Justin Trudeau Wants To Ban Being Openly Gay

Online Harms Act? More 'Don't Say Gay Bill, But For Real This Time'.

Hate speech legislation has been a bone of contention across the Anglosphere over the past few years. Scotland faced intense criticism from figures such as J.K Rowling over their Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, and were barraged with frivolous complaints, with only 3.8% being authentic. New Zealand shelved a similar bill in 2023, and now Canada wants a turn on the hate speech merry-go-round with Bill C-63, the ‘Online Harms Act’, described by the world’s biggest Twitter-controversy aficionado Elon Musk as ‘insane’.

Turns out, it is pretty crazy. Margaret Atwood called it ‘Orwellian’ as described in Canada’s National Post:

“Atwood took issue with the portion of the bill that says if a person “fears on reasonable grounds that another person will commit” a hate crime, a judge can order their imprisonment, subject them to house arrest or insist they wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

Reasonable grounds is a lower level of proof for a court to consider than the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt and in the court could punish someone even if they have yet to commit the allegedly hateful offence.

“The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting!” wrote Atwood on X last Friday.

The bill has come under intense criticism from civil liberties advocates and right-wing social media personalities.”

Noted right-wing social media personalities like Jacobin have also raised concerns about the bill:

“While existing Canadian jurisprudence addresses speech-related issues, Open Media, a digital-rights advocacy organization, warns that the tribunal process included in the bill for certain offenses “is not obligated to follow normal rules of evidence in court, or evaluate whether the offending speech was true.” There is also worry that Bill C-63 is too broad, too punitive with carceral and financial penalties, too far reaching, and too open to abuse.”

Some of the earlier coverage has focused on the way freedom of speech in Canada would be greatly impinged by such a bill. That’s important, yes, but I think we’re missing something here. I’ll explain that first; then I’ll get into the weeds of the bill. Because no one’s really talked about what’s considered ‘hate’ these days, and you’ll find that ‘hate’ these days includes homosexuality.

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After all, what exactly is ‘hateful’ these days?

When you have protected classes that are in essential conflict with another (sex and sexual orientation vs gender identity), who’s defining what’s 'hateful’ is kind of important. Perhaps very important, even, given that being openly homosexual is enough to get you a ban from social media sites or dating platforms for being ‘hateful’. Saying women don’t have penises can be considered ‘hateful’. Writing a 25,000 word expose on the funding of the trans movement and reporting on what trans activist organizations actually say is also ‘hateful’ and will get you banned from Medium. It’s a broad concept.

I wanted to see what was actually considered ‘hateful’ these days. Or at least provide you enough evidence of what’s considered ‘hateful’ in the ‘disinformation space’ someone like Justin Trudeau is almost certainly listening to when pushing bills like this. Especially given Justin Trudeau pronounced last year that:

“Trans women are women. We will always stand up to this hate – whenever and wherever it occurs.”

So if calling a man a man is hate, what else is, for someone like Justin Trudeau? I decided to find out, and to do that, I googled ‘LGB Alliance Hate Group’, because that’s actually a very useful proxy for what progressives think about moderate gender-critical gays and lesbians, or homosexuals in general, these days.

The ‘Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’, funded with nearly $300,000 from persons and parts unknown, and run by two former Southern Poverty Law Centre drones out of a UPS mailbox in Montgomery, Alabama, attracted attention after listing both the LGB Alliance Irish and Australian chapters, as ‘hate groups’, grouping them with Neo-Nazis, for such evil hateful things as this statement:

We recognise that sex is binary, female and male, and that (for the vast majority of people) sex is determined at conception, observed at birth (or in utero), and recorded. We reject the co-opting of rare medical Differences in Sexual Development (DSDs/intersex conditions) in order to cast doubt on the binary nature of sex.” LGBAA follows the same advocacy as its UK namesake. LGBAA is particularly concerned in having transgender people portrayed as women. For example, LGAA wrote the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) to complain about the program “You Can’t Ask That,” which focused on lesbians, having “a male who calls himself “Rosie.” Rosie is clearly male and talks about his penis and using his penis as a “lesbian.” As lesbians, we are highly offended by the assertion that a male can be a lesbian or that lesbians should include males in our communities and our dating pools.

I didn’t know being a lesbian made you equivalent to a Nazi now! I just thought I was a ‘sexual racist’. Clearly, me and every other homosexual on the planet has upgraded to an ideology where we want to… murder ourselves en masse? Hm! Maybe calling gay-rights groups you disagree with with Neo-Nazis and calling them hate groups is actually very offensive! Someone tell the ‘GPAHE’, immediately!¹. Oh wait, they’ve listed the acronym ‘LGB’ as a hate symbol on the same database as swastikas. Never mind.

