The New Brunswick Women’s Council is slamming the organized backlash against the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in the province, which has been connected to the review of a policy that protects queer students.
In a 15-page brief, the council spoke about the claims being made about the queer community and the policies that protect them.
It used words like organized backlash, misinformation, disinformation and far-right extremism. According to executive director Beth Lyons, it goes beyond that.
“There are also some particular characteristics that actually tell us that it is fascism and not just plain old right-wing extremism,” she said. “The fact that it’s fascism matters because it is not interested in remaining small or a fringe minority. It wants to grow and to entrench power.”
Lyons said this rhetoric is even more trouble given that the information isn’t based on evidence or data. She said the government repeating misinformation and disinformation makes it even more problematic.
“We’re profoundly concerned by this because what it sounds like from our perspective, which is based in evidence, it is based in expertise, what it sounds like to us, is that the government is echoing some of the talking points of this far-right extremist, fascist backlash,” she said.
The claims include that drag story time is being used to “groom children.” It’s something Premier Blaine Higgs has said on a number of occasions that he doesn’t think young children should be exposed to.
It also includes claims that trans individuals place cisgendered women at a disadvantage in sports. Another claim Higgs mentioned directly during scrums with reporters this month.
There are also claims about sex education and the appropriateness of what is taught at what grade level.
Another issue raised by Higgs is the rights of the parent to know whether a child has chosen to change their name or pronoun – effectively allowing teachers to out students to their family.
All this, Lyons said, only serves to further marginalize the queer community. She said the government has been provided with plenty of evidence-based information and should be acting on it.
She said it is likely that the trajectory of this misinformation is being sent from U.S. politics, and is heavily influencing the narrative here.
Lyons said you can see how harmful the policies developed in the U.S. have become to this community.
In the end, she said, this will only serve to place the queer community at risk, and expose them to violence.
“By looking at this fuller context, the scale and nature of the organized backlash comes into focus. The organized backlash is not just undeniably part of far-right extremism, it is fascist,” the brief read. “The threat to the 2SLGBTQIA+ people and communities should be clear. The organized backlash is dehumanizing the 2SLBTQIA+ community while repeating that they are harming women and children. This is a recipe for violence—which the community is already at elevated risk of.”
Lyons said the harm the government is causing by placing legitimacy to these claims cannot be undone, but acknowledged.
“When we see far right extremism and facism take hold in this way and we see government echoing it’s questions, it’s just a threat to the queer and trans community, it is a threat to racialized community, it is a threat to disabled people, it is a threat to immigrant communities, it’s a threat to women and girls, it is a threat to everyone in New Brunswick and democracy as an institution,” she said.
She is calling on the government to immediately halt the review of policy 713, and to publicly acknowledge the harm done to this community.
Global News requested comment from the premier and education minister on the brief made public by the NBWC, but did not receive a response by publication time.
In a statement on Thursday though, the Higgs issued this email statement: “This issue has been discussed with caucus and it’s being left with Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Bill Hogan to continue his work on this file,” it read. “There are three sections of Policy 713 being reviewed. Until that work is done, we will not comment any further.”
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