Protecting Cisnormative Private and Public Spheres: The Canadian Conservative Denunciation of Transgender Rights

Abstract

The public sphere has been seen by conservatives as an arena for safeguarding private relations. Private power relations (in the family, religion, community and economy) could be threatened by newly recognized social groups that make claims on the state for justice and equality. Therefore, conservatives have been concerned about who can speak and exist in public and who can thereby make demands on the state. In the debates over transgender rights in Canada, social conservatives and neoliberal forces have merged in complex and impactful ways. Analyzing House of Commons and Senate debates and committee proceedings for Bill C-279 (2015) and Bill C-16 (2016–2017), I examine three conservative arguments that illustrate attempts to maintain private power relations and hierarchal gendered divisions by ensuring that transgender and gender nonconforming people are not allowed to exist, speak or make claims in public: first, the assertion that gender identity and gender expression are not definable identity categories for claims-making because transgender people are deceptive and can change their gender based on their feelings; second, the targeting of public facilities, and particularly public bathrooms, as sites of contention, danger and necessary gender segregation; and third, the attempt to delegitimize rights claims by criminalizing transgender people in relation to cisgender women and children.

Transfeminist perspectives: Beyond cisnormative understandings of the digital public sphere

“…While Alexa Degagne argues that rollbacks and limitations on trans rights serve to protect the ‘cisnormative and heteronormative forms and functions of the private sphere’ (Degagne, 2021: 499), we also observe an expansion of the public sphere beyond ‘the masculine’ foundations that feminist theorists have long made visible. Seen through a transfeminist lens, the online abuse and harassment faced by Minio-Paluello shows that acceptability of the ‘private’, and of femininity within the digital public sphere (here, acceptability of a baby being breastfed and related materials – the breast pump – being visible), is conditional on patriarchal norms being upheld (i.e.…”

Behind Closed Doors: The Untold Challenges of Transgender and Nonbinary Graduate Students in Chemistry

“…The framing of transness as a social problem is a reactionary response to the growing positive perceptions of trans identities, meaning public demonization of transness is motivated by the maintenance of whiteness, patriarchy, and cisheteronormativity. [66][67][68] Weaponization of trans identities as a tool in the present "culture war" narrative has already cascaded into US state legislation and degenerative education policy that targets trans people. 69 Recent legislation has serious, material impacts on trans people's healthcare autonomy, access to accurate government identification, entry to public accommodations (e.g.…”

Having a community helps: Environmental context influences the relationship between outness and psychological distress in transgender and gender diverse populations.

“…The potential protective role that community connectedness can be seen in the moderating role that it plays on the relationship between outness and psychological distress once accounting for gender-related discrimination—outness does not predict reduced psychological distress for those who are minimally connected to their community, even once accounting for gender-related discrimination. This, in turn, suggests that that the environment a TGD individual comes out in impacts psychological well-being, particularly when bias and active social movements opposed to this population are strong and growing stronger (Crasnow, 2021; DeGagne, 2021; McLean, 2021).…”