Thank you to the musical Quin twins, universally known as the indie pop duo Tegan and Sara, for speaking up at the Juno Awards in Halifax last night about the Danielle Smith Government’s grotesque War on Trans Kids.
“We are dedicated to confronting any form of discrimination that threatens the wellbeing of our community,” said Sara after they were presented the 2024 Juno Humanitarian Award for their foundation’s charity work in support of 2SLGBTQ+ people.
“Threats like the Alberta Government’s attempt to prevent trans youth from accessing vital care,” she clarified to cheers of agreement from the crowd.
By calling out Premier Smith and her UCP Caucus in the Alberta Legislature for ignoring health-care professionals and turning a MAGA dog-whistle into public policy that can impact young people’s lives in deeply harmful ways, Tegan and Sara have done everyone who lives in Alberta a favour.
That is, they have reduced the possibility that folks in other parts of Canada won’t simply assume when they hear we’re from Alberta that we truly are all the embarrassing cousins of Confederation, as someone here once famously never actually said.
Of course, it’s natural when high-profile entertainment figures speak up about social and political issues that people who disagree with them will respond harshly, often in insulting terms. This is especially so, naturally, when the people doing the disagreeing are on the MAGA right.
One doesn’t need to bother to double click on the icon for the open sewer previously known as Twitter to know the kind of things that are being said there, or soon will be.
Usually the key point made in such replies churlish is that the speakers are entertainers, and therefore ought to stick to their strumming, or whatever. (This of course doesn’t apply to entertainers with whom such complainers are in agreement.)
So let it be acknowledged by all that Tegan and Sara are appropriately qualified to weigh in on this debate. To wit: They are from here, having grown up in Calgary, and no doubt therefore know better than most Canadians just what an appalling government we now have in Alberta, on this and many other issues.
They have a stake in this debate like every other Albertan.
The CBC’s initial report, bizarrely, didn’t mention what the sisters had to say about the Alberta Government. Failure of nerve, one supposes.
In January when the UCP introduced its policy, which was clearly designed to appeal to the party’s Q-adjacent Take Back Alberta faction, Ms. Smith adopted a tone of oleaginous fake concern for trans youth, presenting “the harshest, least inclusive policy regime for trans kids in Canada as a depoliticized compromise,” to borrow the words of University of Calgary political scientist Lisa Young.
“Does anyone in the UCP Caucus have the spine to stand up against this?” I asked at the time. The answer, we now know, is no.
According to the Tegan and Sara Foundation’s website, it “raises funds and fights for LGBTQ+ equality and justice through our flagship programming and support of grassroots organizations, activists and communities that often go unrecognized by major funding institutions.
“This work is critically important because LGBTQ+ women and girls face greater socioeconomic and health disadvantages compared to their male, heterosexual & cisgender counterparts.”
I remember when the Juno Awards were in Edmonton, in 2004. If I recall correctly, Ralph Klein was there. He was met with a chorus of boos. If Danielle Smith were at an awards show like that, she would definitely be booed.
On another subject, from one of your more recent blogs, on Davey, and Take Back Alberta, this is what was going on. This just happened to show up from another search I was doing. These people are quite lost. They appear to be seniors in this group, but not all of them are. What exactly are they supposed to be taking back Alberta from? The sooner Davey slithers away into obscurity, the better.
https://tnc.news/2024/03/23/take-back-alberta-elections-alberta-protest/
It’s not what they’re taking Alberta back FROM. It’s what they’re taking it back TO, namely the Social Credit days of the 1950s. I’m sure that is not what they mean though.
Danielle Smith can’t catch a break these days. The Quinn twins (and the rest of us for that matter)should familiarize themselves with the recently leaked WPATH files.
WPATH (the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) is regarded by many as one of the leading advocacy group for medical care, education, and research around transgender issues. Over the years the US government, American doctors and prominent organizations like the World Health Organization have come to rely on WPATH guidelines as the de facto treatment for transgender youth.
Well recently leaked internal messaging boards and video conferencing have painted an organization driven by ideologues pushing radical experimental hormonal medical procedures on minors they privately admit often have devastating and permanent side effects. Some have compared it to the surgical lobotomies which were popular in the mid twentieth century.
Previously WPATH recommended hormonal treatment to begin at 16 or 17. But in its latest guidelines published in 2022 age restrictions have been removed. It’s become the Wild West. The files reveal there is little evidence-based medicine involved with doctors improvising treatment as they go along. They appear to be engaged in political activism, not science.
