In the wake of counterprotests to anti-SOGI demonstrations across the country, the City of Victoria released a declaration of ongoing solidarity with gender-diverse residents of Victoria, which “condemns any and all anti-SOGI mobilizations that seek to undermine the rights and dignity of gender-diverse individuals and their families within our city” and “calls on community leaders to denounce the attacks on transgender and gender-diverse individuals.”
We trans rights activists naively concluded that we had effectively won the war, as the anti-SOGI factions would not be welcome anywhere in town, at least in public facilities, while we could call upon the city council to put pressure on private venues that would dare open their doors to such hate groups.
This of course would prove a mere public relations stunt. When We Unify, an alt-right political faction which was exposed as a clique of homophobic and transphobic bigots, rented the city-owned Victoria Conference Centre for its annual Reclaiming Canada conference featuring several notorious transphobes, city officials declined to cancel the contract, spuriously invoking the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in defence of hate speech. Furthermore, the contract with Destination Greater Victoria, which operates the centre, stipulates that the venue isn’t to be used in violation with the BC Human Rights Code, which forbids the publication of such speech.
The city council’s words have proven empty, and its attitude hypocritical. While it plays to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community at opportune junctures to reap political capital, it has shown itself eager to disavow its commitment over a mere twelve thousand dollars.
The Victoria Liberation Front will not sit idle while the City of Victoria promotes hate speech in public facilities. Politicians on the Council must be held accountable for their betrayal of the queer community and its allies, and it must cost them way more than a mere twelve thousand dollars in taxpayer money for the message to get across.
