Tag: lgbt

Alberta woman hauled before human rights tribunal for opposing rainbow crosswalk

George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four nearly 80 years ago as a warning about totalitarianism. The novel’s true horror isn’t censorship — it’s compelled speech. In the book’s climax, the rebellious Winston Smith is sent to the Ministry of Love, where torture is used to force him to agree that an obvious falsehood is the truth. Asked how many fingers his tormentor is holding up, the correct answer isn’t four or five — it’s whatever the party says it is.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was fiction. But in 2026, examples of compelled speech in Canada are not hard to find.

Take the claim that a mass grave of Indigenous children sits at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. — a claim unsupported by any forensic evidence to date. Simply asking questions about it, or declining to wear an orange shirt on September 30, is enough to be branded a denier and an enemy of reconciliation. Merely questioning the official Kamloops narrative could one day be treated as a criminal matter.

Then there’s gender identity, where a person born with a penis is a man and a person born with a vagina is a woman — a statement now considered controversial enough to invite official sanction. A U.S. Supreme Court justice, asked to define the word “woman,” could not do it. And in Canadian institutions, a man who says he identifies as a woman is now entitled to compete against women in sports, shower in women’s changerooms, and be housed in women’s prisons. Object, and expect to be labelled a hater, a bigot, and a transphobe.

Canada has no Ministry of Love, and no torture chambers. But there is more than one way to enforce conformity, and a case headed to the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal on September 14 shows how it’s done.

Westlock, Alberta, resident Benita Pedersen — a DJ, children’s entertainer, and event coordinator — is facing a human rights complaint over a flyer she handed out three years ago opposing a proposed rainbow crosswalk incorporating the colours of the transgender pride flag. According to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom, Pedersen’s flyer stated facts, including the potential for infertility following gender transition, and encouraged residents to contact their elected representatives if they shared her concerns.

On June 19, 2023, local resident Laurie Hodge filed a complaint against Pedersen under the Alberta Human Rights Act, alleging the flyer constituted discrimination based on gender, gender expression, and gender identity. Hodge was not on Westlock town council at the time. Both women ran in a January 2024 by-election; Pedersen finished second, Hodge third — though Hodge was later elected to council in a subsequent vote. Whether the complaint was ever really about a crosswalk, or about eliminating a political rival, is a fair question.

The Director of the Alberta Human Rights Commission has since taken carriage of the complaint on Hodge’s behalf and referred it to the Tribunal under Section 3 of the Act, which bars publications likely to expose people to hatred based on protected characteristics. The Director is expected to call an expert witness to testify that failing to paint the crosswalk could cause physical and mental harm to transgender and marginalized youth. Pedersen, in turn, must rely on evidence from an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist specializing in gender dysphoria simply to defend a flyer about a paint scheme. In May, the Director moved to exclude most of Pedersen’s witnesses as irrelevant; the Tribunal denied that motion in July.

“Albertans should be free to express their opinions on controversial topics without being accused of hatred and discrimination,” said constitutional lawyer Allison Pejovic of the Justice Centre.

Pedersen’s case is not isolated. The Supreme Court of British Columbia has granted four organizations intervenor status in nurse Amy Hamm’s appeal of a March 2025 disciplinary ruling by the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives, which found her guilty of unprofessional conduct over online statements she made about sex, gender, and sex-based rights between 2018 and 2021. In a decision released September 8, Justice J. Hughes granted standing to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., West Coast LEAF, Egale Canada, and the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada (ARPA), while dismissing an application from the Vancouver Lesbian Collective. ARPA is expected to argue that criticizing gender identity theory does not amount to discrimination or hatred. Hamm’s appeal is scheduled to be heard in Vancouver this November.

The reach of compelled speech isn’t limited to tribunals and regulators. In 2024, David was covering a story on Ash Davis, a biological male competing on the Fergus Highlanders women’s rugby team, when Ontario Provincial Police officers threatened him with arrest simply for asking questions on a public sports field. Later that same day, while conducting consensual interviews with spectators in the stands — not on the field, not interfering with play — police made good on the threat and arrested him. 