Judge for yourself.
https://nypost.com/2024/03/04/opinion/secret-files-show-how-international-group-pushes-shocking-experimental-gender-surgery-for-minors/
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56a45d683b0be33df885def6/t/65ea1c1ea42ff5250c88a2f5/1709841455308/WPATH+Report+and+Files%28N%29.pdf
God forbid that people who don’t agree with Marlaina and her band of UCP Marlainas become politically active. Or is that God forbade? Political activism is only for TBA. Oh, wait — they claim they’re non-political now. So confusing.
Idea! Trans children could seek medical treatment from experts (UCP politicians and completely apolitical TBA members, not multidisciplinary teams of doctors and other qualified professionals) in seedy motels along Highway 2. Why go to Montreal, when Alberta has all kinds of motels that have seen better days? Motel medicine, baby! Some might even have disused exercise rooms that could be converted for conversion therapy.
Speaking of disused things, consider the Compassionate Intervention Act. Lock ’em up and de- and re-program ’em. There is precedent for this sort of thing in Alberta. UFA members joined eugenics boards in the 20th century to determine who should be sterilized, based on opinion, not science. Children should be seen, not heard, but not seen, either, especially if something’s “wrong” with them. Precedent always wins in a court of law, right? Oopsie, human rights have been entrenched in law since then. Children are human, too. Surely there’s a workaround. Keep digging, Marlainas.
But for sure, anyone who plays a musical instrument or sings should not be allowed to get involved in politics, especially in matters that affect them directly, because music. Unless it’s Paul Brandt. And they have a helicopter.
As I’ve documented on this blog before; trans kids who have surgery in Canada are basically a rounding error, .0013 or something like that ?
Something like between 15-20% of kids go hungry every night in Canada.
Another worthy comparison might be the concurrent fact that 26-29% of Canadian children are overweight/obese (according to StatsCan and Health Canada), or somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of all Canadian children.
It seems perverse that both hunger and obesity rates can co-exist, at roughly the same level (nearly five orders of magnitude larger than gender-related surgery!), in the same society. However, a more-precise illumination hints at the complexities of shared factors involved, revealing, for example, that rates for both childhood obesity and childhood hunger are conspicuously higher in indigenous communities—up to 41%, or somewhere between one-third and one-half of indigenous children. (Likewise, households managed by low-educated parents have a higher proportion of overweight or hungry kids than those by better-educated parents, the highest educational level having the least proportion of overweight or hungry kids. Et cetera.)
The proportion of children for whom gender-changing surgery is medically recommended is vanishingly small in comparison. Nonetheless, the TBA sacrifices compassion for this tiny minority on its altar of demagoguery by way of statistically-abusive equalization out of all proportion with reality—that is, in the schematic as if medically necessary treatment of gender issues (for example, to treat hermaphroditism or features which complicate the assignation of gender at birth) is as much a public health concern as childhood hunger and childhood obesity—which is like treating tiny Mercury and gigantic Jupiter as if the same mass just because they’re both planets orbiting the sun.
The schematic appears to inflate the tiny proportion of trans kids so that TBA can conflate it with a grab-bag of other schematically inflated, proportionally exaggerated, irrelevant, and abused stats, usually padded-out with outright fabulated falsehoods
—the stuff of conspiracy theories the TBA loves to embellish with alarm, gin and odium.
Yet even schematics are useful comparators. For example, the list of complex, child-obesity factors Health Canada cites can just as well apply to childhood gender-related issues: “biological, behavioural, social, psychological, technological, environmental and cultural…” ingredients which combine in various ways and at different levels, individual, familial, and societal—exceedingly complicated, evolving phenomena for which schematic analysis is quite appropriate.
The list of remedial action, however, is evidentially weighted by priority of importance, the most outstanding of which is unsurprising: at the top is dedication of private and public healthcare professionals, followed soon after by “Ministerial leadership” in the most important political arena (save for our Sovereign). Even though nutrition and gender issues differ in kind, analogy between them is educative, nonetheless: in addition to prioritizing professional expertise and political leadership, availability and access to related supports (medical or nutritional) in child-and family-friendly environments, raising awareness within schools, communities, and society, and early action are listed. Fair enough. Most importantly, though, at the top is protection of children—in the obesity case, from advertisements promoting sugary, fatty foods and beverages but, in the gender-issue case, presumably protecting them from ridicule, persecution, or unprofessional prejudices.
