Oh Hell No, NatPo!
Canada’s Trusted, Transphobic Source of News
On Sept. 28, the National Post ran a full-page advertisement from the Institute for Canadian Values, a right-wing think-tank “dedicated to advancing knowledge of public policy issues from a Judeo-Christian intellectual and moral perspective.”
The ad featured the piercing brown eyes and pouting mouth of a small girl, with the text “PLEASE! Don’t confuse me. I’m a girl. Don’t teach me to question if I’m a boy, transexual, transgendered, intersexed or two spirited. […] I face enough in the world already.”
After receiving hundreds of complaints, the National Post issued an apology on Sept. 30, claiming the ad’s appearance was a mistake. Improper vetting procedures meant it was run unintentionally nation-wide, they explained, and they promised to donate the ad proceeds to a yet-to-be-identified LGBTQ organization.
All that would be fine and good had the NatPo not also made an argument in their apology that the content of the advertisement—which took aim at the Toronto District School Board for allowing LGBTQ topics to enter the curriculum of kindergarten to grade three students—was a “freedom of speech” concern.
In their retraction, the editorial board explained that, while they were sorry, “free speech does not apply only to views that will not offend.”
“Being in an open society, these positions are worthy of being part of a debate on this issue,” read the apology. “They are also legitimate arguments to make in a paid advertisement in a media outlet.”
But any newspaper worth its salt knows advertisements aren’t the place to take and justify an editorial position: doing so sets a dangerous precedent and besides, that’s what the articles are there for.
An advertisement—especially one that involves manipulated images of children and anti-trans undercurrents—is simply not the appropriate venue to provoke public debate on an issue, deliver pertinent background or make arguments for or against.
If the NatPo really wanted to engage in a free speech debate in favour of the IFCV’s unpopular and hateful position, they should have just run a pearl-clutching editorial about how the Ontario curriculum is going to “corrupt children” their own damn selves. Especially if they ultimately consider the advertisement’s position “worthy.”
Curiously, before the controversy dust had the chance to settle on Oct. 8, longtime hyper-conservative NatPo columnist Barbara Kay did just that: writing what can only be understood as
a reactionary opinions piece—in the news section—that claimed “Too-early sex ed is psychologically harmful to a child” without citing a single source or study.
She went on to assert, without any substantiation, that, “many parents want their children to associate sexuality with morality” and that “it is ethically wrong to burden children prematurely.” Sigh.
In any case, seeing as the National Post is intended to be read by Canadian conservatives who dislike ‘liberal bias’ in other Postmedia Inc. publications, it’s not surprising that this ad made it through the vetting process in the first place, while a half-assed apology—and equally half-assed follow-up coverage—followed. The fact that their editorial position actually legitimizes and maintains the hateful sentiment in the ad, based solely on the merit of its copy, is.
If you want to have a conversation about education reform in Ontario, that’s one thing—talk to sources, gather facts, make the (ridiculous) arguments that a queer-friendly curriculum “corrupts children” and run it in the newspaper: that’s what a newspaper’s opinions section is there for.
But using a shame-based, anti-trans advertisement to make and support a ‘free speech’ editorial position on the subject is just lazy at best, homophobic and transphobic at worst.
As Jim Oulton, President of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health, wrote to the National Post following the scandal, “the ad did not serve the public interest and was harmful to the dialogue regarding equity and human rights.”