All of this unfolds while southern Ontario endures a record crime wave, raising the obvious question of what, exactly, police resources are being prioritized for.

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Federal prosecutors defend job posting that placed white, heterosexual applicants last

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada is defending an internal hiring process that gave priority to applicants from selected racial, disability, Indigenous and LGBTQ groups.

According to reporting by Blacklock’s Reporter, an internal call letter for an $81,000-a-year recordkeeping position at the Nunavut Regional Office said candidates who self-identified as members of specified groups would be considered “before others.”

The position involved supporting complex and high-priority cases, including homicide prosecutions and dangerous-offender applications within Nunavut’s circuit court system.

“We will consider employees who self-declare as being a Black person, a racialized person, a person living with a disability, a First Nation, an Inuit, a Métis or a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community for this opportunity before others,” the notice reportedly stated.

Applicants were instructed to include their self-declared identity in their résumés.

Prosecution Service spokesperson Alessia Bongiovanni denied that the preferential process violated anti-discrimination provisions in federal collective agreements.

Bongiovanni said the Employment Equity Act permits measures intended to address historical disadvantage and under-representation. She argued that workplace equality may require proactive hiring measures in addition to equal treatment.

The policy effectively placed white, heterosexual applicants without disabilities behind candidates belonging to one or more of the preferred groups.

The Treasury Board reported in July that representation of all federally designated employment-equity groups increased between 2010 and 2025.

Women now account for 59 percent of employees in the federal government’s core administration. Visible minorities comprise 24 percent, employees with disabilities nine percent and Indigenous employees 5.5 percent.

Ottawa maintains that preferential employment measures are necessary to create what it calls a “diverse and representative public service.”

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Portland Women’s Sports Bar Boots Patrons over ‘Pro-Women’ Shirts

A group of patrons was ejected from The Sports Bra, a Portland bar that shows only women’s sports, on Sunday for wearing XX-XY Athletics apparel, according to video the group posted online.

Five patrons were removed from the Northeast Portland establishment after a server said other customers had complained about the shirts, according to footage that passed 6 million views on X. Amy Sousa, one of the women in the group, posted the clip.

A server told the group to leave, citing complaints from other customers.

“There are people that are in here that are uncomfortable with those shirts, and so I’m asking y’all to leave,” the server said in the video. “If I have to call authorities to get y’all removed, I will, but I don’t want to do that.”

One patron pushed back. “There is nothing wrong with these shirts! What is wrong with these shirts?” the patron said. The server replied that she had already fielded complaints.

The bar defended the ejection in an Instagram post Monday. It said the group entered wearing “apparel with messages advocating for the exclusion of trans women from sports” and was given the choice to cover the messaging or leave. “To be clear: trans girls are girls, and trans women are women,” the bar said.

XX-XY Athletics is a sportswear brand founded by former gymnast Jennifer Sey that says sports should be separated on the basis of biological sex. The name references the chromosomes of women and men.

Hours earlier, the same group was removed from the Portland Thorns’ NWSL match against the Washington Spirit at Providence Park. A Thorns spokesperson told OutKick the fans were removed for “distributing unapproved materials,” a claim Sousa disputes.

“We did not distribute any materials,” Sousa said. “They are lying about us.”

The confrontation follows a similar incident last month, when the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream admitted security was wrong to make a mother and daughter cover XX-XY shirts worn in support of Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, whose ESPN comments opposing “biological men” in women’s sports touched off the debate.

The video drew a split reaction online.

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Abdul El-Sayed’s Imam Rails Against Homosexuality and Jews Teaching Islam: ‘Against Human Nature’

Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed frequently attends a mosque led by an imam who has railed against homosexuality and complained that all too often, Jews are teaching Islam in American universities, I report alongside my Free Beacon colleague Alana Goodman.

Abdelhamid Algizawi serves as the imam at the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, where El-Sayed typically prays, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Algizawi celebrated El-Sayed’s one-point Democratic primary victory over Haley Stevens in an August 7 sermon, calling it a “very big victory for the Muslims, Hamdillah, and for the Ummah, and for the Islamic nation” and noting that it is incumbent on Muslims to vote for El-Sayed in November. He also lamented that his own daughter said she wouldn’t vote for a Muslim “running for Senate” because “he’s working against women.”