Schematic analysis also reveals basic contrasts between TBA and proper, professionally advised public healthcare policies—that is, provided by real politicians and real doctors who put the public interest rather than partisan self-interest at the fore. Medical experts who prescribe extremely rare gender-issue treatment for children do so carefully for reasons of health to ameliorate suffering, to help any citizen, regardless age, ethnicity or gender to have a healthy life, and to respect the universality of healthcare; TBA, as we know, supports the UCP’s drive to bust universal public healthcare, demonizes anyone who doesn’t agree with its pseudo-religious demagoguery, singles-out children with medical needs who, with their families, are navigating extremely difficult medical and legal protocols involving extraordinarily personal trials, and inflicts appalling suffering on innocent citizens—indeed, on those who have the least political influence: children. And BATCUP does it purely for its own partisan gain.
And, as we also know, the TCUPBA has its head so far up its own arse that it cannot help but do the impolitic and separate Albertans from the constitutional benefits of our federal state so’s to deny global issues and cultify its ‘freedom’ to tell the walled-off what to do and how to do it. While subscribing to Q-Anon lies that the left performs ritual sacrifice of children —calculated as the most heinous accusation it can weaponize against the vast majority with which it disagrees —it turns around in typical hypocritical fashion and actually does sacrifice children. Which concludes with proof of its perverted misconception of democracy by effectively asking (or answering): if trans kids are such a small minority, why should the majority care? This is the sorry extent the TBUCPA’s political comprehension.
Official abuse of innocent children and their families —and especially those with medically difficult, serious, and personally trying issues—is tyranny inside the threshold of personal freedom with eugenics waiting on the doorstep. We should’t be surprised that BATPUC would also blame kids for being either hungry or fat.
Fascists and pre-fascists would always prefer to bully a minority so tiny it cannot fight back effectively. Remember, in 1933, the year Hitler came to power in Germany, Jews made up 0.75 per cent of the population.
Presuming everything you posted is complete BS, ron, what difference does it make to you personally? Please list specifics, thanks!
Who knows why ronmac is so fascinated with click-bait. The New York Post is hardly a reliable source of news unless you are interested in pictures of celebrities on beaches in bathing suits and click-bait headlines about wordy papers making sweeping claims. Personally, I would recommend the Daily Mail to ronmac if he likes that sort of thing. It has more pictures, more salacious click bait headlines and the Monte Pythonesk upper class twit vibe missing from the NY Post.
Speaking of wordy papers, the group from whence this nonsense about trans kids springs (Environmental Progress) also promotes “saving nuclear power plants” and opposes wind farms. They feel windfarms endanger whales of all things. And here I thought they kept getting hit by ships. Oh well.
It advocates for compulsory treatment of people using drugs and takes a dim view of supervised consumption sites. Of course, it also advocates for more police funding. It even supports Russia building a nuclear reactor in Argentina.
All the usual upper middle class California bromides from the 1960s techno-optimists. Very well-designed web site though, although not very up to date. It reports Argentina should have the small modular nuclear reactor it said started in 2014 completed by 2020. It is all very entertaining if you are into 1950s futurism and can ignore the fascist undertone.
I went to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health website and read their publically published recommendations about the use of puberty blocking hormones for adolescents. Guess what? They state it clearly (Recommendation 12.1)
And sorry ronmac, you are are misleading us. While there is no specific age, they absolutely do say “only after they first exhibit physical
changes of puberty (Tanner stage 2).”
Guess experts have a more nuanced understanding than us mere blog readers.
Judge for yourself? OK
I can Google AND I have digital literacy such that I go to the original source.
In this case https://www.wpath.org/
Scroll down a bit for their link to Standards of Care V8
Note 12.1 – no specific age but definitely objective medical / biological puberty status is a criteria.
Are you getting tired of the non-stop lies and thinking errors from the right yet?
I am.
Perhaps your sources aren’t quite as valid as you would like them to be:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/09/disturbing-leaks-from-us-gender-group-wpath-ring-alarm-bells-in-nhs
Look at the source of these leaks. Hello space lasers and pedophile pizzerias! Please engage your critical faculties before posting. Thx.
Jeeze Louise, everyone is quicker to slag fellow commentators and diss the sources than to actually discuss the issue. This is an opinion blog but it is accepted now that WPATH has been somewhat discredited and the NHS and some EU medical professional orgs are questioning their objectivity and guidelines. Someone said something here about critical thinking, well critical thinking is exactly what ronmac is doing – if you don’t agree with it let’s hear your critical thinking. You can question the UCP/TBA motives (I do) but you can’t question the wisdom of moving very carefully regarding serious medical interventions with children. Look up our Frances Kelsey for an example of the application of the precautionary principle.
I am wary of politicians making health decisions but differences of professional opinion are a common thing in academia and politicians do have a mandate to protect the public, govt stepping up and making decisions during Covid are a perfect example. It could be argued that the UCP seriously failed by not doing anything and letting the E-coli poisonings of children happen as with their inaction during the Covid pandemic.
