This story was produced in collaboration with The Walrus.
There’s an iconic Mariah Carey lyric from 2009 that has echoed in my mind a lot lately while reading the news: “Boy, why you so obsessed with me?”
Carey is, of course, singing about a persistent suitor who just won’t quit. But in the news cycle of 2025, the “boy,” in this case, is the conservative media and political machine. And the “me” is, well, trans people at large. Once again, I have to ask: Why are they so obsessed with us?
The 2025 Canadian federal election campaign is underway, and it arrives in a moment where it seems like conservative media and politicians just can’t get enough of trans people. They’re seemingly addicted to discourse about pronouns and bathroom access. They’re fixated on high school girls’ volleyball, gender markers on passports, puberty blocker prescriptions or even haircuts. They accuse their opponents of forcing “radical gender ideology” onto young people, as they strip away peoples’ rights to healthcare and self-identification.
The first part of this century saw progressive politicians campaign on expanding LGBTQ2S+ rights—see: Obama-era expansions to marriage equality or Canada-wide “X” gender markers—while their right-wing opponents largely remained silent. But the script has flipped. Now, Donald Trump has won an election on the back of campaign ads like “Kamala is for they/them” and turned questions about the very existence of trans people into a Day One executive order. We’ve seen bad science like the Cass Review in the U.K. guide public health policy in that country and beyond, and U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer campaign on restricting trans women from women’s spaces. Yes, the current anti-trans movement was born in the United Kingdom and United States, but make no mistake: it has found roots in Canada too.
Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre has embraced much of the anti-trans discourse from abroad. Last year, he spoke out against puberty blockers for young people and trans women in women’s spaces, arguing that “female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for ‘biological males.’” And this January, following Trump’s inauguration, he parroted the U.S. president’s stance about being aware of “only two genders.”
While the major parties have largely been quiet on LGBTQ2S+ issues so far in the campaign, we’ve already seen certain corners of the right-wing media machine trying to create discussion about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s family. The far-right outlet Juno News (founded by columnist Candice Malcolm and Rebel News alum Keean Bexte earlier this year) recently ran a “story” claiming to “expose” Liberal leader Mark Carney’s adult child Sasha as trans. The story’s reporters Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Alex Zoltan suggest Carney is somehow “hiding” Sasha and their experiences accessing gender-affirming care in the U.K., and that is somehow by extension a reflection on Carney’s capabilities as a parent and potential prime minister.
Predictably, the story was picked up on X and circulated by various familiar faces of the anti-trans movement, including Canada’s own “Billboard Chris,” or Chris Elston—known for harassing LGBTQ2S+ people and allies at protests.
That story even broke containment from the far-right internet. When I posted a TikTok video for Xtra about the lack of cabinet positions speaking to LGBTQ2S+ issues, many viewers posted comments about the story, suggesting that Carney’s kid’s existence counts as proof of his support for trans communities. Writing for his newsletter, political journalist Justin Ling called the Juno News story a “low point” of the campaign before it even began. “It is a violation of the unspoken rule that politicians’ kids are off-limits. And, on top of that, the story is factually wrong—an example of the sloppy faux-journalism employed by these anti-trans bigots in the name of a crusade.” (Ling points out that the Juno authors wrongly state that Sasha Carney received gender-affirming care at the U.K.’s Tavistock gender identity clinic, which Sasha has explicitly said did not happen.)
It is also another example of right-wing media using misinformation or speculation to stoke moral panic around trans rights. (It doesn’t matter to these outlets that puberty blockers have been proven time and time again to be safe, or that there is no evidence that cis men are masquerading as trans women in bathrooms.) Poilievre and other conservative politicians—even when not explicitly endorsing these narratives themselves—seem content to let them fester into electoral wedge issues, something the well-meaning “just asking questions” crowd can latch on to.
Last year, Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe claimed that there was widespread desire for his school pronouns policy—which would forcibly out kids to their parents if they used a different name or pronoun at school—yet later admitted to not hearing from a single parent whose kid actually hid their gender at school. Action4Canada, a right-wing group that was instrumental in the Freedom Convoy, took credit for getting the policy introduced in Saskatchewan, claiming to have sent more than 10,000 emails to Moe and education minister Dustin Duncan via the signing of an online petition.
Last year, Alberta premier Danielle Smith justified her ban on trans women from women’s sports by citing a video she saw online of a—to quote her words—“much stronger transgender female” body-slamming another player. The problem? The video in question actually featured a cis athlete. The misinformation that it involved a trans player was boosted by far-right media.
That’s how wedge issues work in elections. This obsession with trans people preys on very specific fears people across the political spectrum hold: the safety of women and children. The hyperfixation on trans young people suggests kids being taken advantage of by some sort of big bad gender ideology agenda. The fixation on trans women in women’s spaces preys on the patriarchal desire to protect and coddle cis women—or at least appear as if it is protecting them.
Remaining silent on these issues—or worse, validating them in any way—is not a winning strategy for liberals and progressives. The right will continue to weaponize these insecurities, and the only viable defence is strong, committed support for queer and trans communities that dispels this fear and reminds voters that feminism is trans-inclusive. The big malicious movement trying to take advantage of kids is actually these conservative voices, and if other parties want to actually show allyship—and earn the votes of LGBTQ2S+ people and our allies, they need to say or do something to combat the outright misinformation being spread.
Otherwise, as we saw in the United States, as long as that keeps working, the right is going to keep on pushing it. The obsession continues.
With the 2025 Canadian federal election underway, Xtra is bringing back our weekly pop-up election newsletter, Rainbow Votes. Subscribe now for free exclusive reporting, analysis and opinion in your inbox every Thursday.
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