Instagram has become an essential progressive organizing tool.
Shareable graphics, the ability to repost something effortlessly to your stories and the platform’s “Discover” feed have led to a surge in accounts focused on raising awareness of issues like LGBTQ2S+ rights. Pair that with the easy accessibility of graphic design platforms like Canva, and in 2026, anyone can go viral with engaging, shareable content about the issues that matter to them.
This is, on a base level, a good thing. Open information-sharing and citizen journalism empowers us all. But problems arise when this shareability and virality comes at the expense of nuance.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the wake of the wave of panic that circulated around my feed this weekend over a possible trans bathroom bill in Alberta. And it raises a lot of concern over the way that queer and trans activists and individuals share information on the platform, particularly in a world where Canadian news organizations are banned from Meta platforms under Bill C-18.
Is an Alberta bathroom bill incoming?
Here is what’s true. Alberta MLA for Livingstone-Macleod, Chelsae Petrovic, brought forward a petition to the legislature last week.
Petrovic read out the petition, signed by 791 Albertans, that calls for “the Legislative Assembly to (a) acknowledge the erosion of dignity and privacy of biological females and cis-gender women of all ages in public-use changerooms and showering facilities in Alberta, and (b) urge the Government to introduce legislation that, if enacted, will require all public and university sporting complexes and aquatic centres in Alberta to provide a biological female and cis-gender women-only changeroom and showering facility to protect and respect the dignity, privacy and comfort of females of all ages.”
On its face, that certainly sounds like a bathroom ban getting tabled in the Alberta legislature. Posts about the petition raising alarm bells swiftly circulated, where an Instagram post shared by the advocacy group Trans Action Alberta got more than 2,500 likes and was shared more than 1,500 times.
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“Yesterday, MLA Petrovic introduced a petition not yet publicly available, that will seek to create cisgender only washroom facilities and discriminate access based on sex,” the group wrote in the caption. “When we know more, you will know more. This somehow has not made it into the public eye although it was introduced yesterday. If this petition is successful, albertans will continue to lose human rights.”
And while this post comes from a place of good intent, it is also emblematic of the very real problems with social media as a space for information-sharing and activism. Accounts like this will often smooth over the facts in favour of easy shareability, and that leads to a massive media-literacy problem for progressive folks who want to do good online.
The truth isn’t always as shareable
Here’s what this petition isn’t: it’s not a law. It’s not even a bill. ln fact, this document, while presented by a UCP MLA in Petrovic, didn’t even originate from Smith’s government. It is a citizen petition signed by 791 “concerned Albertans,” who brought it to Petrovic to read in the legislature, under the same legislature policies that lead to many other petitions getting tabled every year.
It is a group of Albertans asking for a bill.
Public petitions are a regular part of legislature proceedings and are frequently introduced as a way to garner public opinion and let everyday folks feel heard in the legislature. There’s a long history of them in parliamentary democracies like Canada dating back to 13th-century England. Pretty much anyone can get a bunch of people to sign a paper and have an MLA read it out. Petitions are brought forward all the time that never lead to actual policy. Last month saw a petition tabled on exploring proportional representation. That’s not happening anytime soon in Alberta.
For context on the bathroom bill petition in particular, 791 people is equal to under 5 percent of the number of people who voted for Petrovic in her suburban riding in the last provincial election.
That is, to be blunt, a tiny number of Albertans.
Compare that to back in late 2024 when Smith’s government tabled its now infamous trio of anti-trans laws, opposition MLAs presented a slew of petitions meant to show how opposed to them Albertans were—including one presented by MLA Janis Irwin signed by more than 12,000 Albertans. Those didn’t change any legislation.
I am far from the first person to want to give Danielle Smith’s Alberta government credit. There are very real and dangerous pieces of legislation in place in Alberta that are actively harming queer and trans people and their loved ones. And there is a very possible future where something like a bathroom bill enters the conversation. But that future is not now, and I think being realistic about what this particular petition is and isn’t actually happening is essential if LGBTQ2S+ people and our allies want to actually enact change.
Smoothing over the facts
There is a real truth problem on Instagram in particular, as it anecdotally seems to be the place where many progressives share information. And I’m not simply talking about the extremes of the spectrum in terms of “fake news” or misinformation. Well-meaning progressives can fall into the trap of sensationalism too.
In Canada, Bill C-18 has exacerbated this problem, as journalistic news organizations (including us here at Xtra) are either banned from Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram, or must jump through hoops to mask their journalistic nature. This has led to a rise of influencers, advocates and activists serving as the primary source of information for many social media users. It has also led to a new generation of independent journalists pulling from the lexicon and tactics of those groups in order to break through the noise.