I have some serious doubts about the major medical and surgical interventions being done to children and I think at the very least we should step back a little. I also very much think this POV aligns with a clear majority of citizens and that may be more of a motivating factor for Danielle Smith than the ideology.
Again, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A ROUNDING ERROR OF CANADIAN CHILDREN. WAITING FOR THE CALVARY (calvainists?) to come thru for the nearly 1 in 5 Canadian children going hungry every night. The rounding error? Prefer to leave that to their families and their doctors, musicians on Spotify get paid at a higher %. The only people “raising alarm” about this LITERALLY don’t know what they’re talking about. Also, I’ll remind you; in case you missed it when I laid this out the first time, that number comes from the nationalist post, who have been doing EXTREMELY yellow journalism around this topic.
Additionally, I will remind you there has never been a bottom
Surgery of a u18 person in Canada, and hormone therapy is the original compromise.
Do not get sucked in by these charlatans; they’re lying.
Holy Cow L.B. try to calm down, this post is almost incoherent. Who’s lying?
The way the CBC reports you would swear they think Stephen Harper is still Prime Minister. Maybe they are concerned Skippy Poilievre could win the next Federal election so they started their boot licking early.
JE: They’ve never stopped. They are remarkably timid. I don’t think it’s a matter of worrying about PP. I expect he will close them down anyway, which will be a loss despite the network’s obvious deficiencies, in addition to a loss to the Conservatives since as the British has shown with the BBC it is remarkably easy to turn public broadcasters into neoliberal and war-mongering propaganda machines. It will make a lot of people who would otherwise fight to save the CBC shurg their shoulders and say, oh well. DJC
I’m only half remembering but papa Steve really salted the board with ideological purists that suited his agenda, just because he’s gone doesn’t mean they are, or that Canada isn’t just a centre-right colonial project that exists primarily to gather the great natural wealth of this continent for our betters.
Jaundiced Eye— Skippy showed his ‘style’ on This Hour has 22 min. last week when he told the comedian:Dan D (who had stood in line twice to meet him) that “he was going to be out of a job, because he was a terrible comedian and just a Trudeau mouthpiece.” before having security escort him out.
Free speech, freedom of expression, yada yada coming to an arena near you— Wed to be exact, Edmonton is being graced with the privilege of AtT, StH, CS, PP, BiH, etc. etc.
I wonder if he’s going to call out Marlaina for raising the gas tax….oh! sorry, Con tax increases are okay with their supporters I guess.
Side bar:
PP- 19 yrs of living on
taxpayers money
dd- double dipping getting
said taxpayers to donate
their hard earned money
to him and then getting
them again by spending
their own money to buy
his merch and advertise
his ______ inspired slogans.
It amazes me that the “cowboys” in Alberta fail to see that he thinks they are just sheep, to be shorn…giddy-up!
I slept easier last night, knowing the power of the message from Tegan and Sara. The audience they can reach and the demographic they might be able to motivate to participate in democratic processes like voting (because it matters) is considerable. If a government is doing something you don’t like and you do nothing, you are part of the problem. Silence and inaction are tacit approval. Tegan and Sara will not stand idly by and let the UCP government in Alberta target trans kids. If you agree with Tegan and Sara, you should stand up, too. Simple as that.
That was a hit piece if I ever saw one. I feel bad for those young manipulated kids that your using. And disgusted with the writer. Danielle is protecting children, while you clearly have an agenda. The damage that’s being done to kids is very real, and it will go down in history as medical destruction compared to lobotomies. Danielle said when kids are old enough, they can choose sexual denying care, for lifelong profit of pharma. And she’s made it so they can have care here, as opposed to Montreal. Then you have the fact that 80% of the province agrees with her. Disgusting, non-partisan smear job.
Ms. Kelly, I’m pretty sure you mean a partisan smear job, and interpretation with which I respectfully disagree. DJC
Hey, identical talking points as ronmac, what a coinky-dink!
Nice drive-by CX. Do you have any talking points at to contribute?
She does nothing but protect children from a daycare kitchen that poisoned children and left some with lifelong conditions. Imported medicine that is potentially lethal to babies. And when her and Trudeau handed mountains of cash no questions asked over to dupont who put teflon in the blood of every baby born on earth now and compounding into the future. Children sure are lucky to have her in their corner.
melanie kelly: Will the real Danielle Smith stand up?
https://edmontonsun.com/2014/12/03/wildrose-leader-danielle-smith-makes-passionate-plea-in-legislature-for-gay-straight-alliances/wcm/6b89591d-7011-40ac-ba55-2ddd452532be/amp/
If that’s a hit piece, then clearly; you have never seen one. TBA crowd does love their ten dollar words tho, not shocked they don’t know what they mean.
