I live in Alberta and provide gender care for trans and neurodivergent clients. I also have a trans daughter, who is amazing. Know that there is a whole raft of affirming professionals and parents and trans folks fighting these laws and anti-trans sentiment every day. We are heartbroken and exhausted but also invigorated and gritty in the face of all of this. I am Canadian and this is not what Alberta stands for (and no, my country will not just cut this beautiful province loose, thank goodness…this provincial government though…yes please).
As an American, I think it's important that you have a clear vision of what the future could hold for you. I'm utterly shocked at this news, just as I have been utterly shocked at US news for especially the last decade. In my experience, you should not make assumptions for what Canada and/or Alberta do or don't stand for. At our core, we are all human beings, subject to the same human desires and weaknesses that have evolved through the ages. What happened in Germany can happen in the US, and what happens in the US can happen in Canada. If someone had told my parents' generation that the nazis they were fighting would someday resurface in America and threaten our government, they would have laughed uproariously. Yet here we are.
I have learned to assume NOTHING about the long-term durability of human rights in any given region. I only pay attention to the robustness of the laws and the RELATIVE stability of societal norms. For the first time in my life, I no longer feel it is wise to own a home. I rent, so that I can easily move if needed. I have fled the US for what I assume is a safer country (it wasn't Canada), but I'm prepared to move to the next place. I feel I am trying to outrun a wildfire. We don't know where it will burn next, but I feel confident that it will eventually burn to exhaustion, and I may settle eventually upon the ashes where a horrific conflagration once raged. The trick is not to get burnt.
Yes, fight the fires of fascism with all your might, but also be prepared to retreat.
These folks are advocating for "parents' rights" while literally taking away the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their trans children. It would be amusing if it weren't so horrifying.
It's hard right now... it really is. At 53 years old it is impossible for me to explain to a lawmaker that given the choice at age 13... when I really started getting the full effects of male puberty that I would have given ANYTHING to prevent that from happening. How the anger and frustration of what I went through, into becoming a (my words) "testosterone burnt" adult ruined my life and left me with issues that I'm still working on to this very day.
I can't ask someone who isn't transgender to understand what it's like to be transgender. They can't. I can explain it a thousand times in a hundred different ways each time and they still won't really get it.
I'd have a MUCH easier time getting a person who was blind from birth to understand primary colors.
What I can ask is this... respect kids as intelligent human beings. When I was 12, I read Rodger Penrose, Issac Asimov, Richard Feynman, Michio Kaku, Nietzsche, and unwittingly Marcus Aurelius somehow which is where I get my stoicism... and others... and of course Plato because everyone does. If you haven't and have ever heard the word Atlantis... 🤷🏻♀️ what are you waiting for?
I guess this is a long winded way of saying that laws like this are insulting. They insult the intellectual and emotional intelligence of human beings in general... and especially those of us who had to grow up fast and become emotional adults very early in particular.
Deep down I'm still that little girl crying on the inside who was forced to be hard on the outside.
Difference now is I have 🖕🏻adult powers. Not a kid anymore and I'm do'ing me.
Which makes me especially aware of how f'd up it is for Alberta to do shit like this.
And here I thought being close to the Canadian border was a good thing 😞
<<How the anger and frustration of what I went through, into becoming a (my words) "testosterone burnt" adult ruined my life and left me with issues that I'm still working on to this very day.>>
Same. It took a lot of years and a lot of therapy. These days, that person is dead and gone. Complete compartmentalization. It's the only way I can cope with who he was and the damage he did. Same for my family. We are a lot happier now. Also --kind of a kick to be the teenager in a house full of 30-something "kids". (They hate it when I play that card. My wife of 44 years threatens to throw things at me.)
<<I can't ask someone who isn't transgender to understand what it's like to be transgender. They can't. I can explain it a thousand times in a hundred different ways each time and they still won't really get it.>>
Truth.
<<Deep down I'm still that little girl crying on the inside who was forced to be hard on the outside.>>
A lot of us are. I remember being that girl at four. and six. and sixteen... and crying myself to sleep because it hurt so bad. The only two people who ever seemed to understand were my father's mother and his sister. They just let me be me. I loved them for it. But then I always had to go back home.
There is literally no stopping point with these people.
This news makes me worry that Canada is not as safe as everyone thinks, and perhaps the rest of it is susceptible to what happened in the US but just on a delayed timescale.
