You know what I absolutely cannot stand? When people who are uncomfortable with other people’s way of life use their kids to try and convince them to stop being whoever they are. I know what you’re saying: “My kids don’t need to know about this!” but all I hear is “I’m uncomfortable, and I don’t want to talk to my daughter about the feelings I’m projecting onto her, so you need to stop existing. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? Talk to my kids? Ew.”
Which is why it tickles me that the National Post (and it’s always the National Post — who are we kidding here?) is issuing an apology after running a full-page ad bashing trans folk. Seriously, how little foresight do you need not to see how that might be the worst idea ever? Hell, it even had vague tinges of dismissal for First Nations people, considering the shout-out to two-spirited people. You know, just in case the whole thing wasn’t dumb enough.
Here’s the thing: healthy debate is great. There are some subjects that are completely open to debate, because there’s no objectively right answer to the question. But when the question is “Hey, I’m a queer person. Do I have the same rights as straight people? Is it okay for kids to know I exist?” There is no debate on this. We’re all PEOPLE, and you can’t blink an entire group of people out of existence through denial. So hopefully they learned a little something about not running horrible offensive ads that denigrate an entire group of people.