"LGB" is term that is deployed in order to disassociate equal rights for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals from those of trans people by removing the "T" from "LGBT."

No shit, Sherlock.

Prominent UK charity ‘Hope Not Hate’ which describes itself as fighting racism and fascism, also links in LGB Alliance chapters capriciously with the ‘far right’ on this basis:

The American far-right “citizen journalist” Andy Ngo, who frequently posts anti-trans content on his social media, attended a conference organised by British group LGB Alliance in October as a member of the press. LGB Alliance is an anti-trans campaign group formed in October 2018. Ngo had left his job as editor of Quillette after it was revealed that he knew that the far-right group Patriot Prayer was planning violence without reporting it. Attending and reporting from the LGB Alliance conference exposed both Ngo’s and LGB Alliance’s audiences to one another.

Firstly, Andy Ngo is openly gay (he also considers himself center-right). He is quite literally ‘the audience’ for the LGB Alliance.

Hope Not Hate’s ‘State of Hate 2024’ has ten mentions of the word ‘gay’, zero of the word ‘lesbian’, 3 for ‘homosexual’, 17 for ‘LGBTQ’, and fifty-six of the word ‘trans’, if you want to understand their priorities. (Clearly hate towards homosexuals isn’t very important to them?).²

Hope Not Hate also describe the UK Conversative Party’s sensible reversals on trans rights and affirmations of homosexuality as exclusive same-sex attraction as part of a ‘growing radical right wing’ and state they must combat this as ‘anti-fascists’.

In the US, the Southern Poverty Law Centre describes groups like ‘Gays Against Groomers’ as ‘extremist groups’ and warns of such awful rhetoric as:

“I don’t think that any kid […] should be learning about this stuff [sex education] until they’re well into their teen years. I mean, like 16, 17, 18.

Quelle horreur!

Of all the things Gays Against Groomers have said, and this is listed as ‘extremist content’?

Now, for the record, I personally am not keen on people and groups who theorize about the great pedophile conspiracy animating the trans movement and think that whole concept is a tiny bit batshit³, though I do one hundred per cent believe and have personal experience of the trans movement serving as a cover for some very, very nasty predators (though this is a problem for any kind of movement in general). But when the SPLC is describing this as extremist rhetoric, we have problem:

Similarly, GAG claims it is not anti-trans; however, the group seems to tokenize trans participants in its activism and rhetoric, appearing to view trans experiences as valuable only when they can be co-opted or used to extoll negative experiences associated with transition-related health care. For example, on its website in response to the question “Why won’t GAG denounce the T entirely?” – which implies the group already partially denounces trans identity – the group says that trans “voices are vital in exposing how transitioning can affect a child. [...] They have first hand experience with the medications and procedures that we as gay people do not. We must work together to end the transing [sic] of children being done in our names.”

GAG founder Jaimee Michell has also claimed that trans people represent “just another way to try to get lesbians to somehow want to be with men” and admitted “the notion” of trans people experiencing same-sex attraction “makes me cringe, it makes me uncomfortable.” While claiming to “welcome trans voices that align with our mission,” the statements appear to deny the humanity and existence of trans people who do not share their goals of ending gender-affirming care and drag performances. Even then, GAG’s leadership appears to have internalized the transphobia the group regularly promotes.

The thing with Gays Against Groomers is they’re effectively right-wing gay people who vote for Donald Trump who occasionally say some wild things and like boundaries and Ron DeSantis. That’s enough to get you branded as an ‘extremist group’ these days (28% of gay Americans voted for Trump in 2020, up from 14% in 2016, so that’s a big extremist group).

Now, these examples I found with a fairly cursory Google search. It is very easy to find another half a dozen groups claiming to be combating ‘radical-right extremism’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘hate’, all of whom will probably claim that calling a man a man is a hate crime on par with the Holocaust and people calling men men are wicked and evil Nazis who hate ‘LGBTQIS328312S2SDJKB4129HDFS’ people. The fact that many of these people calling men men are lesbian and gay is either ignored, or we’re being manipulated by dark and evil forces on the right who’ve dragged us away from our natural allies, heterosexual men in dresses demanding we call them lesbians.

Maybe the question we really should be asking is not what’s defined as ‘hateful’ these days, but who’s defining what’s ‘hateful’, as it sure ain’t people who think lesbians do not have penises.

And in Canada? The CSIS (Canada’s CIA) told Canadian state outlet CBC that the ‘anti-gender extremist movement’ is on the rise. and poses a risk of ‘extreme violence’, even though the trans movement in Canada has a long documented history of extreme violence themselves.

