Ignorance, or true malice?

Opinion

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This article was published 04/10/2023 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OUR kids are not property. Perhaps some would object to the current debate over trans kids in schools being framed that way.

But when there is a contingent of people insisting that the rights of a parent to know every intimate detail of a child’s life supersedes a child’s right to privacy, or indeed, even their right to safety, I fail to see how that is not contending that children deserve no autonomy if it diverges from the will of their guardian.

Canada is only the latest country where some have begun taking swings at the political punching bag du jour. The U.K. has already enacted legislation limiting the autonomy of trans schoolchildren, and in the U.S., even supposedly free adults. And students of history are left rolling their eyes as all the usual moral panic tropes are trotted out to justify this.

All the way back to railing against racial segregation by claiming white women would be in danger in bathrooms, right on up to the recent past when almost every argument we are hearing against trans inclusion was levelled against gay people. Including a movement to force schools to out gay children to potentially hostile parents. Most of us are old enough to remember this personally.

Yet despite none of the hysterical fears about inclusion ever coming to fruition, and the reactionaries ultimately being shown to be the ones causing actual harm, it seems we must have this fight all over again.

It’s almost like there is an element of society who isn’t engaging in good faith dialogue because they are fundamentally adversarial to any perceived threat to white, heteronormative cultural supremacy. So they try to foster a climate of fear and disinformation in order to mobilize enough confused people and quash any deviation from the norm. Maybe someone could look into that?

And indeed, there do seem to be disparate elements within the movement against trans inclusion. The spectrum was on full display at the recent rally in Winnipeg, from naked hateful bigotry on through genuine misguided concern. The children at the anti-trans rally were quite instructive in this regard.

There was the child who was handed a microphone who immediately professed that “gay people are dumb and stupid” before being hushed by the crowd for saying the quiet part loud.

Then there was the speaker who professed “children are not tools for political coercion” in front of several children holding up a banner which read “let us be kids,” all without a trace of irony.

But there were also people who might actually mean well and just be misinformed. There was one woman who said she supports the LGBTTQ+ community, but simply opposes “indoctrination” at schools, and gender affirming care, which she referred to as “castration.”

Obviously this is a person whose supposed support for the community has never included speaking to someone from said community about their lived experience, or engaging the reality of how they move through the world. But perhaps we should take her at her word that she could be a real supporter if only properly educated.

Ironically, some of the people at this rally make the case for why we need this sort of education not only in schools, but also an expansive public awareness campaign for all ages.

Perhaps then they would know that having a safe space to come out to a teacher they trust when they have hostile parents at home can save a child from potential abuse, or even save their life.

Perhaps they would know the education kids receive in schools is age appropriate, and by no means pornographic.

Perhaps they would know that gender-affirming care is not parcelled out lightly to children, and that there are hard statistics showing that the way doctors have been engaging yields far more positive than negative outcomes.

Never mind how harmful the practices of repression have been shown to be. We’ve already seen what happens in a world where these kids aren’t given time and space to arrive at their own identity. Sometimes that identity is at odds with that their parents might want, and kids have a right to explore that. Because real indoctrination comes from limiting a child’s access to divergent perspectives, and that is the parental rights truly being fought for.

Surely, there are many who will refuse actual dialogue, and will continue to weaponize hysterics to protect their paradoxically bedrock, yet porcelain, cultural norms. But hopefully some are willing to learn.

As they say, we should be reluctant when attributing malice to what can be explained by ignorance.

But always remember at a certain point, if ignorance is willfully clung to, then there’s no distinguishing it from malice at all.

Alex Passey is a Winnipeg author.