#trudeau separation

[fibrefox]

My Wolf hadn't heard of the Trudeau's separation, and the resultant goog search spat out two results that couldn't have been placed better:

First, the Times giving us the rare question headline that isn't answered with an emphatic no.

And then the next result being almost a direct response to the Times made my morning.

[propicsmedia]

Justin and Sophie Trudeau to Separate

Justin and Sophie Trudeau to Separate  #News #Canada #Trudeau #Sophie #Justin #Separate #Separation #Family #Custody #Netflix #Custodyfight #CanadaSeparation #Politics #celebritybreakups #famousbreakups #celebritycustodyfight #DivorceLawyers

[canadachronicles]

"Hi everyone. Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate. As always we remain a close family with deep love and respect for each other and for everything we have built and will continue to build. For the well-being of our children, we ask that you respect our and their privacy. Thank you."

--Justin and Sophie Trudeau, announcing their separation.

[niveditaabaidya]

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau To Separate After 18 years Of Marriage. #can...

[todayonglobe]

Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire Public Announcement of Separation

Read more:👇

[banglakhobor]

১৮ বছরের দাম্পত্যে ইতি, বিয়ে ভাঙছে কানাডার প্রধানমন্ত্রী জাস্টিন ট্রুডোর

রাষ্ট্রনায়কের পাশাপাশি জাস্টিন ট্রুডোর আদ্যন্ত পারিবারিক ভাবমূর্তিও খুব জনপ্রিয় ছিল বিশ্বের জনমানসে৷ সেই ছবি ভেঙে পড়ল তাসের ঘরের মতো৷ ১৮ বছর দাম্পত্যের পর বিয়ে ভাঙার কথা ঘোষণা করেছেন কানাডার প্রধানমন্ত্রী৷ তিনি এবং সোফি বুধবার আইনি চুক্তিপত্রে স্বাক্ষর করেছেন৷ তাঁদের দীর্ঘ দাম্পত্যে ইতি টানল এই স্বাক্ষর৷ সামাজিক মাধ্যমে ট্রুডো লিখেছেন ‘‘সোফি এবং আমি জানাতে চাই যে বহু অর্থবহ এবং জটিল সংলাপের…

[lejournaldupeintre]

Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau announce separation

Trudeau, 51, announced Wednesday that he and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, 48, who have been married for 18 years, have decided to split up. Grégoire Trudeau released a similarly worded statement on her Instagram account. “Sophie and I would like to share that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate,” Trudeau wrote in a short statement. The Prime…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In a powerful act of solidarity and resistance, more than 500 Canadians formed a long line along the U.S.-Canada border in Quebec on last Saturday's International Women's Day to protest the U.S. government’s attacks on women’s rights and Canada’s sovereignty. “The turnout on a frigid, blustery Saturday morning overwhelmed organizers,” one participant wrote on social media, with the hundreds of participants facing south toward Vermont. Huge numbers of protesters also flooded several blocks in downtown Montreal chanting "shame on you" outside the U.S. Consulate.

In Montreal, protest organizer Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette denounced the actions of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, asserting: “You are not kings. We are not handmaids." Fellow organizer Laure Waridel took aim at the U.S. government's increasingly repressive policies toward women, declaring: “Shame on you for your treatment of women." “Shame on you for your betrayal of your friends and allies,” she continued, accusing the administration, in a reference to Trump's increasingly close alliance with Vladimir Putin of Russia, of “siding with murderers and despots” and undermining democracy. “You can try to intimidate us with trade wars, (but) we’ll never become your 51st state."

Over the past month, Trump has repeatedly attacked Canada, one of the country's closest allies for over 150 years, on numerous fronts. In addition to starting what has been described as a "very dumb" trade war with one of the nation's largest trading partners and imposing on and off again tariffs against Canada which have caused the U.S. stock market to nosedive to a six-month low and raised fears of a recession, Trump has repeatedly made comments threatening Canada's sovereignty.

In addition to calling Canada "the 51st state" on multiple occasions and referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "governor," when asked in early January by a New York Times reporter if he was planning to use military force to annex Canada, Trump admitted that he planned to use "economic force." According to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Trump is considering tearing up a slew of agreements and treaties that govern the relationship between the two countries with the longest undefended border in the world and he wants to eject Canada from the 69-year-old intelligence-sharing Five Eyes alliance made up of four of the US' closest allies.

On Tuesday, Trump intensified his threats against America's long-standing ally, writing on social media: "The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that. The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World — And your brilliant anthem, “O Canada,” will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!"

Canadian citizens and elected officials are taking Trump's threats very seriously, with many expressing a feeling of dismay and violation at such abhorrent treatment from a long-time trusted friend and ally. As Trudeau said last week, after Trump imposed tariffs yet again: "The excuse that [Trump's] giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false. What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us."

