MEDIA RELEASE: MP Jenny Kwan Statement on International Transgender Day of Visibility

Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility, a day to celebrate the trans people in our communities, but also a day to recognize the ongoing struggles of the trans community. As we celebrate the hard-fought gains for trans rights made in Canada over recent decades, we must also be vigilant against attacks on our trans siblings here and across the world.

We must push back against the overt threats to trans health and wellbeing – like the wave of legislation being passed in the US to restrict life saving healthcare, gender recognition, and community participation – but also against indirect measures that will lead to the suffering of LGBTQ+ people.

MP Jenny Kwan Statement on International Transgender Day of Visibility

Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility, a day to celebrate the trans people in our communities, but also a day to recognize the ongoing struggles of the trans community. As we celebrate the hard-fought gains for trans rights made in Canada over recent decades, we must also be vigilant against attacks on our trans siblings here and across the world.

We must push back against the overt threats to trans health and wellbeing – like the wave of legislation being passed in the US to restrict life saving healthcare, gender recognition, and community participation – but also against indirect measures that will lead to the suffering of LGBTQ+ people.

This includes measures being rolled out by the Liberal government here in Canada. On March 27th, I wrote to the Minister of Immigration to condemn their extension of the Safe Third Country Agreement, restricting the rights of people to seek asylum at the Canada/US border. These changes are inhumane and will put the lives of vulnerable people at risk – including transgender migrants and asylum seekers who are fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries.

The vast majority of irregular asylum seekers are found to have a valid claim by the Immigration and Refugee Board. By breaking Canada’s international commitments, disallowing people the opportunity to present a claim, and turning them away at the border, the government will push asylum seekers into more dangerous routes across the border, and provoke more deportations with tragic consequences.

Increasingly dangerous, underground routes will jeopardize migrant lives. Detaining and deporting asylum seekers will only compound trauma. Human Rights Watch estimates that 67 countries criminalize same-sex activity. Non-traditional gender identity or expression is criminalized in over a dozen countries; trans individuals face erasure, persecution, violence, police harassment, extrajudicial killings, and medical abuse in many more.

For individuals coming from these countries, deportation can be life threatening. They do not deserve to suffer and be criminalized, when their only ‘crimes’ were being who they are, and trying to find a safe/accepting community to live in.
In recent weeks, we have seen tragic, high-profile cases like Eden Knight’s – a transgender woman who took her own life after being coerced back to Saudi Arabia and forced to detransition by her family.

We have also seen a tremendous outpouring of support for the transgender community in reaction to right-wing persecution – with over 145,000 Canadians signing a parliamentary petition, calling on the government to extend asylum rights to trans/non-binary people who are facing eliminationist laws in their home countries.

A core part of asylum rights is the individual’s right to pursue shelter in the country most appropriate for them. This International Trans Day of Visibility, I call on the government to support trans migrants and asylum seekers, by extending asylum rights and suspending the Safe Third Country Agreement.

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