Canada’s intelligence agency is warning that extremists could “inspire and encourage” serious violence against the 2SLGBTQI+ community — a threat the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says almost certainly will continue over the coming year.
CSIS’s comments come as provincial policies on gender-affirming surgeries and pronoun preferences are being hotly debated across the country.
The media coverage of the current surge in right-wing attacks on the queer community is so fucking frustrating to me.
Is this really the level of analysis we’re at after a year filled with protests against our rights and our legislators enacting laws and policies to appease the right-wing assholes?
“Right-wing extremist homophobes and transphobes could inspire violence against the 2SLGBTQIA+ community”, like no fucking shit. You don’t need “experts” from CSIS to tell you that, ask literally any queer person. These people are trying to convince people that all queers are paedophiles for fucks sake.
I saw an article the other day that said “anti-trans laws hurt the queer community”. Wow, such journalism, I’m glad someone was there to tell me that fascist legislation drafted specifically to oppress trans people would hurt the queer community!
We’re gonna start putting people in concentration camps and the news is just gonna be like “Putting trans people in gas chambers could inspire and encourage their deaths”.
I have family members who are trans, and I absolutely share your worries. That said, in this particular article’s case, they really can’t do much more. It isn’t an opinion piece by the CBC, it’s a report on a warning from CSIS. They even list many examples throughout the article, like:
A former University of Waterloo student accused of unleashing on a gender-studies class with a knife last summer — sending an associate professor and two students to hospital — now faces 11 terrorism charges.
and
Balsam was commenting on a document drafted by the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) and obtained by CBC News through an access to information request. ITAC, made up of intelligence authorities, is set up to keep tabs on threat actors’ intentions and capabilities and to review classified and open-source information to estimate the likelihood of a terrorist attack in Canada.
Unfortunately, this is what journalism has to look like. Here are the facts. Here’s what was said. Here are examples.
And of course, I will admit, this isn’t great (but isn’t the CBC’s fault):
CSIS Director David Vigneault raised his concerns about violence directed at the 2SLGBTQI+ community in a public address late last year. He said the agency is alarmed when rhetoric turns hateful.
“We’re concerned about the sharp uptick in hate crimes across Canada, and the marked increase in terrorist and violent extremist threats and rhetoric from extremist actors, many of whom are consuming toxic media online, becoming radicalized, and may mobilize quickly to violence,” Vigneault told an audience at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
Yes, we are all concerned, what are your recommendations, Sir.
As bad as the Canadian government can be, at least CSIS lists the proud boys as a terrorist group and recognize that these types of groups aren’t in the best interest of the country, and are a threat.
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