Rights of Trans Youth

Last week I wrote to the members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta regarding their use of the notwithstanding clause to override the rights of transgender youth. If you are so included, please feel free to cut and paste this into your own letter. Email addresses to members of the Legislative Assembly can be downloaded here (linked to assembly.ab.ca) as a .CSV - this format will open in Excel or Numbers.

Dear Honourable Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta,

I am writing to express my deep concern and profound disappointment regarding your government’s decision to invoke the notwithstanding clause to override the rights of transgender youth. As an Albertan who values democratic accountability, bodily autonomy, and evidence-based healthcare, I find this decision alarming.

Let me be clear: every young person in this province deserves timely, appropriate medical care rooted in science and compassion. And while I am relieved any time the government claims to be “protecting kids,” I am appalled by the means used to achieve that end. Preemptively suspending Charter rights, before courts can even assess the constitutionality of your actions, is not protection. It is overreach.

Medical decisions about a child’s wellbeing belong with families, their physicians, and qualified healthcare providers, not with politicians. Gender-affirming care is not experimental, fraudulent, or dangerous; it is grounded in decades of clinical research and endorsed by major Canadian and international medical associations. The rhetoric used to justify this legislation distorts the science and misleads the public in ways that put vulnerable youth at greater risk.

By invoking the notwithstanding clause, your government is not demonstrating confidence in its policy. It is sidestepping scrutiny and signalling a willingness to override fundamental rights when politically convenient. That should concern every Albertan, regardless of their views on this particular issue.

Trans youth deserve dignity, safety, and access to appropriate medical care. Their families should be able to work with physicians—without state intrusion—to make the decisions that are best for their children’s health and futures. Anything less is a failure of governance.

I urge you to reverse course. Recommit yourselves to evidence-based policy, to constitutional norms, and to respecting the private and profoundly personal nature of medical decision-making. Alberta should be a place where rights are upheld, not suspended.