Thank you to our Canadian friends for their support for American women! A Mighty Girl supports our proud and independent neighbor to the north!

[A Mighty Girl]

To read more about Trump's aggression toward Canada, visit https://www.nytimes.com/.../trump-trudeau-canada-51st...

To read about the International Women's Day protests in Canada, visit https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/article801877.html

[privatehousesanatomy]

not to get political but also getting political because the canadian federal election is truly bringing out the worst in people, and by people i mean the conservatives. the liberals won the election. get over it. i'm sorry that people with morals looked at the things that PP voted for and against and decided that those things didn't align with our morals and that we wanted a leader who did align with our morals. now, personally, i would have liked to give my vote to the NDP but based on where i live, i had to vote strategically in order to vote against the conservatives, so my vote went to the liberals. not even mad about that, though, because honestly i would love trudeau for another term over PP.

but the conservatives are really showing their true colours at the moment. i live in a household where everyone 18 and older voted conservative except for me. i've seen post after post about conservatives giving liberals an "aptitude test" in which they have to connect two dots, and the other instruction is to not eat the crayon that is provided for us. conservatives are literally calling us stupid and brainless, but the second i say the same about conservatives i get a lecture on how i'm not mature enough to have a political opinion.

im seeing repeated videos of conservatives removing the canadian flags off of their homes and replacing them with alberta flags (bc alberta wants to separate from canada), and american flags. and yet they call liberals the cry baby snowflakes.

[azatas]

i can't get over poilievre losing in his own riding. like i can't overstate how hilariously bad that is for him. the conservative party was projected to win in a landslide three months ago. this guy blew a historic lead because he couldn't pivot from his anti-trudeau strategy. it took him longer than the party that wants to separate from canada to condemn trump's 51st state rhetoric. he drove away moderate voters because he couldn't stop talking about "woke ideology". pierre poilievre has been a member of parliament since 2004 and he wasn't in the lead in his riding even once

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Trump’s influence on this election aside, because I hate centering America when it comes to Canadian politics, like sit down for five minutes please - anyway, Trump aside, Trudeau stepping down did wonders for the liberal numbers in a way that shouldn’t be easily written off

Regardless a person’s opinion on Trudeau, he had run his time and was dragging the whole party down because large portions of the population made it their entire identity to hate Trudeau and therefore his stepping down and the Liberals bringing in someone who was quite separate from the party played out well in terms of numbers

However.

The real question remains: what will those guys who have “Fuck Trudeau” bumper stickers do for a new identity now that Trudeau is done and gone? Will they etch in Carney’s name?? They can’t do Carbon Tax Carney anymore!! Woe, they are bereft of political identity! They will languish on a desolate island of No More Trudeau Who In Ottawa Can I Hate Now???

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Leyland Cecco at The Guardian:

There is only one building in North America, probably in the world, where one can browse bestsellers and children’s books by crossing an international border and then sit for an amateur theatre troupe in a regal opera house with each half of your body in two different countries. Standing near the Tomifobia River, a rushing body of water swollen from the spring melt, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the border of Canada and the US. Constructed more than a century ago as a deliberate rebuttal to borders and division, the imposing building split between Quebec and Vermont has become a beloved and fiercely protected part of communities in both countries. But in recent months, the library has become the latest casualty in the trans-border feud that has strained relations between the two nations. Peter Lépine began volunteering at the library 15 years ago after moving from Montreal, drawn to the creaky warren of rooms, each constructed from different types of wood. “I’ve loved it,” he says on an April morning. “I love books, I love the people and I love the quiet. And today, mercifully, it’s quiet.” For weeks, curious onlookers, outraged supporters and gaggles of media have descended on both Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont, after US officials announced the main entrance to the library, which sits in Vermont, would soon be cut off to Canadians. They cited drug traffickers and smugglers “exploiting” the accessibility and said the closure meant “we are ending such exploitation by criminals and protecting Americans” without providing evidence. Under the new rules which go into effect in October, Canadians will need to go through a formal border crossing before entering the library. The news, met with disbelief from patrons and staff, followed a closely watched visit by the US secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, in March. Touring the library, Noem said “USA number one!” and then hopped over the black tape separating the two countries and said “51st state” when she landed in Canada. She repeated the joke – echoing Donald Trump’s recent fixation on annexing Canada – three times. “It was incredibly disrespectful,” said Lépine. “There’s no other way to describe it. And it really hurt.”