Canadian here: Unfortunately that's true, and has been for as long as I can remember. While there are peculiarities of Canadian culture that have, in the past, tended to limit the severity, pretty much *every* sociopolitical trend of any significance in the US comes up over the border to Canada sooner or later. I haven't done any quantified tracking, but my sense of it - a guesstimate educated by decades of observation - is that the lag time is, on average and very roughly, two years.
Oh, you're too kind. I would like them imprisoned for life in museums about fascism - as living exhibits. Then when they die, I would like them unceremoniously dumped into mass graves, over which our nations' sewage treatment plants and landfills will be placed.
These mothers F will not stop. They are so bent on destroying the lives of people who present no danger or impose any way of life to anyone else. These ignorant politicians and groups I just do not understand what they think they will accomplish with these laws. They will not change any persons gene makeup, and who did not ask for them to be this way. They only want to be able to live their live in peace just like anyone else, and get the healthcare they need and deserve.
Good to see some coverage on EitM of events in my part of the world; thanks, S. Baum! (Though I'd infinitely prefer if we were getting no coverage because there was nothing here that needed covering.)
Danielle Smith is beyond contempt. The most cynical bastardization of the Charter in its history. Simply to try whatever she can to save her death spiral of a political career. She has no problem sacrificing a generation in her amoral search for a slight grasp of perceived power. Disgusted she is Canadian
Thank you for the reporting. I was trying to get my kid to Ontario or Quebec for college to be safer. That risk map is awful, yet such important info to have.
Eugene V. Debbs once said, “I shall not rise from the ranks but with the ranks.” Our ranks are world wide and so is their playbook. Let’s raise the world, or something ☺️
I live in Alberta and provide gender care for trans and neurodivergent clients. I also have a trans daughter, who is amazing. Know that there is a whole raft of affirming professionals and parents and trans folks fighting these laws and anti-trans sentiment every day. We are heartbroken and exhausted but also invigorated and gritty in the face of all of this. I am Canadian and this is not what Alberta stands for (and no, my country will not just cut this beautiful province loose, thank goodness…this provincial government though…yes please).
Don't hate the place, don't be angry at the people. Change the government.
Also, as an American... I do appreciate irony in those words I just wrote.
As an American, I think it's important that you have a clear vision of what the future could hold for you. I'm utterly shocked at this news, just as I have been utterly shocked at US news for especially the last decade. In my experience, you should not make assumptions for what Canada and/or Alberta do or don't stand for. At our core, we are all human beings, subject to the same human desires and weaknesses that have evolved through the ages. What happened in Germany can happen in the US, and what happens in the US can happen in Canada. If someone had told my parents' generation that the nazis they were fighting would someday resurface in America and threaten our government, they would have laughed uproariously. Yet here we are.
I have learned to assume NOTHING about the long-term durability of human rights in any given region. I only pay attention to the robustness of the laws and the RELATIVE stability of societal norms. For the first time in my life, I no longer feel it is wise to own a home. I rent, so that I can easily move if needed. I have fled the US for what I assume is a safer country (it wasn't Canada), but I'm prepared to move to the next place. I feel I am trying to outrun a wildfire. We don't know where it will burn next, but I feel confident that it will eventually burn to exhaustion, and I may settle eventually upon the ashes where a horrific conflagration once raged. The trick is not to get burnt.
Yes, fight the fires of fascism with all your might, but also be prepared to retreat.
These folks are advocating for "parents' rights" while literally taking away the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their trans children. It would be amusing if it weren't so horrifying.
It's hard right now... it really is. At 53 years old it is impossible for me to explain to a lawmaker that given the choice at age 13... when I really started getting the full effects of male puberty that I would have given ANYTHING to prevent that from happening. How the anger and frustration of what I went through, into becoming a (my words) "testosterone burnt" adult ruined my life and left me with issues that I'm still working on to this very day.
I can't ask someone who isn't transgender to understand what it's like to be transgender. They can't. I can explain it a thousand times in a hundred different ways each time and they still won't really get it.
I'd have a MUCH easier time getting a person who was blind from birth to understand primary colors.
What I can ask is this... respect kids as intelligent human beings. When I was 12, I read Rodger Penrose, Issac Asimov, Richard Feynman, Michio Kaku, Nietzsche, and unwittingly Marcus Aurelius somehow which is where I get my stoicism... and others... and of course Plato because everyone does. If you haven't and have ever heard the word Atlantis... 🤷🏻♀️ what are you waiting for?
I guess this is a long winded way of saying that laws like this are insulting. They insult the intellectual and emotional intelligence of human beings in general... and especially those of us who had to grow up fast and become emotional adults very early in particular.