Algizawi has also made inflammatory remarks about homosexuality, arguing Muslims must reject it because it is “against human nature” and “cannot bring stability to life.” El-Sayed, by contrast, has championed the “LGBTQ+ community,” saying he’ll “always fight for an America where all of us can live and thrive as we are.” Last month, in a primetime Fox News appearance, El-Sayed defended gender transition surgery for minors, likening the procedure to circumcision. In 2022, meanwhile, Algizawi, a graduate of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, criticized the number of Jewish scholars teaching Islam in America, describing it as “a problem” and accusing them of introducing “confusion” to students.

“Though El-Sayed usually prays at the MCA of Ann Arbor, he also attends the Islamic Center of Detroit and the Wayne State University Islamic Center of Detroit, the source told the Washington Free Beacon. Imam Imran Salha of the Islamic Center of Detroit has justified Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, posting to social media in September 2024 that ‘We can condemn Hezbollah atrocities in Syria while also recognizing that they *are* making sacrifices for the sake of Palestine and frustrating the illegal zionist regime in unprecedented ways esp with recent hits.’” Salha was also caught on video three days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks saying Israel “has left a fire in our hearts that will burn that state until its demise.”

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‘Misgendering’ is ‘violent,’ West Chester U. LGBT center says

Free speech groups say recent court cases affirm right to not use someone’s made-up identity

It is “harmful” and “violent” to refer to someone by their true sex, according to a guidance sheet from West Chester University’s “Center for Trans and Queer Advocacy.”

“Misgendering” refers to not using someone’s declared gender, as in the case of a man who claims to be a woman or vice versa. Using the biologically accurate language “can be harmful and violent,” the faculty resource guide states.

Likewise, “deadnaming,” or referring to someone by their real name, “can be quite harmful.”

The guidance sheet, called “Faculty Guide to Supporting Trans & Queer Students,” explains how staff should handle trans and queer students. In the document, it goes over many methods and requests faculty members to become advocates by asking “In what ways have you shown up as an advocate? Inside and out of the classroom?” 

Professors are also encouraged to share their pronouns to “normalize” the practice.

“Consider putting pronouns on business cards and/or on your Zoom name. We have a demo for that!” the document states. The center separately offers other resources, including “Trans Joy” coloring books and guidance on name changes.

The public relations team for the university did not respond to an email sent in the past week. The College Fix reached the transgender center by phone on Aug. 26, but it told this reporter it would need a week to look into him.

 The center has not followed up from that phone call or an email sent Aug. 20, asking how misgendering is violence, if professors should be punished for using the wrong gender (as perceived by the student), and how to balance free speech with gender concerns.

However, several free speech experts said the university is making mistakes by instructing faculty about the harms of not using someone’s declared gender.

 The faculty guide could be seen as a suggestion for behavior but “a policy compelling the use of preferred pronouns and names intrudes on the right to private conscience and, in the case of a public university, violates the First Amendment,” Laura Beltz told The College Fix via email.

Beltz, with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said a university could step in if there is a “persistent and targeted use of a student’s non-preferred pronouns or name” if it “amounts to harassment.”

“But absent more, a faculty member’s mere refusal to use a person’s preferred pronouns or name is protected speech,” Beltz said.

She cited the example of Professor Nicholas Meriwether at Shawnee State University. Meriwether “alleged his rights were violated when administrators insisted he refer to a student using particular pronouns.”

As the free speech expert noted, “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that he had a strong First Amendment interest in refusing to use a student’s stated pronouns, because they carried an ideological message with which the professor disagreed.”

Shawnee State, in Ohio, paid out $400,000 to end the legal battle, as The Fix previously reported.

The Independence Law Center described the guide as “Orwellian.”

Chief Counsel Randall Wenger said if “a public university tells faculty that certain words can constitute violence, censorship and punishment can be recast as protection.”

