Now more than ever, the safety of transgender youth in Alberta is at risk. It affects their lives more than we think.

This story about my transgender child is being published anonymously. As the parent, my duty remains to protect her. Outing my child publicly could put a target on her, which I will not do. I have the greatest respect and gratitude for those transgender folk who put their lives, hearts, and reputations on the public line every day. Perhaps at some point, my child will choose to do that. But that is her decision, not mine.

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In May of 2023, 14,000 people in Alberta voted for a political representative who compared my child to feces.

My transgender child (who says incredulously about people who think being transgender is a choice, “Do you really think I would choose to be this way?”) has IBS. This means that half the time, when she eats, she needs the bathroom fairly immediately.

When she was still in high school, there was, in theory, a gender neutral bathroom. It was single-stall and often had a line-up outside. At the end of the day she would launch herself into my car, begging me to get her home as quickly as possible because she had not used the bathroom for seven hours. Not being able to eat during the day for three years has disordered her eating.

She is terrified of using the bathroom in other public situations. She’s at a gender-fluid stage where she is seen as a boy and a girl. She is terrified to use a women’s bathroom because she might be accused of harassing women. She is terrified to use a men’s bathroom, because if some man is threatened by her, she could be punched in the face. If some guy in the bathroom thinks she’s hot, she could be raped.

She doesn’t leave the house much. She only eats in public if she knows we’re going directly home afterwards. In a dire emergency — after she’s spent half an hour writhing in pain — she may very reluctantly agree to go to Starbucks, and only because the bathrooms are single-stall, gender neutral, and they display visible support for the LGBTQ+ community with a Pride flag in most locations.

As a mother, it is horrifying to watch my child in physical agony because of her health. When you choose to become a parent, you know you are signing up for a myriad of possible difficulties, so I can accept that. What I cannot accept is having to witness my child in mental and emotional agony because she is scared that her fellow citizens may attack her if she steps off the thin line they have drawn for her.

It is utterly terrifying to live in a province where a significant portion of the population believes that my child should not exist. I don’t know what her future looks like. I don’t know if she is going to access health care. I don’t know if this government will curtail her rights. I worry about her mental health, living in a place where so many people hate her very existence.

While prejudice against gender minorities has always existed, this rise in hatred is fomented and legitimized by fundamentalist Christian politicians and public speakers (if my use of the term “Christian” bothers you, for the love of your God and your church, speak out loudly and often against this poisoning of your faith). Recently, an Alberta school board member compared children waving Pride flags in school to children in Nazi Germany waving the swastika flag. This type of messaging obliterates the fact that the Nazis’ first target was LGBTQ+ people who were incarcerated with a pink triangle. 

According to this elected school board member, the Holy Spirit told her to “go for it,” her lawyer said in her defence. “She’s just a normal Bible-believing Christian.”

Her self defence was that the “United Nations and Planned Parenthood [are attempting] to sabotage our youths’ identities and destinies.”

When my child came out to me at age 15, she was the first person in her peer group to state she was LGBTQ+. I had little idea what it meant to be transgender. I had a lot of questions, one of which was, “Why would you choose this?” She has been very clear in stating, “This is not a choice. I would not choose to be this way. It would be so much easier to just be gay.”

I spent the next four years navigating our labyrinth health-care system to find appropriate care for her. Because she had already experienced puberty as a boy, her first goal was to stop any further changes hormones would bring. It took six months to see a gender-care doctor. She was then prescribed Lupron (thankfully, we have private health insurance to pay for it. If we were low income, she would not have access to the medication). I thoroughly investigated the possible side effects with her doctor and her pharmacist. I also always kept in the back of my head, “What if this is just a phase? Are the changes that will be brought on by this treatment reversible?” Despite the claims of the far right, none of the care that was available to her as a minor is irreversible.

Once she was able to see a medical professional, they were solely concerned with her needs. They would ask what her goals for care were. What she needed to make her feel free. They never once suggested surgery or permanent changes, always stating that she can explore the options when she is older.

I find it incredibly ironic that the far right, which includes many UCP MLAs and federal Conservatives, believe that parents should be the primary caregivers and educators of their children, and believe in protection of freedom of speech and freedom of expression in the medical field. But at the same time, they believe that medical care for transgender youth should be banned. As a parent, I wanted my child to have access to transgender care as soon as possible, because I know that living as a visibly transgender person in our society can be dangerous and difficult.

The school board member who compared Pride flags to swastikas stated, “The Pride flag is used to silence people.” Has she ever considered that the presence of the Pride flag signals to my child that the space she is about to enter may provide her with a small degree of safety?