Since the start of his second term, Trump has questioned Canada’s viability as a nation, suggesting that it could become the 51st American state, and deriding the outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as a “governor”. He has also called the border an “imaginary line” and threatened to use economic force to crush Canada’s economy. The political theatre comes in stark contrast to a building meant to celebrate friendship and cooperation. Opened in 1904, before rules took effect that barred trans-border structures, the library and opera house were gifted by Martha Stewart Haskell, a Canadian philanthropist, and her son Horace. The aim was to gift something artistic to citizens of both countries for generations to come. When finished, the building housed a 500-seat opera house, complete with a dazzling chandelier and a curtain painted to resemble Venice’s grand canal – original items still in use today. Like the library below, the worn black tape running through the opera marks the international border.

[...] In recent days, US border officials installed a sign that warned only library card holders could cross and access the main entrance. Anyone else “will be arrested and face prosecution” at the hands of US officials. [...] Currently, to enter the library, Canadians must trek over mats placed atop a muddy lawn, following a set of arrows that lead the building’s former emergency exit. But the library’s management envisioned an accessible entrance along with sidewalks and a larger parking lot. “I have the resources to help because of the support of American and Canadian readers. The least I could do is give back,” Penny said. “Plus, it’s like giving the finger to the current administration: you close one door, we will open another one.” At the Haskell, patrons returning books throughout the morning all cite the shared sense of history, culture and values that have long undergirded the friendship between the two nations.

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House (Bibliothèque et salle d'opéra Haskell)-- which straddles Derby Line, Vermont, USA and Stanstead, Québec, Canada-- is caught between the crosshairs of Trump’s insane feud with Canada, as the Canadian entrance is being cut off.

See Also:

The Guardian: US blocks Canadian access to cross-border library, sparking outcry

[saturniandevil]

February 2025 Important Dates

AKA my notes on The Astrology Podcast's February forecast, hosted by Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock. Ironically I'm late for the shortest month of the year, but anyways let's get started.

January Recap: The year began on a Mars-Pluto opposition, coinciding with the attacks in New Orleans & Las Vegas. Mars retrograding into Cancer, the sign of the home, brought him closest to the Earth he gets during his orbit and signaled the beginning of massive wildfires in the LA area (Mars was also illuminated by the Cancer Full Moon). The Venus retrograde is also a factor here (Venus entered Pisces, the sign to which she'll regress later), though I don't quite agree with our hosts' decision to focus on chart for the incorporation of Los Angeles itself, as the worst-affected areas like Altadena, Malibu, and the Pacific Palisades are all separate municipalities--maybe a chart relating to Los Angeles County would be more fitting for a metropole that's so spread out. The TikTok "ban" story happened right as the Venus-Saturn conjunction went exact in Pisces, and the 75-day extension allowing it to operate right now ends on the day Venus will conjoin Saturn in Pisces while retrograde.

More Mars stories include Justin Trudeau resigning the day Mars regressed into Cancer. During the Mars-Sun opposition right on the heels of the Cancer Full Moon (January 14th-15th--midpoint of the retrograde), South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested (who declared martial law on the Mars station). On the 15th during the Sun-Mars opposition we finally saw a ceasefire in Gaza, tying closely to Mars's position at 26 Libra on October 7, 2023. Mars-Sun developments and ~26 degrees of cardinal signs are definitely degrees to watch for this story. Venus's ingress and upcoming retrograde may also be indicating a return home for Palestinians displaced during the past 15 months.

Donald Trump's second inauguration was moved inside due to cold, the same as with Reagan's second term--another Venus retrograde in Aries time. Venus rx gives us comebacks, and not always ones we want. There was also a comet in attendance during this event, as was one during the April eclipse and during the election last year. His orders setting new ICE deportation/detaining quotas are a continuation of Mars entering Cancer last fall when this topic was first raised, and the Saturn-Neptune in Pisces story is also related.

The Sun-Pluto conjunction in Aquarius on January 20th-21st (& Uranus station surprising us) coincided with the US government investing $500 billion in AI, especially in power for the data centers (will nuclear energy come back as an alternative because of the massive power demand for this?), and DeepSeek surpassed OpenAI in popularity & use. The chart of the PRC has the Ascendant and Moon in early Aquarius, though the Pluto in Aquarius story re: China & technological innovations dates back thousands of years, pointing (in Chris's & Nick Dagan Best's opinion) to some older early chart now likely lost to time.

We entered the month of February right off Uranus's last direct station in Taurus before he enters Gemini in July, bringing disruptions and shakeups into the beginning of the month. (A/N: did anyone else have half their workplace out sick last week?) In Taurus, money can both disappear and come from nowhere--some surprises are good! Chris's electional chart was for February 1st so I'll skip it for this month.

February 1st - Venus conjunct Neptune The eclipse points, the Nodes, just changed signs, putting the North Node in Pisces with Saturn & Neptune, with Venus soon to join when she retrogrades. Events or people that seemed dreamy and rosy at the beginning of February may prove to be the opposite during the course of Venus rx. The North Node (Rahu, head of the dragon) brings a ravenous hunger to events.

