In Ottawa, a bill to add gender identity and expression to the protected grounds against discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code cleared the House of Commons before Christmas and is now before the Senate.
At the United Nations, the human rights council adopted a resolution in June against discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Campaign Life Ottawa lobbyist Johanne Brownrigg said words like “gender identity and expression” are “very fluid, undefined and dangerous.”
Campaign Life’s UN representative, Matthew Wojciechowski, noted that “almost all social agenda around the world seems to stem from New York City and the United Nations.” Gender theory at the UN is a new focus “to destroy the natural family” in the developing world, he said.
The UN is “forcing countries to break down all their marriage laws to accept same-sex marriage,” he said.
Wojciechowski noted some of Pope Francis’ strongest language has been aimed against gender theory, calling it “satanic” and “demonic.”
The UN has also been working to have abortion declared a “universal human right,” he said. “It’s not happened because pro-life groups are preventing it.”
When UN agencies talk of “reproductive rights it is always about abortion,” he said. Aid agencies “try to bribe the developing countries by saying if you want aid, and stable infrastructure help, you must break down conservative laws against abortion.”
“In one hand a Tylenol, in another a condom,” he said.
Brownrigg pointed out that Canada’s legislation covering gender identity, Bill C-16, passed to the Senate without a recorded vote.
While similar bills have been fought as “bathroom bills” that allow men claiming a female gender identity to use women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, Brownrigg predicted the debate in the Senate will move to freedom of speech arguments raised by University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, a specialist in the psychology of totalitarianism.
Peterson has warned legislation like Bill C-16 and already existing changes to provincial human rights acts not only put freedom of speech at risk, but also compel speech, such as the use of preferred pronouns by those claiming a different gender identity from their biological sex. Preferred pronouns could include newly constructed words such as “zir, ze, or zhe,” that Peterson has refused to use.