing.

00:28:51.700 And then there was a women's league and then trans women come into it. 1.00

00:28:53.800 And now they've been told they can't be in it.

00:28:55.260 And, you know, I don't see a lot of merit for that.

00:28:58.340 But that doesn't mean that there's never sports where I think there's a good argument.

00:29:02.460 Of course, my whole knowledge of international high-level chess is from watching the Queen's Gambit.

00:29:08.380 So I don't know much about it.

00:29:12.160 Okay.

00:29:12.660 So I think you make a fair point on things like weight classes, safety, in fairness.

00:29:18.600 And sometimes it just isn't fair.

00:29:20.740 And so, like, Leah Thomas versus Riley Gaines.

00:29:24.560 I don't think that's a fair race. 1.00

00:29:27.740 I don't.

00:29:28.780 But when you look at fairness, we also have to say, but my daughter's five foot two. 1.00

00:29:33.200 Guess what?

00:29:33.920 She's never going to be a world-class swimmer.

00:29:35.740 Because she's never going to be able to compete with Riley Gaines either.

00:29:37.940 And so, you know, we get this conversation where, in my mind, the way to do swimming competitions, say, fairly, would be to have classes that are divided by weight and height.

00:29:46.900 Because it's not really whether you're male or female.

00:29:49.420 It's taller people can go faster.

00:29:51.740 They can do the competition faster.

00:29:53.020 Shorter people can't.

00:29:54.040 Just like wrestling. 0.95

00:29:54.820 If we did put everyone in one class, guess who the best wrestlers are always going to be?

00:29:59.000 The people who are not 90 pounds.

00:30:00.380 So from just the spirit of inclusivity and giving more people opportunity, I would love to see, where possible, us take more of an approach of classing things out on sports so that the camaraderie of it and the competition of it can be what, you know, we focus on rather than just these silly discussions that we end up upon.

00:30:20.740 I'd like to get your take on the politics of it all, because this is something that obviously appears to be a culture war issue, but it's also something that both the left and the right are going at pretty hard on this.

00:30:36.560 I mean, the prime minister's language has been nothing short of vitriolic and disparaging to people who actually have your point of view on things like notifying parents.

00:30:47.940 So how do you look at it?

00:30:50.140 Are people just playing for votes to groups out there that they think might be on their side that they might be able to get?

00:30:57.260 Do you think that anyone actually cares about the kids or the issues anymore?

00:31:01.220 Or is it just about the politics?

00:31:04.980 I certainly agree that our discourse around this is not productive.

00:31:09.780 We have been swinging back and forth with the pendulum.

00:31:12.060 And the reason why I got into this and I started being one of Canada's most vocal voices about this topic is because of my fear of where this swings next.

00:31:20.140 When I look back 20 years ago, that was when I kind of had the language to understand how I felt about myself.

00:31:26.180 And Canada would have been a very scary place to transition.

00:31:29.180 There was no protection to make sure that I was remained employed or had any housing protection or anything at all.

00:31:35.340 And I think that was a huge problem.

00:31:37.560 And maybe 10 years ago or so, we recognized this as a country.

00:31:41.700 And we brought in some what I believe are important protections for the rights and dignity of people who are gender dysphoric.

00:31:47.640 However, in the process of that, it also swung very far to the left in a whole bunch of these ways that we've just discussed today.

00:31:54.560 And when I observed this about three years ago, that was when I started to speak up, recognizing that that was untenable.

00:32:01.280 It is unbalanced.

00:32:02.560 It's not going to stay there.

00:32:03.940 But there are plenty of people who want to just pull back all rights for trans people entirely.

00:32:08.640 That is their objective.

00:32:09.320 And they've been lobbying within especially social conservative circles to get wins in that sense.

00:32:15.520 And I have always feared that we're going to swing back too far.

00:32:18.020 And we're just going to end up bouncing back and forth between these two extremes rather than finding something in the middle, which quite honestly is what about 90% of Canadians want.

00:32:25.760 They're not into this issue.

00:32:27.240 They're not obsessed.

00:32:27.900 They just want something in the middle that's balanced, that maintains dignity and respect for transgender people, doesn't go so far as to take away their rights and stewardship as a parent.

00:32:37.400 And that's what I want to see.

00:32:39.560 And I'm not seeing much of it at the political discourse level right now.