February 4th - Venus entered Aries, Jupiter stationed Direct For Jupiter this is marks his last few weeks in Gemini for the next year or so. With a near-perfect trine to his ruler Mercury, we have an extra boost to our positive developments. Retrograde Jupiter is a good time to followup, and now that he's direct boons can move forward for us. Chris predicts some kind of development in voice AI technologies kickstarting around this time.

Venus ingressed from her exaltation of Pisces to exile (detriment) in Aries, and she's slowing down, making things a little more complicated than usual. With the upcoming retrograde, events we feel in our Aries houses will take three passes to full resolve this time around. She's going to be in this sign until March 27th, and will be back here from April to June. Venus in Aries can give us bombshell charisma, like that of Marilyn Monroe or Lady Gaga. Venus retrogrades have also aligned with large protest movements, especially around women's issues. Venus retrogrades in the same sign every 8 years, so look back to 2017 or 2009 for stories around this. Our hosts bring up how Lady Gaga exploded on the scene in 2009 and indeed she released a new song reminiscent of her early career right before the Venus ingress--right on time for Venus returning! In personal charts, Venus rx prompts us to reevaluate what we really want, sometimes deconstructing things to build them back up in a new way. Check your Aries house for which area of your chart where this will occur. Pay attention to cues of attraction and repulsion during this time.

February 9th - Sun conjunct Mercury This Mercury cazimi occurs closely square Uranus, an aspect that goes exact the next day. The disruptive Uranus events from the beginning of the month will come back to us.

February 10th - Mercury square Uranus

February 11th - Sun square Uranus

February 12th - Full Moon in Leo

This Full Moon occurs square Uranus just as the Mercury cazimi did. With Uranus in Taurus and the Sun in Aquarius, we can expect tech and finance to be at cross-purposes at this time. Electricity and energy will likely be key concerns around this time, especially around wrapping up the use of petroleum oil first proposed in 1855 (though it's not the only fossil fuel). Austin sees crypto as a premonition that energy may back future currencies instead of something like gold. Leo full Moons are always loud, flashy, and showy. This is the last full Moon before the Venus retrograde, before Inanna descends to the underworld, stripped of her ornaments and garments until she awkwardly meets Ereshkigal at the end of the elevator.

February 14th - Mercury enters Pisces Happy Valentine's Day!

February 18th - Sun enters Pisces

February 20th - Mercury square Jupiter

February 23rd Mars stations Direct From February 12th to March 9th, Mars will stay completely put at 17 degrees of Cancer. Anyone with placements at mid-cardinal signs, prepare for Mars to be there!

We're finally direct, but Mars gets going very slowly. "Let's train and prepare first instead of bolting ahead," he says. Projects that have been going on in this area of life may be finally paying off. Mars in the middle decan of Cancer is good for protecting, defending, and fortifying, including reinforcing or strengthening muscles or structures. The dark side of this, especially in world events, include nativism/nationalism, racism, and other us-versus-them aggression. However, Venus is set to react in a firey way to whatever events Mars sets off when she stations on March 1st. Cardinal risings will feel these stations especially strongly, possibly as turning points in conflicts, as these planets both station in angular houses for you.

February 25th - Sun conjunct Saturn

February 27th - New Moon in Pisces

The Mercury-Saturn conjunction (20-24 ♓) is still strong, possibly inhibiting communication, while Venus (10♈) and Jupiter (12♊) get about as close as they will to a sextile before she turns back to reevaluate things before fully realizing that positive thing. This stellium in Pisces (Sun/Moon/Saturn/Mercury/South Node/Neptune) takes us into a vivid, dreamy, and sometimes nightmarish space in stark contrast to the dry Aquarian energy we've experienced for much of the month. There are many strange creatures under the waves, not all of them real. Mercury will also be ramping up for a retrograde in Aries and Pisces as we get into early March, showing us even more events that we'll be returning to later. The end of February looks a lot like April; we're not gonna be done with this for awhile. With eclipse coming up, our sensory deprivation tank will become a sleep deprivation tank as we walk the edge of the coming maelstrom.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A Facebook page run by a political third party group funded by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson is posting homophobic memes that take aim at Justin Trudeau’s recent separation from his spouse as well as the prime minister’s sexuality. Far-right influencers in Canada and around the world have spent the last week in outrage over a photo of Trudeau and his teenage son going to see the Barbie movie while wearing pink – Trudeau’s first public appearance after announcing his separation from his spouse, Sophie. The tweet has prompted egregious memes and homophobic commentary from the far-right questioning the prime minister’s sexuality.

Continue Reading.