To be clear, I don’t fundamentally have a problem with this. I appreciate the work that various trans advocacy groups and individuals in Alberta and across Canada do in spreading the word about the rolling back of LGBTQ2S+ rights. When many mainstream outlets are failing to adequately cover LGBTQ2S+ communities across North America—or being blocked from platforms like Instagram—social-media-savvy advocates have stepped up to raise awareness and drum up support. Look at the rise of independent journalists who pull from social influencer tactics and lingo, like Erin Reed in the U.S. or Rachel Gilmore in Canada, generating huge audiences along the way.
But there is a difference between raising awareness and spreading unjustified panic. And I fear that many well-intentioned folks often slip to the latter.
You’ve likely seen the flashy colour-coded “Canada Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Map” circulate on your feeds. Compiled by Montreal-based trans activist Celeste Trianon, the graphic shows the province and territories categorized by colour according to their apparent risk of anti-trans legislation, and is updated and reposted periodically. But Trianon’s methods are a bit fuzzy—yes, actual laws like Alberta’s are factored into her categorization, but so are the private members’ bills tabled by independent B.C. MLA Tara Armstrong, who is nowhere close to forming government or influencing actual legislation.
On a recent post of the map as of March 2026, one commenter asked Trianon to explain why Ontario was ranked as moderate risk despite no active anti-trans legislation. Trianon replied that it was justified due to Premier Doug Ford’s affinity for using the Notwithstanding Clause.
“If we focus on the ‘what could happen’ then ultimately there is no blue to be put anywhere on the map,” the commenter replied back.
Sensationalism shares
It is easy to default to sensationalist and simplified language when it comes to these topics, because that is what drives people to share and comment. Responding to other skeptical comments on the post, Trianon argued that she would rather be overly cautious because “the stakes are so high.”
But in casting provinces like B.C.—which has a relatively progressive NDP government and some of the best trans healthcare in the world—as “moderate risk” on the backs of a few private members’ bills that failed, and the possibility that the B.C. Conservative Party might one day form government—only serves to stoke unnecessary fear and drive engagement.
I understand that explaining the nuances of legislative policy isn’t super shareable online and that these platforms reward simplistic sensationalism—but clarity is important. Because these posts get lives of their own in people’s Instagram stories, where they warp through the ever-shifting social media game of Broken Telephone. They drive real-life decisions about where people choose to live, and how out they are.
Obviously I have skin in this game as a trans journalist who’s covered LGBTQ2S+ issues for most of my career. The act of doing journalism is a series of decisions in service of the truth and your audience. We make decisions on what stories to cover, how to write the headline, what quote to put first and second and countless other tiny things.
In her year-end piece for Xtra last year, U.S.-based journalist Katelyn Burns broke down her process for deciding what to cover when it comes to the wave of anti-trans legislation constantly crashing down across the U.S.
“There’s a thin line between informing readers and scaring them needlessly. People need to be informed of what’s happening, but trying to deliver—and conversely, trying to get them to consume—every bit of news is like trying to drink from a firehose,” she wrote. “If you keep drinking, you’ll be drowning before you know it.”
To be frank, some bad news about trans rights is more important and pressing than others. While the Trans Action Alberta account expressed surprise that the bathroom petition “somehow had not made it into the public eye,” there is a reason that the wider media didn’t cover it: it’s not really worthy of a story. The media rarely covers public petitions like this—particularly one with fewer than 1,000 signatures—because it’s not a tangible policy. It’s not changing anything right now.
Media literacy is key
That’s not to say this bathroom ban petition is irrelevant. I’m not arguing that we should not talk about it at all. That Petrovic was willing to present the petition in the first place shows that she at least agrees with it in part, and the proposal itself doesn’t feel out of place amongst the recent slate of Alberta legislation. This is part of a larger ideological shift in Canada’s right, and it is notable that an elected official felt comfortable enough to bring something like this to the legislature floor. Maybe one day Smith’s government will cite this petition when putting forward some sort of bill or law.
I by no means mean to minimize the very real risk to trans people that Smith’s government presents, but there is a difference between a proposal that doesn’t feel out of place in government legislation, and actual government legislation.
My plea as a journalist to activists like Trianon and accounts like Trans Action Alberta who’ve built these massive audiences on Instagram is that they recognize the responsibility they hold in the absence of Canadian news from these spaces. When you present a panic button, it creates a huge ripple that spreads across the stories and feeds of thousands of concerned people, and in its own way serves to spread misinformation.
And to readers, I know it sounds 101, but think critically about what you’re sharing and reposting. What facts have been sanded down to make that post super shareable and pull at your emotions? What nuance is missing? What sources or citations is a post using? And what do you contribute by sharing these kinds of posts?
When it comes to something like the anti-trans movement across Canada, this is a marathon, not a sprint. There is a time for panic and urgency, and a constant torrent of panic over these small things dilutes the moments that actually call for it.
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