“It should concern every American when a government institution entrusted with higher education uses its institutional authority to pressure students and faculty toward ideological conformity rather than the pursuit of truth,” Wenger wrote in an email to The College Fix.

He said the guidance could be “used to discriminate against students with sincerely held religious beliefs.”

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Convicted child sex offender wants to serve his sentence in a women’s prison

There are a lot of bad hombres serving time within the walls of the Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold, Ont. But there is one particular monster who deserves special attention: convicted pedophile Daniel Senecal.

26-year-old Senecal is a repeat offender, locked up for the sexual assault of young children. His most recent victim was a three-year-old girl in Welland, Ont., last year. Armed with a screwdriver, Senecal forced his way into a basement apartment around 3:30 a.m. and proceeded to choke, torture, and sexually assault the toddler.

He would later plead guilty to six charges in a St. Catharines courtroom. Among those charges were aggravated sexual assault on a person under 16, sexual interference, assault by choking, possession of child pornography, and breach of probation.

So, why is Daniel Senecal back in the news?

Two reasons.

First, the Crown is requesting that Senecal be given dangerous offender status, making sure this creep will likely remain behind bars forever. A decision will be made on that request later this month.

The second reason Senecal is making news: Daniel is now apparently identifying as “Dani.” Translation: he is now claiming to be a she.

That’s right. We have another grifter gaming the system, preposterously claiming he’s a woman “trapped” in a man’s body, and he would much rather serve his time at the Grand Valley Institute for Women in Kitchener. And say, what could go wrong by allowing a violent male sex offender to be incarcerated with hundreds of potential female victims?

Do you want to know who wants “Dani” to get his/her way? Well, that would be the Mark Carney Liberals.

Earlier this week, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announced that the federal government has filed its Statement of Defence in an ongoing constitutional challenge to its policy or permitting trans-identifying male inmates to be transferred to women’s prisons. The document is fascinating given that it reveals “transwoman” (male) inmates have already faced sexual-assault charges following complaints by female inmates — even as Ottawa denies that its policy violates female inmates’ Charter right to life, liberty, and security of the person (section 7).

Lawyers funded by the Justice Centre launched the constitutional challenge in April 2025 on behalf of Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (CAWSBAR). The lawsuit challenges Correctional Service Canada’s Commissioner’s Directive 100: Gender Diverse Offenders, arguing that allowing trans-identifying male inmates to be housed in women’s prisons exposes female inmates to physical and psychological harm and violates their Charter rights.

In its Statement of Defence, the federal government acknowledges that several so-called “transwomen” have sexually assaulted biological females behind bars. Despite this admission, the federal government “wholly denies that any alleged harm to inmates housed in women’s institutions flowed from the implementation of CD 100.”

What the hell?

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New Jersey School District Being Sued for Allowing Students to ‘Gender Transition’ Without Notifying Parents

A school district in the blue state of New Jersey is under fire for allowing students to ‘gender transition’ without notifying parents. The left has indicated that they simply will not let go of this issue, no matter how much the public opposes it.

The U.S. Supreme Court has even ruled on issues directly related to a case like this, and yet the left continues down this road.

Several years ago, Megyn Kelly suggested that the best way to deal with this is through the courts: sue every school and official that participates.

It’s just amazing that public schools would hide something like this from parents. It’s downright evil.

FOX News reports:

Blue state school district accused of defying Supreme Court, hiding gender transitions from parents

A New Jersey school district is being sued over a policy allowing students to change their name and gender identity at school without notifying their parents.

Under the School District of the Chathams’ policy, students are able to change their name in official school records, use the bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, and the school guidance counselor decides “whether, and to what extent” parents are involved in the decision.

The school’s policy flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta in March, which granted an injunction against California over state policies that keep students’ gender identities confidential from parents while the issue works its way through the lower courts, according to Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, who filed the lawsuit.

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Donald Trump Just Asked SCOTUS To End the Trans Military Circus Once and For All

Joe Biden let the Pentagon run gender experiments on the military for four years.

Now a pair of Obama and Clinton judges think they outrank the Commander in Chief.

And Donald Trump just asked the Supreme Court to end the transgender military circus once and for all.

