Y’all I just fell down a rabbit hole. I understood that Canada has a limited right to expression- meaning hate speech is prohibited, and checked the New Brunswick’s human rights act- gender expression and gender identity are protected classes.
BUT it seems really similar to this case: https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/12876/index.do where the court ruled that the material was not hateful enough to be hate speech? I wonder if the best thing to do is make their own (better) flyers promoting love. It’s unfortunate- falsehoods are actually protected under freedom of expression.
I can’t imagine how devastating it must be for that mother to have to handle and disperse materials that challenge her daughter’s right to exist and live in a way that makes her feel safe. I understand the importance of freedom of expression rules, but I have a feeling that if these flyers were going out saying that children with other medical conditions shouldn’t be receiving care, or children with disabilities shouldn’t receive accomodation in the classroom, there would be more of an uproar. It’s so sad that one group of children seems to be an acceptable target.
I find it disturbing how many people here condemn or “both sides” her when all she did was refuse to distribute flyers advocating to take lifesaving medical care away from her child
Any halfways decent parent would’ve done the same. These bigots want to see her child dead or suffering, she is under no obligation to do their work for them
I have nothing against trans but this person should have delivered them. If these are legal there is no reason not too. Just think of it as any other trash mail.
As a society, we should not tolerate intolerance. It is not enough to individually toss out the flyers as trash. There are people who could be mislead into denying trans people their fundamental right to exist.
Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. This Canadian women’s act of civil disobedience by refusing to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
We should stand up to fascists, even if there isn’t a law telling us to do so.
I disagree with the part where a single person gets to decide to follow a law or not because it opens up the other side doing the same thing.
That same gender affirming care could be through the post, in which case someone who disagrees could just not deliver it.
The law needs to apply evenly or what is a loophole to one is shenanigans to the other.
This is something we decide as a society. It’s about who we are as a people.
We should not factor in what fascists will do into our decision. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to infiltrate and subvert any and all systems and institutions to their own ends. Instead we should focus on making systems and following best practices to prevent bad-faith actors like fascists from overturning our democracy.
No uneven application of the law would be required. This issue your argument is getting at is known as the paradox of tolerance. Where society is in the position of wanting to be tolerant while have to deal with intolerance. The resolution of the paradox comes from reframing tolerance as a social contract or peace treaty.
Under tolerance as a social construct people agree to tolerate each other. If a group of people such as fascists decide to not tolerate another group of people, then the fascists have breached the social contract of tolerance. The fascists are no longer protected by the social contract of tolerance and their speech, in the case of the disinformation campaign, is not protected.
https://philosophyterms.com/paradox-of-tolerance/
There is a concept called the paradox of tolerance. In order for a society to be tolerant, it needs to accept all people. However, there are people who are intolerant. If society accepts them, they will have to elevate the speech of the intolerant which means incorporating intolerance into society. If society rejects them, they will have to be intolerant to a group of people which means incorporating intolerance into society. The paradox seems unsolvable until it is reframed.
https://conversational-leadership.net/tolerance-is-a-social-contract/
Rather than tolerance being a straight jacket it is instead a contract or peace treaty. As long as everyone is tolerant to each other everything is fine. As soon as a group chooses to be intolerant, they have breached the agreement. This means the intolerant group is no longer protected by the agreement. The rest of society no longer has to tolerate the intolerant group. Nor should they, because to do so would be to condone intolerance against members of society. The society as a whole remains tolerant because all the rest of the groups practice tolerance to each other.
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-gender-affirming-care
Gender affirming care involves helping trans people, both youths and adults, to transition to their gender identity through the use of therapy, puberty blockers, and hormone therapy. It is lifesaving care. Unsubstantiated attacks to gender affirming care are a threat to the lives of all trans people. Threatening the lives of people with a disinformation campaign is a breach of the social contract of tolerance. When fascists attempt to spread life-threatening disinformation campaigns, people at all levels of society should stand up to them.
This woman did the right thing. She put human life and liberty over the mail. Standing up to fascists doesn’t always mean punching Nazis. It means seeing intolerance for what it is and refusing to tolerate it. We may all find ourselves in similar situations sooner rather than later. We should all seek to emulate this woman.
https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/harm-principle
To be as clear as possible, banning gender affirming care will put trans people in a life threatening situation. So this disinformation campaign to ban gender affirming care, if successful, can only lead to putting trans people in a life threatening situation. A person’s freedoms should not extend to the point where they are free to harm other people. Disinformation that can only harm a group of people should not be protected speech.
I know this topic can be contentious as the mail is an essential service for many people. And I’m aware not everyone is familiar with trans issues. I spoke up because I saw people falling into a common trap. Standing up to fascists doesn’t make us fascists. Freedom of speech rests on the foundation of the truth. If we tolerate lies, elevating them to the same status as the truth, we undermine free speech. My hope is that people will see this was not a moral disagreement. This was a strategic decision to defend a group’s right to exist, that did not infringe on anyone else’s freedoms. The right of an apolitical, uninterrupted mail service should not supersede a group’s right to exist. edit: updated the third link edit: typo
Hey friend, I fully agree with your stance. I was going through the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms and was actually surprised by how much is permitted. I always thought that Canada’s freedom of expression laws were more restrictive than other places- as I have heard of people (non-Canadians) being banned from the country based on their conduct.
Specifically, falsehoods are protected "Being content-neutral, the Charter also protects the expression of both truths and falsehoods (Canada (Attorney General) v. JTI-Macdonald Corp., [2007] 2 S.C.R. 610 "
So that was disappointing. Also, there have been similar cases in the past with homophobic flyers that were deemed legal because the content did not meet the threshold to be considered hate speech.
I wonder whether it would be permissible to distribute flyers that say “stop cancer treatment for children! God doesn’t make mistakes!” Borrowing the verbiage from the flyers in the article.
I’m feeling very disappointed at the moment. I don’t disagree with the mom’s actions at all. The content was fundementally abhorrent to her beliefs (and science).
Sorry to hear about what you’ve discovered with Canada’s charter. It’s definitely good to take breaks from this stuff because it can be discouraging. I try to think about this stuff in lighthearted terms so I can focus on contributing to useful discourse.
Thankfully we live democracies. So, in the long run, we can work to make our societies better places to live for everyone. Hopefully we will be able to leave things in a better state than we found them. I like to think stories like this mom’s story will inspire us all to do better.
Tolerance may end with Intolerance, but idk how I feel about postal workers having the right to decide what does and does not get mailed.
We should all have the right to reject intolerance. Otherwise we will not have a society that is capable of tolerating anyone. This wasn’t a personal letter. It was a targeted disinformation campaign designed to ban lifesaving medical treatments. The disinformation campaign infringed on a group of people’s right to exist.
Then, the post office or individuals can challenge the entity in court to stop them from sending out the campaign.
Or legislators can pass a bill that gives very tight definitions of content that can be refused at the facility.
But each postal worker taking into their own hands what to toss just seems like the wrong solution.
Having systems in place to prevent the spread of disinformation campaigns would be preferable. However, in the US we are in the verge of a christo-fascist takeover of our democracy. We may all soon find ourselves in the position of this Canadian woman. Acts of civil disobedience may be the last line of defense in preventing the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not dismiss her actions out of hand. Actions like hers may soon save people’s lives.
