After Juno News broke the story that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s daughter is a writer who has publicly advocated for transgender procedures and identifies as “non-binary” yesterday, there has been an explosion of responses.
Billboard Chris, the activist famous for his “Children Cannot Consent to Puberty Blockers” signs, posted the full essay hours after Juno News released the initial excerpts. In the conclusion, Sasha Carney writes that so-called “Trans children deserve support, love, affirmation of their identity, and access to resources like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming clothing. They also deserve to have all of this on their own terms, without the legitimacy of their transness being interrogated, over and over, by transmeds and TERFs.”
The entire essay is worth reading:
Canadian journalists and commentators, however, rushed to condemn Candice Malcolm and Juno News for publishing the story to begin with. In often vicious terms, they insisted that the story was about a “child” who was “off-limits” because Sasha is not prime minister – her father is. Robyn Urback of the Globe and Mailsummarized their sentiments:
Trash story, with zero public interest. Defenders will say it speaks to Carney’s “judgement” or something, but that’s a terribly weak way to defend publishing a story that cruelly targets a politician’s kid just to whip up fury.
These accusations leveled against Juno News – and I covered the story extensively, as well – deserve a response. Sasha Carney is not a child. She is a 24-year-old Yale graduate who lives in New York and works as a freelance writer. The information about her attendance at the Tavistock gender program does not come from leaked records or published private messages. That information comes from an essay published by Carney, in a magazine, intended to be read by the public.
In short: The only reason the information published by Juno News is public is because Sasha Carney published it for public consumption when she was an adult. That context matters, and the commentators accusing Juno News of publishing private details about a child either haven’t read the story or are making the accusations in bad faith.
It is also frankly odd that Urback – and others – have claimed that the story has “zero public interest.” This claim, I suspect, has more to do with their view of gender ideology writ large than the actual story at hand. Sasha Carney is a writer who has focused on transgender issues, a current subject of debate in Canada. Pointing to the public work of an adult freelance writer on an issue being currently publicly debated in a country where her father is prime minister is obviously in the public interest, if you believe that gender ideology is a serious issue. Many Canadians happen to think so. Most Canadian journalists do not.
If the roles were reversed, I suspect that this conversation would be much different. If Pierre Poilievre had a son or daughter who was, say, a pro-life activist – would that attract journalistic interest? Without doubt. What if they were an activist opposing gender ideology? Again, that fact would clearly be considered journalistic fair game. Now, if Poilievre had an adult son or daughter who was a writer and wrote about a subject currently being debated – there is no doubt that the press corps would cover it.
I suspect that Urback and others are very aware of the potential political implications of this story, but let me provide just two examples. First, as I noted yesterday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s legislation banning transgender procedures for minors passed last year. Smith specifically cited the closing of the Tavistock gender program as one of the justifications for her legislation. The fact that the prime minister’s daughter attended this facility as a minor is obviously relevant to how this national debate plays out.
Secondly, federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has expressed increasing skepticism about the transgender agenda. Most recently, Poilievre responded to an interviewer asking him about gender ideology by stating that he is “only aware of two genders” and challenging the host to provide him a list of others. Now, the man Poilievre will be running against in the next election has a daughter who identifies as “non-binary” – neither male nor female. Are we supposed to pretend that this fact has no political implications for a debate happening not only in Canada, but right across the Western world?
Anyone being cruel to Sasha Carney on social media should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone making wild, unsubstantiated claims should recognize that they are simply poisoning a badly needed debate. Juno News did neither of those things, and the story they published is certainly in the public interest. The fact that many Canadian journalists do not think so explains why their coverage of the transgender debate has been almost entirely one-sided for a decade.