Deep down I'm still that little girl crying on the inside who was forced to be hard on the outside.
Difference now is I have 🖕🏻adult powers. Not a kid anymore and I'm do'ing me.
Which makes me especially aware of how f'd up it is for Alberta to do shit like this.
And here I thought being close to the Canadian border was a good thing 😞
<<How the anger and frustration of what I went through, into becoming a (my words) "testosterone burnt" adult ruined my life and left me with issues that I'm still working on to this very day.>>
Same. It took a lot of years and a lot of therapy. These days, that person is dead and gone. Complete compartmentalization. It's the only way I can cope with who he was and the damage he did. Same for my family. We are a lot happier now. Also --kind of a kick to be the teenager in a house full of 30-something "kids". (They hate it when I play that card. My wife of 44 years threatens to throw things at me.)
<<I can't ask someone who isn't transgender to understand what it's like to be transgender. They can't. I can explain it a thousand times in a hundred different ways each time and they still won't really get it.>>
Truth.
<<Deep down I'm still that little girl crying on the inside who was forced to be hard on the outside.>>
A lot of us are. I remember being that girl at four. and six. and sixteen... and crying myself to sleep because it hurt so bad. The only two people who ever seemed to understand were my father's mother and his sister. They just let me be me. I loved them for it. But then I always had to go back home.
There is literally no stopping point with these people.
This news makes me worry that Canada is not as safe as everyone thinks, and perhaps the rest of it is susceptible to what happened in the US but just on a delayed timescale.
Canadian here: Unfortunately that's true, and has been for as long as I can remember. While there are peculiarities of Canadian culture that have, in the past, tended to limit the severity, pretty much *every* sociopolitical trend of any significance in the US comes up over the border to Canada sooner or later. I haven't done any quantified tracking, but my sense of it - a guesstimate educated by decades of observation - is that the lag time is, on average and very roughly, two years.
I hope whatever rich old fucks are pushing this die alone, and have their graves forgotten such that they aren’t even pissed on.
Oh, you're too kind. I would like them imprisoned for life in museums about fascism - as living exhibits. Then when they die, I would like them unceremoniously dumped into mass graves, over which our nations' sewage treatment plants and landfills will be placed.
Alberta is basically North Texas.
Source: a former Albertan.
These mothers F will not stop. They are so bent on destroying the lives of people who present no danger or impose any way of life to anyone else. These ignorant politicians and groups I just do not understand what they think they will accomplish with these laws. They will not change any persons gene makeup, and who did not ask for them to be this way. They only want to be able to live their live in peace just like anyone else, and get the healthcare they need and deserve.
This article requires a "hate," not a "love" option.
Alberta is the Oklahoma of Canada. Why doesn't the rest of the country just cut them loose.
Presumably for much the same reasons that the US doesn't cut Oklahoma loose.
Also because Canada is less inclined than you are to throw the many Albertans who oppose Smith's policies to her UCP wolf pack.
Um, excuse me, but if Canada allows Alberta to use the notwithstanding clause here, that's exactly what it will be doing.
Let me be clear here: *I* live in Alberta. Unless you do too, please refrain from explaining my situation to me.
(Edited to add: if you do also live in AB, my apologies for explaining your situation to you.)
On the slightly brighter side, this and many other actions by Smith and the UCP have riled up Albertans enough that there are recall petitions underway for nearly half of the UCP members of the legislature, including Smith herself (see https://calgary.citynews.ca/2025/12/10/alberta-premier-smith-two-more-ministers/).
Good to see some coverage on EitM of events in my part of the world; thanks, S. Baum! (Though I'd infinitely prefer if we were getting no coverage because there was nothing here that needed covering.)
Danielle Smith is beyond contempt. The most cynical bastardization of the Charter in its history. Simply to try whatever she can to save her death spiral of a political career. She has no problem sacrificing a generation in her amoral search for a slight grasp of perceived power. Disgusted she is Canadian
I'm about 80% sure she aspires to be Dagny Taggart.
I’m sorry, did I read that correctly? “Right to Breathe”….
Thank you for the reporting. I was trying to get my kid to Ontario or Quebec for college to be safer. That risk map is awful, yet such important info to have.
Excellent article as always.
Eugene V. Debbs once said, “I shall not rise from the ranks but with the ranks.” Our ranks are world wide and so is their playbook. Let’s raise the world, or something ☺️
Canada is making a mistake. They are following the bed choices of the United States..
Looks like there ARE rats in Alberta