The Importance of Trans Rights in Canada
Written by Alex Fisher
Thumbnail & Banner Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash.com
Content warning: this article contains discussions on transphobia, gender-based violence, and suicide. If needed, a list of mental health resources is available at the end of the article.
Every person in Canada, citizen or not, has rights, as outlined under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rights include fundamental freedoms, legal rights, language rights, and equality rights. One of the rights included under the equality rights section of the Charter is the right for every person in Canada to be treated with respect and without discrimination, regardless of their citizenship, sex, or sexual orientation. But what about their gender identity?
It may not be explicitly present in the Charter, but gender identity is still protected in Canada. Bill C-16, which passed and became law in June 2017, added mentions of ‘gender identity or expression’ to both the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. Specifically, section 2 of the Human Rights Act states that all individuals in Canada should have equal opportunities and freedom from discriminatory practices regardless of their gender identity, and section 3 prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression. Similarly, there are multiple mentions of gender identity or expression in the Criminal Code that define trans or gender-diverse individuals as an ‘identifiable group’ that can be targeted by hate speech. It also outlines under which circumstances gender identity should be considered during a criminal trial, including in relation to conversion therapy.
All of this legal speak may seem a bit daunting, so to break it down to the very basics: all transgender and gender-diverse people in Canada have the basic human right to be treated equally, without discrimination, and discrimination or hate speech against trans or gender-diverse people is grounds for a civil case.
You may have heard that the changes enacted by Bill C-16 are a threat to freedom of expression or that they mean you can be arrested for misgendering someone, ideas that were touted by conservative media outlets. These ideas, and ones like them, are completely false. Bill C-16 merely extends the same protections to trans and gender-diverse individuals that it does to other identifiable groups, such as racial minorities and other members of the queer community. Just as someone cannot be discriminated against based on their sexuality or racial identity, a trans or gender-diverse person cannot be discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity. This can be seen when cases related to Bill C-16 have gone to court. In 2021, a Human Rights Tribunal in British Columbia ruled in favour of a genderfluid restaurant employee who had been subject to repeated deliberate misgendering by several of their coworkers, including their manager, before being terminated from their position. The tribunal ruled that these intentional and continued actions constituted discrimination and therefore a human rights violation. Similarly, in 2024, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of a trans man who was consistently deadnamed and misgendered in his workplace despite “specific and repeated requests for his gender identity to be respected.”
There are too many laws related to trans and gender-diverse people to be discussed in this one article, but what we’ve outlined so far are the core federal rights that everyone is entitled to. Additional rights vary by province, including access to care for minors, which is still a highly contested subject. If you’d like to read more about trans rights in Canada, there are a few resources you can use: Wikipedia has an easy-to-read breakdown of both federal rights and provincial rights, while Global News and the CBRC both offer information on health coverage by province. The Government of Canada website has a page that covers the rights of the entire LGBTQ+ community, as well as a page dedicated to helping people find and access gender affirming care in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia has a history of trans rights and the trans community in Canada, as well as a page just for the Two-Spirit identity. Finally, trans activist Celeste Trianon has a periodically updated “anti-trans risk assessment map” that covers most of Canada.
So why are these rights important?
They’re important because Canada does not exist in a vacuum: Canadian politics affect, and are affected by, the global political stage. Notably, Canada has close ties to two other nations where the rights of transgender and gender-diverse people have recently been a topic of significant discourse: the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK).
In the United States, the Trump Administration has been using executive orders to enact sweeping changes that specifically target the rights of trans people. Among these changes, it is now the official policy of the US government that there are only two genders, trans individuals are being “purged” from the military, trans women are being sent to men’s prisons, and the government is attempting to completely ban gender affirming care for trans youth in what has been called “yet another attempt to punish trans people just for existing.” Even more executive orders have been used to erode the rights of all LGBTQ+ people, not just those who are trans or gender-diverse. This all serves to establish a terrifying precedent: that trans people are not welcome or wanted in the United States, and that other members of the queer community are next.
Things are hardly better in the United Kingdom right now. In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled that trans women are explicitly excluded from the legal definition of “woman.” This means that trans women can no longer access women-only spaces, are no longer protected from discrimination against women, and will likely face increased social stigma and economic hardship. These changes came about as an almost direct result of the actions of author J. K. Rowling and the UK’s growing anti-trans sentiment, which has been spread largely through misinformation on social media.
These policies and changes are extremely harmful to the trans and gender-diverse community. Transgender and gender-diverse individuals are much more likely to have suicidal thoughts or attempt suicide, including among children, and a 2024 study conducted by The Trevor Project found that anti-trans laws and policies can increase suicide attempts amongst trans and gender-diverse youth by up to 72% in the United States. Similarly, trans and gender-diverse people face higher levels of discrimination, harassment, and violence at work in both Canada and the United States—and these rates are reportedly growing in both countries. Many trans and gender-diverse individuals do not even feel as though they can trust the authorities to help them after facing violence. A 2023 study found that queer people in Canada were more likely to be harassed by police, reducing trust, and similar findings have been reported in the US.
Canadian policy is not free from anti-trans sentiment, either. Pierre Poilievre, the current leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and potentially an Albertan MP, has previously made comments attacking trans women and all trans and gender-diverse people. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith introduced three extreme anti-trans bills last year that are divisive even amongst Canadian conservatives. These widely criticised bills specifically targeted trans youth by prohibiting gender affirming care for minors, banning trans women from competitive sports teams, restricting pronoun and name usage, potentially outing trans students, and severely restricting sexual education in the province. Similar but less extreme bills have been passed in other provinces, all of which are unsurprisingly harmful to trans and gender diverse students.
However, not all of Canada’s political landscape is bleak when it comes to trans rights. Mark Carney, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and current Prime Minister, has publicly stated his support for the entire queer community. This is in addition to the liberal party’s significant history of supporting queer rights, implying that Carney’s words have the potential to be more than empty promises. In June of 2023, MP Randall Garrison and policy advocate Dylana Thompson, a trans woman herself, put forward a white paper titled “White Paper on the Status of Trans and Gender Diverse People” with specific recommendations regarding gender affirming care, anti-trans rhetoric, trans rights, and more. Legal groups, such as Lawyers Against Transphobia, have been actively working towards maintaining and furthering the rights of trans and gender diverse people in Canada.
Trans rights in Canada are important for an endless number of reasons. First and foremost, they’re important because trans and gender diverse people exist, deserve to exist, and deserve to express themselves in a way that ensures they are healthy and happy—just as anyone else does. Trans rights are important because of the people who want to tear them down, possibly subjecting hundreds of thousands of people to depression, anxiety, and potentially even suicide. They’re important because of the elevated levels of violence and harassment that trans, gender diverse, and queer people in general face. Finally, they’re important because trans people are people and trans rights are human rights.
Your mental wellbeing is important. If you need access to mental health resources, the SMU Counselling Centre is open to all SMU students. For more immediate support, Good2Talk is available to call for all university students in Nova Scotia at 1-833-292-3698. For trans and gender diverse related issues, the Trans Lifeline Hotline is available at 1-877-330-6366. If you feel as though you are in crisis, the Suicide Crisis Hotline can be reached by texting or calling 988 any time of any day.
If you’d like to read more about transgender-related topics, check out our LGBTQ+ column. To learn more about supports in and around the SMU community or about gender affirming care for youths, Joyo Smit’s articles Navigating SMU as a Transgender Student and Gender Affirming Care for Minors: What’s Actually Happening are great places to start on those topics. If you enjoyed this article, be sure to leave a comment on our social media pages!