The Judges Who Think They Command the Military

Two Democrat-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit – one picked by Obama, one by Clinton – ruled in June that Pete Hegseth can’t discharge the transgender troops currently serving under an injunction.

That ruling declared the Hegseth policy was likely driven by “hostility” rather than military necessity.

The Trump-appointed dissenter on that same panel said it plainly: the Constitution assigns authority over military service to Congress and the Commander in Chief – not to federal judges.

The Trump-appointed judge was right.

Solicitor General John Sauer called the majority ruling “gravely erroneous” and filed a petition for certiorari on August 28.

He argued the policy doesn’t discriminate against transgender people – it disqualifies individuals with gender dysphoria, a medical condition that affects deployability and readiness.

The government isn’t required to build a perfect case when it comes to military standards. It only has to show a reasonable connection to readiness – and that bar is obvious.

Why SCOTUS Already Answered This Once

This isn’t new territory for the justices.

In May 2025, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority already paused a separate injunction – a Washington state judge’s order blocking the broader ban across the entire military.

That ruling cleared the way for the Pentagon to implement the policy and begin separating trans-identifying service members who hadn’t voluntarily left.

The D.C. Circuit’s June 2026 ruling in Talbott v. United States reopened a hole the Supreme Court had already sealed – protecting a group of individual plaintiffs from discharge while their case heads toward a January 2027 trial.

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Federal court rules teachers’ Pride flag messages to children are not protected by 1st Amendment

A federal appeals court has ruled that teachers’ Pride flags, the pro-LGBT messaging they demanded to use on their public school students, are not protected by the First Amendment.

“Plaintiffs-Appellants Christopher Dolce, Sarah Ecke, and Shinaide McAleavey-Polley allege that the Connetquot Central School District and its officials violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and Title VII when it ordered them to remove the pride flags and stickers that decorated the walls of their public high school classrooms,” said the opinion from the 2nd U.S Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Gonzalez, J.) dismissed their complaint for failure to state a claim, and the teachers appealed. Applying Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), we conclude that the teachers’ classroom wall decorations constituted speech pursuant to their official duties as Government employees. As a result, the District did not violate their First Amendment rights when it ordered the teachers to remove them.

“We also conclude that the teachers have not plausibly pled that the District selectively enforced its policies against them because of an impermissible motivation, or that they suffered any adverse employment actions.”

Then a commentary at Twitchy revealed the surprise: The ruling was from “a Biden appointee who is a lesbian. That’s refreshing common sense.”

This surprise comes in an age when judges appointed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden routinely rule against President Donald Trump no matter the issue, the question or the legal dispute. One Washington-based leftist judge even has defied the U.S. Supreme Court in ruling politically against Trump.

The decision said, “Under Garcetti v. Ceballos … and its progeny, when public employees’ speech ‘owes its existence’ to their ‘professional responsibilities,’ the government – their employer – can control the content of that speech without implicating their Frist Amendment rights. The question in his case is whether that same principle applies to displays hung on the walls of a public high school teacher’s match classroom. We hold that it does.”

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Biden Judge Dismisses Trump DOJ Lawsuit Challenging California Policy Allowing Biological Males to Compete in Girls’ Sports

A Biden-appointed federal judge has dismissed the Trump Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging California’s policy allowing transgender-identifying biological males to compete on girls’ school sports teams.

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela of the Central District of California dismissed the Justice Department’s case against the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) with prejudice, handing California officials a major victory in their ongoing battle with the Trump administration over women’s sports, the New York Post reported.

Valenzuela was nominated to the federal bench by Joe Biden and confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate in December 2024.

The Trump Justice Department filed the lawsuit in July 2025, accusing California education officials and the CIF of violating Title IX by allowing biological males who identify as female to compete against girls.

According to the DOJ complaint, California’s policies deprive female athletes of equal athletic opportunities by forcing them to compete against biological males for victories, podium placements, recognition, and potentially college opportunities.

But Valenzuela rejected the administration’s argument.

The Biden judge concluded that California had not received sufficiently clear notice that federal education funding was conditioned on excluding transgender-identifying biological males from girls’ athletic teams.

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