00:32:43.100 I'm seeing, like you said, a lot of cheap shots at one another, framing each other's positions like they're more extreme than they are.

00:32:49.400 And that's unhelpful.

00:32:52.360 I think a lot of Canadians would just simply have a live and let live attitude if we had rational conversations.

00:32:57.900 But as we've discussed several times, people like to ratchet it up or come in with these all or nothing stances.

00:33:10.620 You actually said in your National Post piece that if Danielle Smith's policy were a bit more nuanced, it might be accepted.

00:33:18.940 I'm going to disagree with you because I think that the activists on the transgender side are just as we won't give an inch as the activists on the social conservative side.

00:33:32.060 And they will say all or nothing we're playing for keeps.

00:33:36.020 I agree.

00:33:39.260 I think that there is a small group of pretty extreme and fixated individuals on both of these sides that I don't think they can be helped.

00:33:48.220 I certainly can't help them.

00:33:49.260 I've been trying for a few years, but they are very ideologically captured on one end or the other.

00:33:54.800 And if they don't get their way in its entirety, they're going to be unhappy.

00:33:58.180 And much like issues like abortion or gay marriage that have, I would argue, long been resolved in Canadian discourse, they'll probably linger for a long time and be continuing to bring those matters up.

00:34:09.140 But that's not where most Canadians are.

00:34:11.700 Most Canadians are just in this middle spot.

00:34:14.420 They have compassion for people like me.

00:34:16.720 They might have concerns with a few things they've seen with our current policy, but they don't want me marginalized.

00:34:21.200 They don't want me to lose my job.

00:34:22.320 They just want us to find some balance here.

00:34:23.940 And I have been encouraged by the conversations that I have on Twitter, where I have quite a following on my YouTube channel.

00:34:31.900 And now that I'm doing a lot more stuff in Canadian media, that I regularly get to have these conversations afterwards with people who are just normal individuals who haven't given this a lot of thought, and they're just looking for balance.

00:34:42.720 Well, maybe we can find it.

00:34:44.080 Do you get much pushback in the trans community?

00:34:49.540 I do.

00:34:50.540 I do.

00:34:51.100 I've written quite a bit.

00:34:53.940 About the difference in the dissent that I receive from the trans rights activists and from the social conservative activists.

00:35:02.460 I get it from both, which to me tells me I'm doing something right.

00:35:06.000 Because if both extremes don't like my position, then that means I've found something that is actually listening to both sides and not just ideologically captured in one or the other.

00:35:14.040 But I will say that the stuff that I receive from people who are not accepting of trans people is more vulgar.

00:35:22.700 It's more personal.

00:35:24.700 The transgender activists, they do not like the message that I send. 1.00

00:35:30.280 They find that message threatening.

00:35:31.460 And they don't like some of the positions that we've discussed here today that I think would really help us to find some balance.

00:35:37.300 But they don't usually go for me personally, the way that I have been attacked by some of the people on the other side who do genuinely have contempt and disdain towards transgender people and have masked it and hide behind arguments of children or parental rights.

00:35:51.760 Because that's what's politically tenable.

00:35:53.900 And don't get me wrong, I'm in no way saying that everyone who uses those arguments is coming from that place.

00:35:58.180 I spend 95% of my time nowadays in some of the deepest gender critical circles in Canada.

00:36:03.920 And most of them are there because they have these concerns with unbalanced policy and they don't want harm to transgender people.

00:36:11.860 But, of course, it has also created good cover for that extreme faction that lives on the far right side.

00:36:18.020 Well, fascinating conversation today.

00:36:19.640 As I said at the beginning, I've been saying for a while we need to talk to each other, not past.

00:36:25.640 You and I definitely talk to each other.

00:36:28.000 And, you know, proof that you can have a respectful conversation.

00:36:31.880 So thanks so much, Julia.

00:36:33.960 Thanks for having me.

00:36:35.320 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:36:37.760 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:36:39.260 This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:36:43.000 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:36:44.900 You can subscribe to Full Comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, what have you.

00:36:49.220 Listen through your Alexa-enabled device and help us out by giving us a rating, telling your friends about us.

00:36:55.040 Thanks for listening.

00:36:56.240 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - February 12, 2024

Not all transgender people think Danielle Smith’s gender policies are unhinged

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