Of course, Queen Danielle will ignore Teagan and Sara’s advocacy for LGBTQ2 youth because they are from Los Angeles and are super-woke infected liberals. And David Parker, I’m sure is composing one of his biting missives about the whole declaration. It maybe something along the lines of Teagan + Sara are twins and gay — gee, Parker probably wonders which one converted the other to her lesbian lifestyle?
Trans youth are easy targets for the UCP/TBA, because there is little in the way of strong vocal support for them — just some noise and easy to ignore.
Maybe the Juno’s and any award shows for that matter should be independent of any politics or activism or social justice?
So what are Teagan and Sara going to do stop the pending change in Federal Government when Trudeau finally calls an election? Their precious CBC’s funding will be cut to shut it down alone with the Junos.
If being very publicly embarrassed had any effect on Smith and the UCP, this would be a good thing. However, I doubt it will. We already know they revel in being the crazy cousins of Canada and divisive social issues stirs up their base, which is one of the reasons they do this sort of thing particularly to distract and take attention away from more difficult issues like the economy and health care.
So this is like the old saying about getting into a wrestling match with a pig – the pig enjoys it. I remember years ago K D Lang, who at that time was a big and rising star, calling out Klein and his government (and later Kenney). Did it change anything? No. Well at least Tegan and Sara are still here in Alberta, so perhaps that may help mobilize people against the UCP.
Bet KD felt pretty good about it, maybe when you are a legend like she is people will care what you think too.
KD also more recently called out Kenney for his sexuality so there’s that, too.
So many amazing kids have come out of the Alberta public education system. Really proud of those two among many, many others. Yes, the subtext is there; let’s not break what we have in order to sell it to the home schoolers.
Tegan and Sara are notable graduates of Crescent Heights High School in Calgary. Ralph Klein is not a notable graduate because he dropped out of CHHS. These two musicians reached a higher level of academic achievement than the former premier of Alberta. Klein went on to pelt homeless people in a shelter with coins. The Quin sisters set up a foundation to fight for LGBTQ+ equality and justice. Two very different kinds of students, for the record.
Abs: Just to refresh everyone’s memory, the first principal of Crescent Heights High School was William Aberhart, who went on to be the Danielle Smith of the Great Depression. DJC
In case anyone asks, yes, Paul Brandt also graduated from CHHS, eight years before Tegan and Sara.
Ya weird. Announce AB is working on a policy that maintains Canada’s present surgical status, recommends holding off puberty blockers until 16 because of research and the about face in parts of the world leading the way on subject matter, recommends parental involvement instead of secrecy, supports council and protective services for children in undesirable circumstances, and Smith becomes a monster to most the victim mentality and popularity seeking individuals who can’t seem to analyze. The attention should be on bullies that are making transgender lives miserable instead of practising a live and let live approach, and focusing on peoples dignity and appreciating intellect. I think already a song, POLITICS AND STUPID PEOPLE. It could be a hit!
You’re painting a straw man and I see you. Smith is a monster for many reasons, her distaste for trans people notwithstanding. Literally no one here has advocated for secrecy from parents, unless that is of course WARRANTED with regards to the safety of the child. The SAFETY of the child I’m going to repeat that. Not all parents are created equal and Canada is a signatory to the UN Declaration on the rights of a child. Children aren’t anyone’s property; and parents are free to homeschool them if they wish. The imposition of a fringe (evangelical) idea on a public system of education that everyone contributes to equally is abhorrent. No one gets to hijack the public (democratic) education system because of supposed moral objections; that’s what private schools and homeschooling are for.
Hey LBird I tried chasing my submission with comments excusing my song title from this group and appliying it to the federal gov lack of research, forethought and honesty, and how they are twisting and splashing this issue as hard as they can. I too am concerned about policies that do not protect and appreciate your comment that not all parents are the same. That is something I hope Smith will put strong warnings and policy on. This is my third attempt to add clarity
Hey little bird, I submitted a follow up paragraph I see never entered which points out the song mentioned was not directed so much to this group as it is our Canadian government who in my opinion fall well short of research, forethought, honesty etc. however they love splashing this one as hard as they can. Many of us get sucked in because we’re too busy trying to make a living to do the necessary research. Also, that I have loved ones in this community and I hope thet can negotiate with intelligence, I hope we all can. That said, I appreciate your comment about not all parents are equal and that is one of my biggest fears in setting Any policy that might restrict a kid from protection. There has been damage done because of parents not knowing according to a couple YouTube segments I saw as well. I guess we will know more when and if the policy comes out.