So know we know what kind of definition of ‘hateful’ we’re working with - the ‘fighting hate movement’ believes that homosexuality is hateful - so how does the Online Harms Act shove gay people back in the closet?

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The Online Harms Act: Don’t Say You’re Gay, That’s Hate

I’ll start with this, which I haven’t seen too much discussion of:

Orders regarding discriminatory practices

4 A discriminatory practice, as described in sections 5 to 14.‍1, may be the subject of a complaint under Part III and anyone found to be engaging or to have engaged in a discriminatory practice may be made subject to an order as provided for in section 53 or 53.‍1.

(All bolding (and that following) original)

‘Discriminatory practices’ as outlined in Canada’s human rights legislation include discriminating on the basis of various protected grounds, including sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. They are defined broadly as discriminating in terms of employment, accommodation provision, and goods and services, along with harassment and sexual harassment.

More dangerous is these new ‘discriminatory practices’ introduced in the Online Harms Act. Here’s the first one:

Communication of hate speech

13 (1) It is a discriminatory practice to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech by means of the Internet or any other means of telecommunication in a context in which the hate speech is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

If someone breaches these, then under section 4, they become liable to being subject to an order under section 53, as outlined in the prior quotation. So what’s section 53?

53.‍1 If at the conclusion of an inquiry the member or panel conducting the inquiry finds that a complaint in relation to a discriminatory practice described in section 13 is substantiated, the member or panel may make one or more of only the following orders against the person found to be engaging or to have engaged in the discriminatory practice:

(a) an order to cease the discriminatory practice and take measures, in consultation with the Commission on the general purposes of the measures, to redress the practice or to prevent the same or a similar practice from recurring;

(b) an order to pay compensation of not more than $20,000 to any victim identified in the communication that constituted the discriminatory practice, for any pain and suffering that the victim experienced as a result of that discriminatory practice, if that person created or developed, in whole or in part, the hate speech to which the complaint relates; or

(c) an order to pay a penalty of not more than $50,000 to the Receiver General, if the member or panel considers it appropriate having regard to the nature, circumstances, extent and gravity of the discriminatory practice, the wilfulness or intent of that person, any prior discriminatory practices that that person has engaged in and that person’s ability to pay the penalty.

So say you publish a pamphlet about supporting the LGB Alliance. Remember, at least one ‘anti-hate’ group has defined the ‘LGB’ acronym as a hate symbol. If that’s viewed as ‘hates speech’, you could face penalties for discriminatory practice. Up to CAD$20,000 in restitution to the victim of you saying ‘LGB’, and then CAD$50,000 to the Canadian government. What if you’re one of those little old ladies putting up ‘Women don’t have penises’ stickers? Is the billboard guy going to the gulag?

So with financial penalties of potentially $70,000 Canadian dollars, do you think you’ll be doing that any time soon? No.

And don’t just think it’ll apply only to future homosexual indiscretions, oh no because here’s the second discriminatory practice:

Continuous communication

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person communicates or causes to be communicated hate speech so long as the hate speech remains public and the person can remove or block access to it.”

Retroactive prosecution is all the rage these days.

And just for extra illiberalism, you potentially can’t know the identity of your accuser(s):

Non-disclosure of identity — Commission

(8) The Commission may deal with a complaint in relation to a discriminatory practice described in section 13 without disclosing, to the person against whom the complaint was filed or to any other person, the identity of the alleged victim, the individual or group of individuals that has filed the complaint or any individual who has given evidence or assisted the Commission in any way in dealing with the complaint, if the Commission considers that there is a real and substantial risk that any of those individuals will be subjected to threats, intimidation or discrimination.

I can’t wait to see how nasty men use this to abuse women. Because that’s what’s going to happen: Nasty, homophobic straight men with no respect for the boundaries of lesbians and gays can and will use laws like these to harass lesbians and gay men for refusing to kowtow to them. And they can do it anonymously. How on earth did no one look at this and go ‘that’s open for abuse’?

It’s not like Canada has a history of borderline vexatious transgender litigants abusing anti-discrimination law.

But the worst is yet to come:

“Fear of hate propaganda offence or hate crime

810.‍012 (1) A person may, with the Attorney General’s consent, lay an information before a provincial court judge if the person fears on reasonable grounds that another person will commit

• (a) an offence under section 318 or any of subsections 319(1) to (2.‍1); or

• (b) an offence under section 320.‍1001.”

Again, who’s defining what’s ‘reasonable’? Gaining the ‘consent of the Attorney General’ is not that difficult in Canada - the process is outlined here.

The parties then are taking to a court hearing where the fear is adjudicated:

“Adjudication

(3) If the provincial court judge before whom the parties appear is satisfied by the evidence adduced that the informant has reasonable grounds for the fear, the judge may order that the defendant enter into a recognizance to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for a period of not more than 12 months.

