'Kids need to know we love and support them'
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Summary
In this episode, we talk with Alberta s premier, Shelly Glover, about her government's new policy on transgenders in public school and the support they need in order to make the transition process easier for children and their families.
Transcript
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Premier, we know this is an extremely sensitive topic. It's an extremely important topic.
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Can you tell us more about what you've announced and why?
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Well, it falls into three categories, but what are the main ones, of course, and the overriding
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principle is we want to preserve the choices that kids will make so that they don't make
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irreversible decisions before they're mature enough to understand the consequences of those
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decisions. And so there's a series of policies we've put forward on health care to make sure
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that kids know at what point they'll be able to get hormone therapy as well as top and bottom
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surgery, and then to have long-term support for those same individuals. I mean, when you make
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a decision like this, it requires ongoing care, not only mental health care, but also physical care.
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And so we're going to ensure that we have the appropriate number of medical professionals
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to ensure that those young people, as they grow into adults and then beyond, are taken care of.
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We also know that we want to make sure that the families are involved as these discussions unfold.
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And so it's part of the reason why we want to make sure that our education system is aligned
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with involving parents and making sure that the materials that are given in school are age
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appropriate. So that's another part. And then we also want to protect transgender athletes so they
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have the ability to do their sport in a co-ed environment while also protecting the biological
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female females who are, especially in certain sports, face potential harm if they're having to
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compete against biologically stronger transgender female athletes. So we want to be able to create
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a women and girls only category so that we can preserve the choice for everyone. So that's the
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Well, your government's not the first to do it, as you well know. It's been done in many European
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countries, several U.S. states. I think we're now the third province to come forward with policies.
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I think one part of the announcement, Premier, that's especially important, and maybe it gets
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overlooked a little bit, is the additional access to health care services for Alberta's transgender
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community. That's very important. I was very struck by this because, as you know, I've been in politics
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for some time, and so I've had transgender constituents before and spoken many times over
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the years about some of the challenges those who have transitioned faced. And I'm struck particularly
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by the story of Lois Cardinal, who felt rushed into getting bottom surgery, and then after her
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surgery, there just wasn't appropriate aftercare. And I thought, we've got to be able to remedy that.
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So it's part of the reason why we're working on recruiting a doctor who can perform surgeries
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in Alberta. Right now, we send those who get transgender surgery to Quebec so we can provide
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the ongoing care. The other, and I'd also heard over the years, the difficulty finding a doctor
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who can specialize in transgender medicine, as well as the ongoing hormone replacement support
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and the consequences of that, that requires specialized medicine. So we want to be able to create a private
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registry of doctors so that we can more easily match the transgender patients with an appropriate
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care provider. And I think that's important. I think that that is something that I've heard over
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the years is necessary. And that's one of the reasons why we've added this to the package.
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All right. Listen, I'll ask you one more on this. I know it's a very important subject.
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You're also bringing in more social social supports for children identifying as transgender and their
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families. Can you tell us a little bit more about what the province will be offering?
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Yeah, this is a family journey, really. When a child makes the important decision that they want to
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do this transition, that's not something the family can be locked out of. The family is going to be
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their long-term support group. And these are hard conversations to have. There's no question.
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So we feel that by having additional support so that families can be kept in the process,
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understanding the best way that they can support that transition and be able to support their
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child. I think that that's going to be the healthiest environment that we can provide here.
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There, sadly, are going to be some cases, we understand that, where families might not accept
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their child's choice. And if a child ever feels like they are at risk or could be harmed,
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we have child protection laws. And we're going to make sure that those children are protected as well.
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So we just want to make sure that the kids are able to explore and become who they want to be,
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and make sure that they're not prematurely making any decisions that are going to cut off
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their choices as adults. And so that's the reason why we put this group of 10 proposals forward.