Transactivist terror silences women
Threatened, censored, assaulted: those who defend the rights of (real) women against transactivism often pay a heavy price.
In a recent article published in La Presse, journalist Louise Leduc echoes some criticisms directed at the report of the wise committees on gender identity: most of the people who came to testify before the committee did so anonymously, which, according to her critics, would render the exercise not credible.
Why not seek to understand the reason that led so many people to remain in the shadows?
Elements of response
We offer you a small non-exhaustive list that could give a good idea on the issue.
In the United Kingdom first, we could talk about Maya Forstater who lost her job in 2019 after stating on X that transgender women cannot change sex.
Or about Kathleen Stock, an openly lesbian philosophy professor who opposed gender self-identification and had to resign from her position after several months of harassment from protesters.
And of course, of the writer J.K. Rowling, who was scorned after reminding, in a humorous message on X, that only women can have menstruations. She received several death threats in addition to experiencing constant harassment in her daily life.
In the United States, Lisa Littman, a doctor and researcher, published a study after noticing that the profiles of transgender individuals no longer resembled those that had long been known.
She observed and well documented the fact that many young girls, especially, and some young boys, experience dysphoria that appears during adolescence – what she called "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria."
The results of her research were heavily criticized. The journal Plos One retracted the study (but later reinstated it with a critical warning), and Littman had to leave her position at Brown University.
Lisa Littman is just one example among hundreds of people in the United States whose reputation and employment have been jeopardized because they spoke publicly on the issue.
Censorship and intimidation: Canada is not spared
In Canada, we could take the example of the Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter, a refuge for women victims of violence, which had to fight hard to survive.
After having its funding suspended for refusing to offer services to men who identified as women, the management of the facility had to wait for the Supreme Court of British Columbia to recognize its right to preserve the safety of women by not accepting biological men into its facilities.
Let's get closer. In Quebec in 2023, speaker Robert Wintermute was scheduled to give a lecture at McGill University titled "Sex vs. Gender." Protesters disrupted the event and caused such a commotion that it was canceled.
In 2024, the show Enquête aired a shocking documentary about medical transitions among transgender adolescents in Quebec. A few days after the broadcast, the offices of Radio-Canada were vandalized by trans activists.
Not to mention that a fringe of the LGBT movement is becoming radicalized, participating in increasingly violent protests. On March 31, the Trans Day of Vengeance protest escalated in Montreal: activists attacked police officers and burned a car.
The group For Women's Rights in Quebec is frequently threatened with funding cuts because it denounces the conflict of rights between the demands of the trans movement and the rights of women.
A difficult battle to fight
If our group, the Réseau féministe québécois, does not suffer the same fate; it is because we rely solely on private donations to carry out our mission.
We do nevertheless receive our share of threats and harassment on a regular basis, and most of our members work anonymously in our organization for fear of losing their jobs.
We could have drawn up a comprehensive list, but it would certainly have filled more than 50 pages. We could also have spoken about the physical violence that some have been victims of, such as activist Kelly-Jane Keen, who was assaulted at an event called Let Women Speak. She is not the only one.
The cases of violence from trans activist militants would add at least 20 pages to our list.
Committee report: legitimate
You may have already understood: speaking openly comes at a cost that can be very high. One better understands the request made by several individuals to the council of elders to remain anonymous.