[twig-tea]

Canadian LGBTQ+ rights; a whirlwind summary

Back in August of 2023 @wen-kexing-apologist wrote an absolutely stellar piece here, and I didn't want to co-opt it (especially because it was already written with an American gaze and I don't want to pile on/distract from the fact that we're talking about Thai BL) so I decided to make this a separate post. And then it lingered in the sad pile of my drafts. But, I'm gonna post it anyway, and take this as an excuse to talk about Canadian history of LGBTQ+ rights apropos of absolutely nothing except the most recent move of the provinces (specifically Saskatchewan) to use the notwithstanding clause to force through legislation that the courts have said goes against our charter of rights and freedoms--specifically legislation that says a teacher cannot respect a child's pronouns without permission of the parent. This is being taken to court (latest as of this writing is that in Feb 2024 the group fighting the law was granted the right to be heard by the court in spite of the notwithstanding clause being invoked, so there is still a chance of it getting revoked via the courts).

WKA talks about what the conversation was like in the US around queer rights in the 20th century; highly recommend reading the linked post first. In Canada the conversation was a little different though with very similar themes; we had the shift to a focus on "privacy" as the driver of our rights long before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in the 1960s. So much of the push and pull of our laws around homosexuality and gender identity and expression have had to do with the public vs private.

Sodomy has been illegal in Canada since colonization (earliest known conviction: 1648) but laws against gross indecency, which included dancing, kissing, or touching between two men, didn't get codified in Canada until 1892 (and not extended to apply to women until 1953 (thanks)). While these laws essentially outlawed any physical public affection between men from the turn of the century, the fervor to root out and eliminate gayness from society didn't really reach its pitch until mid-century.

I need you all to know about the Fruit Machine, which was an ostensibly "scientific" detection device to identify and purge gay and lesbian civil servants from the military and public service in Canada. While the machine was built in the 1950s and used through the 1950s and 1960s, the practice of using psychology, polygraphs, and interrogation to force military and public servants to come out and take a voluntary discharge existed through to the 1990s.

Our former Prime Minister PE Trudeau made famous the line "there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" as part of his so-called decriminalization of homosexuality 1967; this is of course a joke because "buggery" and "gross indecency" stayed on the books for another 20 years, the only difference being they were only punishable if the people involved were under 21, there were 3 or more people present, or the participants were performing these acts outside of their home. You may notice that this meant the policing of public space was where and how homophobia continued to be perpetuated by the state via police.

Highlighting the importance of privacy as a framework for gay rights at this time, The Right to Privacy movement was the name for one of the forerunners of modern Canadian LGBTQ+ rights groups through the 1970s--though worth noting that this group in particular was criticized for its exclusion of WLW and our trans siblings (some of whom of course overlap). The infamous bathhouse raids of 1981 ("Operation Soap"), leading to at the time the largest arrest in Toronto's history, were one of the precipitating factors in the recognizable start of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 1986, five years after the raids and thanks to massive effort by LGBTQ+ organizing, sexual orientation was added to the protected list of attributes that it is illegal to discriminate against under the Canadian Human Rights Act (gender identity and expression was added in 2012), and in 1987 "anal intercourse" was made legal for those over 18 (the legal age of consent was made the same for everyone--16--in 2019), and "gross indecency" as a law was finally repealed. The fight for marriage equality was the next step after achieving real decriminalization, and was strongly based on the right to freedom from discrimination as protected by the Human Rights Act.

[Just going to take this moment to note that for some reason they never struck off the law criminalizing sodomy when more than two people are present; this is still an inequality on the books now and people do (rarely) still get charged with it.]

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the censorship fight was most famously held in the written sphere--if you've seen the movie Better than Chocolate, you might already be familiar what I'm talking about. From approximately 1986 through to 2000, Canada Border Services targeted shipments to queer bookstores, holding them up, sometimes destroying the content, putting those businesses at risk, and preventing queer content that passed through border control to be stocked in physical stores. It took the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 2000 to shut down that practice as an illegal suppression of a bookstore (Little Sisters in Vancouver, BC, shout-out!)'s right to freedom of expression.

Raids on safe spaces for sexual activity continued to be a driver for action through to the 21st century. The WLW bathhouse the Pleasure Palace (changed from "Pussy Palace" in the late 90s to be more inclusive of our sisters without that particular body part) was raided in the year 2000; 19 years after Operation Soap, and notably the first and last raid on a queer woman's bathhouse in Canadian history. What followed was a massive public coal-raking of police, including the very telling call to action: "out of the bars! Into the streets!" I don't think this was necessarily the intended implication at the time, but looking back the threat was that if we were not given our rights, we would be in everyone's faces (and conversely if we were given our rights, we'd be quiet). The legalization of marriage between any two consenting persons of legal age came five years later in 2005 (I don't mean to imply this effort was the only reason--the fight for marriage equality was active all the way through the 90s and early 2000s; it's just an interesting parallel that two of the biggest wins for equality for queer people in Canada came 5 years after a historic police raid).

