A speech I wrote for the protest against the Comité de Sages. I got help with editing from a friend.
On January 28, 2021, the Superior Court of Quebec ruled that nonbinary people have the right to change their gender designation to something other than male or female, a right now included in the amended Civil Code. Three years later, there is no reason to deny us these rights.
Yet three years later, the X marker is still unavailable on provincial IDs. Three years later, the RAMQ and the SAAQ, having run out of infrastructure-related excuses, say they want to wait to hear from the CAQ's new Comité de Sages. This committee is three people. None of them are trans. None of them have experience in queer advocacy. And their final report will be given in 2025 - an added year in our struggle for accurate gender markers on provincial ID.
Transness becomes a subject of debate. Educators, employers, government officials, and health staff refuse to accomodate us before waiting on the final say of the Comité. Regardless of its final report next year, if the Comité continues, 2024 will be a year of stagnating or worsening trans rights. This committee is Francois Legault's response to September 20th. It's a rhetoric that dismisses the extremism of the protest, which was closely linked to white nationalism, and painted gay people as pedophiles.
If the committee members - Diane Lavallée, Jean-Bernard Trudeau, and Patrick Taillon - cared about trans people, they would resign from the committee and join our call for its dissolution. On the same lines, if the Conseil québécois LGBT truly advocated for queer rights, it would refuse all participation in this committee - anything less than that increases its legitimacy.
Our existence is going to be the subject of a dragged-out debate. No placations from committe members will change that fact. Unlike the rhetoric pushed by the CAQ, we are not a threat to women, to children, to Quebec society. The CAQ thinks that trans people are an easy target - that we are a political tool to gain favour with conservatives - that we will quietly accept the role of the Comité de Sages in the implementation of our rights. We need to prove them wrong.