If you’ve been previously convicted of a ‘hate offense’, this period is two years. Section 6 of the proposed Act outlines what conditions can be included in the recognizance order, including wearing an electronic monitoring device, a curfew, forced abstention from drugs and alcohol, providing urine samples on demand for drug tests, provide urine samples at regular intervals, and abstain from ‘communicating directly or indirectly with any person identified in the recognizance', or going to any place specified in the recognizance. Oh, and they can take away any guns you may or may not have.

If you refuse to comply with or recognize this nonsense, you can receive up to twelve months in jail. And you can be accused anonymously and have no right to confront your accuser in court.

Phew. And we haven’t even committed a crime yet, just had someone fear the potential for committing a crime. And you can go to jail for that.

Well if we’re putting people in jail if over people fearing they might commit a hate crime, we better have an objectively, iron-clad totally not debatable definition of what hate is, right?

hatred means the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike; (haine)

🤔

Let me put it this way - stating ‘lesbians don’t have penises’ could be construed as a hateful act or a discriminatory practice under Canadian law under this bill⁴. Because some man who says he’s a lesbian finds that hateful. Even Justin Trudeau thinks that’s hateful, so that man has the Prime Minister on his side. That man can then anonymously complain, your ‘communication’ of this on social media even before the law came into force or elsewhere (to his face), and if the court deems someone telling a man that he is not a lesbian is hateful, or potentially indicates the potential for future hate speech, well, say goodbye to your freedoms. Oh, and if it’s substantiated, he gets up to CAD$20,000. This can only go swimmingly well, of course!⁵

Being gay and on the Trumpian right is enough to be called an extremist group these days. At least one ‘anti-hate’ group is proclaiming the just the acronym ‘LGB’ to be a hate symbol, let alone the LGB Alliance, who are just full on haters in at least two countries. In Canada, if this law passes, holding those viewpoints and having someone fear you expressing or acting on them could potentially lead to you living under house arrest or in jail. That’s nuts.

Tweet that gay sex between men involves only people with penises? Put ‘REAL WOMEN ONLY’ on your lesbian dating profile? That might be a hateful communication. It might induce fear there could be more hateful communications. Straight off to house arrest or jail for you, and CAD$20,000 for your anonymized accuser, who you are legally not allowed to confront in court or even know their identity!

Many people will and have written about the free speech concerns with this bill. As a lesbian, however, I get a unique viewpoint on this sort of legislation that perhaps a straight person doesn’t. Lesbians, bisexuals and gays didn’t have the right to free speech in the US until 1958, when it was decided removing our publications from the mail for being ‘obscene’ was a violation of the First Amendment. Without free speech gay rights don’t exist - and as we can see, this Canadian attempt to curtail free speech once again reinforces state homophobia.

All this Canadian law does is shove homosexuals back in a closet, unless they’re willing to play along with role-playing heterosexuals and be acceptable and concede to at least nominally including the opposite sex in their sexuality (even if no one actually does), or they’ll be branded hateful and potentially face jail time if they’re honest. It’s ludicrous.

Maybe I’m being alarmist. Maybe this bill will fall over. Hopefully it does. But it’s a scary thing to see a country that considers itself progressive and forward-thinking to even consider essentially recriminalizing homosexuality once again.

Gay marriage being on the books in a country officially means nothing. After, there’s not much point in same-sex marriage when you can’t say you’re a homosexual, right?

1. I’m not the only one who thinks ‘communist secret police’ when I see that acronym, am I?

2. Their 2023 report mentions ‘In the UK, the reality of anti-LGBT+ prejudice is starkly illustrated by government hate crime statistics. In the year ending March 2022, there were 26,152 recorded hate crimes relating to “sexual orientation” and 4,355 relating to “transgender identity”.’ yet if you’d read it, you’d think that the biggest issue for the gay community is Posie Parker and opposition to drag queen story time. Even the next paragraph discussing this statistic blames ‘transphobia’. Sexual orientation just doesn’t matter these days.

3. Occam’s Razor, people: when autogynephilia, misogyny and homophobia combine, you get the modern trans movement.

4. This has been the case in similar jurisdictions, like Australia, who have had human rights tribunals consistently find that lesbian women refusing to recognize men as lesbians is discriminatory and hateful; as a result, lesbians can no longer lawfully gather on their own in Australia without it being considered unlawful discrimination on the basis of gender identity. I wrote about this here.

5. The inevitable outcome: five hundred thousand vexatious CAD$20,000-seeking complaints later, the Canadian court system goes bankrupt. Someone will say ‘This was a bad idea, eh?’ passive-aggressively.