One of the factors in gaining acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in Canada was the fight for marriage equality; as it focused the conversation on sameness rather than difference. The queer activism movement here pivoting from messaging around bathhouses and being left alone to marriage equality was an intentional, strategic attempt to be accepted as the same rather than being honoured for our differences. And that fight coming after the HIV/AIDS epidemic and bathhouse raids is no accident as it framed queer people directly in opposition to the stigma of promiscuity that surrounded assumptions about gay people which fed into the lack of support for medical intervention, research, and treatment for HIV/AIDS (here in Canada too, our history is just as gross on that front, people just don't talk about it as much. But Canada followed the US government's example, and so people were left without medical resources for at least eight years in Canada (since the first cases were identified here in 1982) and THREE YEARS after they had been approved by the US--AZT wasn't available in Canada until 1990. Three years in which people died unnecessarily. We similarly approved PrEP four years after the FDA, in 2016. Today, despite "universal health care", if you want access to PrEP, it will depend on the province you're in as to whether you can get it at all for free or whether you need to pay--in my province, it takes 2 months to get free PrEP).

Today, just over 50% of the people with HIV/AIDS in Canada are men who have sex with men; it's estimated 80% of people infected with HIV know their status, of those 75% are being treated, and of those 89% are effectively unable to transmit the virus. In that context, the ongoing fight re: HIV/AIDS in Canada today is around decriminalization, specifically decriminalization of drugs (since ~20% of HIV infections are from IV drug use--one of the many reasons I support harm reduction strategies), and the decriminalization of non-disclosure (since Canada is one of the few places where you can be charged for not sharing your HIV status with a sexual partner). Until very recently, we were also fighting to be able to give blood--it was only in 2022 that men who have sex with men were allowed to donate blood in Canada, which meant every visit to a blood donation clinic involved questions about the gender of your sexual partner(s). And, as mentioned at the top, one of the rights we are fighting to retain right now, is the right to have our gender expression respected without forced outing to a parent or guardian; Once again, the fight in Canada has become centered around the right to privacy.

Slightly tangential to the topic at hand, but I would be remiss in talking about moments in recent history when the law did not prosecute us, but it failed to protect us. In the 2010s, a serial killer was targeting men who he thought he could get away with making disappear; and he was right. The police ignored calls from the community to treat the case as a serial killer for years. Bruce McArthur killed 8 men who had gone missing from Toronto's Gay Village between 2010 and 2017, several who were vulnerable because they were distant from their families (because they were gay and closeted), homeless, and/or in immigration limbo (waiting for status), so it took longer for them to be reported missing. During this time, through to just weeks before the arrest, the Toronto Police insisted in public statements that there was no serial killer.

Black and Indigenous queer people have regularly died as a result of the police being called while they were in crisis. An unnamed trans woman (who was midgendered by the SIU after her death); Regis Korchinksy-Paquet, both in 2020. In 2022, Dani Cooper, queer activist who advocated against police-run wellness checks, was shot and killed by police during a wellness check called for them.

As a positive step, in 2016, Black Lives Matter Toronto staged a protest as part of the annual Pride Parade, making a list of demands, but the one that got the most coverage was the demand to ban police at Pride. This was taken up by the Pride Toronto committee, and since 2017 police have been banned from having an official float or presence at the parade. This has been taken up by several Canadian cities including Vancouver and Hamilton and inspired action in other cities globally.

With that context, in which queer people are rightfully distrustful of police, it is alarming that police-reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people (one of the only ways we have of tracking hate crime consistently) had a record-breaking increase in 2023.

In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (the son of PM Trudeau quoted above) gave a public apology to LGBTQ+ Canadians. Here's just a brief excerpt:

"To the kids who are listening at home and who fear rejection because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity and expression; And to those who are nervous and scared, but also excited at what their future might hold; We are all worthy of love, and deserving of respect. And whether you discover your truth at 6 or 16 or 60, who you are is valid. To members of the LGBTQ2 communities, young and old, here in Canada and around the world: You are loved. And we support you."

The important part about this apology was twofold; one, it explicitly named many of the specific instances of oppression I mentioned above, and two, it listed the things the government was doing to make reparations. This included the repeal of the law that equalized the age of consent (which went through two years later, as mentioned above), the pardoning of people who had a criminal record due to unjust laws based on LGBTQ+ discrimination, settlement of a class action lawsuit for victims of The Purge, and a commitment to work towards better resources for mental health and housing for LGBTQ+ people, as well as a committment to continue working to remove the barriers for gay men to donate blood (which went through in 2022). One of the other important achievements was the change to allow an "X" option under gender on Canadian Passports (so the three available options are M/F/X) in 2019 [some provincial gender opt-out options have existed since 2017].

