Danielle Smith is about to be destroyed for being a responsible, reasonable adult

There's nothing inherently controversial, or even 'conservative' in Alberta's thoughtfully communicated 'Transgender Policy.' None of that matters to an increasingly dysregulated activist class.

Danielle Smith doesn’t need your help. But you should probably be ready to give it.

“We are being outgunned.”

“This is an assault.”

“We are witnessing a genocide.”

“They are trying to erase us.”

These are not quotes ripped from the pages of Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil, but words shared from the X/Twitter account of CBC expert-in-all-fields Fae Johnstone, a professional, government-funded identity activist, presently at odds with the Alberta government’s decision to embrace a moderate, compassionate approach to matters of childhood sexuality and identity that have been made to rapidly evolve at a pace that parents, responsible educators, and non-NDP-activist medical professionals can’t keep up with.

(I’d encourage you to watch the video. It’s impressive.)

The broad strokes of this evolving policy — or, genocide, if one wishes to join the far-left in further diminishing the meaning of words — may have been communicated as reasonably, and delicately as possible by the Premier of Alberta and her team (disclosure: the writer has a few associates involved, and can vouch for the contents of their character), and yet, the response from Canada’s quasi-militant vocal minority of professionally-aggrieved, and the subsidized Liberal news networks who platform them has been as predictable as it is tedious.

And in true scuffling, identitarian Liberal fashion, the most unpopular federal caucus of a generation has joined in on messaging as hyperbolic and unhelpful as “this is putting kids’ lives at risk.”

The actual “risk,” in this instance, appears to be doing nothing, as Western countries struggle to come to grips with evolving identities, sure, but also, a not-insignificant portion of change that has been fueled by social contagion, be it through Tik-Tok, Instagram, Netflix, or, the ever-powerful peer pressure at school.

In record time and rapid succession, children too young to drink, smoke, drive, vote, or serve in the military, have been afforded the opportunity, buoyed by an onslaught of government resources, big pharma bucks, and corporate-social-responsibility dollars, to start down a permanent medical path.

To crib from a statement I made elsewhere:

All rational Canadians should commend Premier Smith for taking this common-sense approach to increasingly radical matters of identity, medications, and surgery at such a young age. Kids deserve support, but also time. Not everything is forever. Surgery and hormone replacement are. One's identity can still be "affirmed" while they wait until adulthood.

The far-left attacks will be fierce, but this is the right way, and a moderate path forward for children, parents, and even the safety of women's sports.

The same gaggle of hybrid political opportunists and activist doctors, who were so resoundingly wrong about their (insane) ‘Covid Zero’ fantasies, and who have been caught, repeatedly, fudging both the data and narrative in regards to the ‘safe supply’ programs that destroy cities and civil society for no net-benefit to public health, will now only be amplifying their predilection towards feelings over facts.

The weekend protests outside of the ‘Redmonton’ legislature may be long on outdoor N95s, “Queers for Palestine” flags, and a few ANTIFA-looking autogynephiliacs, but they’ll be short on meaningful rebuttals to policies meant to support children while buying them time to navigate gender dysphoria.

There is nothing — and I mean nothing — controversial about delaying puberty blockers and reassignment surgeries into quasi-adulthood at 17 or 18. If anything, and knowing the brain doesn’t stop developing until 25, it likely doesn't go far enough for many parents inside the majority who would support this common-sense approach.

And yet, it’s something. In place of the influence of many who are well-meaning, but, let’s be honest, also some “groomers,” biological males with fetishes, and some Terminally Online Munchausens Types you wouldn’t trust to water your plants, let alone dictate policy that can’t keep up with ‘progress,’ adults like Danielle Smith have stepped up.

They’ll kill her for it. Not actually, we still believe in words having meaning here, but these next few weeks won’t be pretty. Less pretty, perhaps, will be the activists’ omission of reasonable concerns.

Of course biological males in women’s sports gain an unfair advantage, and put their non-cheating competitors at risk of physical harm.

And the risks for those transitioning at a young age — at any age — have not been appropriately communicated. Puberty blockers are not some benign over-the-counter antacid; they can lead to permanent hormonal and neurological changes; even osteoporosis at a young age. It’s an outright lie that one can just delay puberty, or turn it off and on, without complication.

‘Top and bottom surgery’ carries a high risk of infection, with ‘bottom surgery’ requiring advanced care, and, to put it as delicately possible, a high prevalence of nerve damage, bleeding, necrosis, urinary retention or ‘vaginal prolapse,’ or, an opening that forms between the rectum and the vagina.

As for the detransitioning data? The activist claims of just 1% appear to be deliberate nonsense. The statistical pool seems hopelessly perjured by arbitrary metrics such as, “times the patient went back to that specific surgeon for help,” but, when variables are better controlled for, like in this landmark study into transitions inside the U.S. military, the ‘detransition rate’ appears to start at 30%.

“The 2022 study showed that trans identified females desist and/or detransition at a 36% rate and trans identified males detransition at a 30% rate. In an attempt to figure out why, a second 2022 study was done where desisters and/or detransitioners were asked for the reason for their non-continuance. 70% said it was because they found out their gender dysphoria was caused by other issues, with an extremely high rate of comorbidity among the group. Only 24% of the entire group ever informed their practitioner they had detransitioned.”

If the ‘complications’ rate is that high, and the potential for an evolving understanding of one’s case of gender dysphoria that likely, who wouldn’t support counselling and supports for kids lost in the weeds of hormones and teenage angst or mental illness, while we buy them a little time to work their way onto firmer ground?

For something as rational as the Alberta approach to be simply out of the question — at least publicly — amongst our effete aristocracy and the megaphone-jockeys who give them cover to take from the many, to furbish so very few, should tell on many of the characters involved.

Just remember, no matter how it’s made to look, how you’re made to feel, on this, and the majority of matters of the head and the heart in a deeply unserious modern world, you’re not the fringe minority. They are.

You’re not alone. You’re not a ‘TERF’ for agreeing that a little time, compassion, and therapy would even best suit any prospective ‘affirmation’ to begin with. You’re not experiencing your memory differently by thinking back to all the heartaches and questions you had in high school that felt like they would last forever.

Danielle Smith is about to be destroyed for being a responsible, reasonable adult.

If she’s so willing to put her neck out there to keep the activists and the ideologues at bay, it’s best we consider returning the favour.