The current government is by no stretch perfect, but it has been good to see some of these moments of our history acknowledged and corrected for. As the global pressure towards fascism continues, it's critical that we remember these changes are the result of hard work, not inevitable "progress", that these fights are ongoing and require our energy, and that change, using a variety of tactics, is possible.

Quick hit facts if you prefer a list to a narrative:

In Canada, it was illegal for men to hold hands with men or women to hold hands with women in public until the 1960s;

The government tried to expunge us from public service in the 60s and 70s;

it was illegal for men to have threesomes until the 1990s;

bathhouse raids were made possible due to legislative inequalities through the 2000s;

Canada took three years longer than the US to approve treatments for HIV/AIDS, four years longer to approve PrEP, and still today access can be complicated/expensive;

it was possible to be of legal age to have sex but not anal sex until 2019;

Gay men were barred from donating blood until 2022;

Canada remains one of the few countries in the world where you can be prosecuted for not disclosing your HIV status (though does not apply if you retain a minimal viral load);

In 2023 some provincial governments tried to make kids choose between gender expression and their privacy (and potentially safety) from their parents; as of March 2024 that fight is still actively being fought.

The take-aways I hope people get from this post:

This history is more recent than we pretend, and is ongoing

Framing gay rights as right to privacy vs right to being not prosecuted for being in public is nuanced and intertwined

Transphobes need to fuck off

Some references/further reading/watching:

Brief history of LGBTQ+ laws in Canada at the Canadian Encyclopedia

The Fruit Machine documentary made by TVO

Article on HIV/AIDS in Canada policy written by one of the policymakers

Timeline of HIV/AIDS Developments (only goes to 2010 so does not include PreP, which was approved in Canada in 2016, four years after its availability in the US)

Article on The Pleasure Palace raid by one of the organizers

Article on the Bathhouse Raids 40 years after Operation Soap

Article on Bruce McArthur's crimes and the review of how police handled the case by former judge Gloria Epstein

Regis Korchinksy-Paquet and the unnamed trans woman dead after interactions with police

Dani Cooper's death

Article about the Supreme Court case brought by Little Sisters bookshop

HIV Non-Disclosure Law Fact Sheet

Article about the end of the blood ban for men who have sex with men

Black Lives Matter Toronto on their 2016 action at Toronto Pride

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's apology

Gender "X" Options on Passports

Stream Better Than Chocolate (you may need to look up where it's available in your region)

Little Sisters Book & Art Emporium

Glad Day Bookshop (Makes a claim for being the oldest queer bookshop in the world; one of the few queer public spaces being maintained/actively protected as more and more of our spaces are eroded, and also just a personal fave so I'm taking the excuse to shout it out too)

[bopinion]

2025 / 10

Aperçu of the week

"Donald. You're a very smart guy. This is a very dumb thing to do."

(Departing Canadian Prim Minister Justin Trudeau to Donald Trump on him starting a trade war)

Bad News of the Week

Next year's World Cup will take place across North America. In addition to the USA, Mexico and Canada will also be hosting the games. And why not? After all, these three countries are not only closely intertwined economically - such as the USMCA trade agreement pushed through by Trump - but are also good neighbors. There are well-established, almost friendly ties with the US neighbor to the north in particular, and the two have not seen eye to eye for decades. But now the USA has declared war.

Trump already made some strange geopolitical statements during the election campaign. He wanted to repeat the Panama Canal. To annex Greenland, which is essential for national security, if necessary. And use “economic force” to get Canada to join the USA as the 51st state. And the first weeks of Trump's second presidency - yes, it hasn't even been eight weeks since the fraudulent dealmaker has been back in the White House, even if it feels much longer - show that this was not campaign bluster that has nothing to do with day-to-day political reality. No: Trump means everything he says exactly as he says it. He means it seriously.

At least in this one moment. Because the next day, what he means may have changed fundamentally. And then it becomes (new) facts - often also “alternative facts”. That's what makes this infernal duo of Trump and multifunctional jack-of-all-trades Elon Musk so dangerous: they shoot from the hip without thinking twice. And then row back just as quickly. Like with their waves of redundancies in the public sector. Who cares? Everyone!

It's astonishing that two people who consider themselves business geniuses are making sure that small money and big money are worth less at the same time. Small money, because inflation and prices for everyday necessities and food have not only not gone down, but are being driven up by import duties. And the big money, because the financial markets and internationally active corporations and investors value reliability and solid framework conditions and not unforeseeability and unpredictability.

If an autocratic despot in some landlocked African country does something economically stupid at the expense of his people, it is his unfortunate people who suffer as a result. When this happens in the United States of America, the global leader in so many respects, it is the entire globalized world that suffers. It is no consolation that the Billionaires Boyband around Trump, of all people, is probably rubbing its eyes. Of all people, the two richest men in the world Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, for whom literally not even the sky seemed to be the limit, are currently experiencing a considerable decline in their wealth. Perhaps this will even result in a strange alliance for better times, who knows. After all, there are obviously no longer any certainties.

Good News of the Week

Just the other day I wrote that Europe would be well advised to wake up. Before the American dream of the post-war era turns into a nightmare after the current turning point in international relations. And there is indeed movement in this continent, which otherwise likes to be sluggish and static. This is due to the fact that there is not only a separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judiciary, but also a multi-level political system has been established.

In which the European level decides what the national level has to decide, which decides what the individual federal states, regions, countries or communities decide. These, in turn, are organized in several levels downwards - in Germany, for example, into administrative districts, then into counties and finally into municipalities, some of which are subdivided into towns or precincts. Yes, that sounds like organizational madness. Because you have to master it first. Which in any case always costs two things: Money and time.

After the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the Europeans had to act to create alternatives to Russian natural gas, which had previously been the main source of energy. They did so quickly and pragmatically. And they also threw ideological baggage overboard in the process. The images of a green minister for the economy and climate traveling to Qatar to negotiate liquefied natural gas supplies on behalf of Germany, for example, are unforgettable. Because sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

And the same seems to be happening now with the issue of armaments. Yes, we were all happy about the end of the Cold War with its insane arms race. And yes, we all want to live in peace and without weapons. But as long as there is a bully on a playground, you have to put him in his place before he terrorizes all the other children. And to do that, you have to be stronger than him. Because then it should be enough to look angry and rattle your sabre so that it doesn't even come to a fight.

In this respect, it is good that Europe and its political leadership have apparently understood that we have to stand up to Vladimir Putin and not rely on Donald Trump. 800 billion euros - and a euro is still worth more than a dollar - is what the major European nations now want to spend in order to become militarily independent. At the same time, they have recognized that they should be technologically compatible with each other and not be dependent on the USA as a supplier. The United Kingdom is also involved, even though it is no longer a member of the European Union. Yes, we in Europe are sticking together. And it makes me incredibly sad that this is no longer the case in North America.

Personal happy moment of the week

Last week, my son left his backpack on a train. To be fair, I have to say that both me and his sister were with him. He was arguing with her at the time of the train change - so he was distracted. Nevertheless, it was of course a big bummer. Especially because his glasses were in his rucksack. Which, on the one hand, he needed and, on the other, weren't exactly cheap. Fortunately, an honest finder handed the luggage in to a police station. And a helpful policeman (who, amusingly, has the same first name as my son) successfully investigated: there was also a physics book in there. In which the school was noted. Which he contacted. At the third appointment at the second lost and found office, there was a happy ending. Thank you!

I couldn't care less...

...that Donald Jessica Trump - my wife stumbled across a nickname today that I think is great: “Mango Mussolini” - is not only cutting funding to the University of Columbia, but is also taking an axe to the tree of science in general. Because I very much agree with what could then happen: an exodus of bright minds to Europe. An intercontinental brain drain. Because scientists often don't care much about politics. Because they are interested in real facts. Which is something you can't really say about Washington DC right now.

It's fine with me...

...that the Danish postal service has stopped delivering letters. Good, that makes sense. Even in this country, I don't think the traditional delivery of a physical letter is very relevant anymore. Let's be honest: letters are bullshit. They take up to five days to reach us. And usually in a negative sense: as a reminder for an invoice that we have overlooked. As a notification from an authority that we don't actually want to receive. Or as cheap advertising that ends up in the paper recycling anyway. Please leave me alone with this spam in paper form!

As I write this...

...I realize that I somehow missed a good old friend this year: Oscar. The Academy Awards completely passed me by. Maybe because I find Conan O'Brien significantly less funny than Jimmy Kimmel. That wouldn't matter to me. But maybe also because I have no idea what's relevant in the movie industry right now. That would matter to me. I need to talk to my wife - because she's from North America and she's also a cinephile. Because otherwise I'm missing out.

Post Scriptum

There finally seems to be hope for an end to the war in Ukraine. Unfortunately only as a compromise, which will probably cost Ukraine the parts of the country that Russia is occupying. But since the USA wants a dictated peace for its own interests - from the potential savings in military aid to the president's personal affection for Putin - and can probably enforce it, the Ukrainian leadership really has no other choice. Because the only alternative would be an ongoing war of attrition with fewer resources.

A statement by the responsible US special envoy Keith Kellogg, who justified the suspension of American arms and ammunition deliveries by forcing the Ukrainian leadership to the negotiating table, is emblematic of this. “The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose: You got their attention.” It's strange how a (former?) partner acts like a hegemon and ignorantly withdraws at the very same time.