Canada’s federal election is underway, and the LGBT movement is joining the fray, claiming that their rights are under attack.
A campaign called “Drag the Vote,” launched by the Society of Queer Momentum, is being spearheaded by prominent Canadian LGBT figures such as transgender activist Fae Johnstone and drag performers Elle Noir, Karla Marx, and Ford Ranjer. According to their website:
Drag is queer culture. Drag is art. Drag is political. Drag challenges gender norms, pushes the envelope and dares to dream of a world free of homophobia and transphobia.
In Canada today, drag culture is under attack. The queer community is under attack. Far right groups and power-hungry politicians are using misinformation and fear to turn queer rights into a wedge issue. The attacks started with the trans community, but there are already signs that they will not stop there. If they succeed, Canada will be less free, less equal and less safe for our community.
Educating the public and getting our people out to vote will be critical this election. That’s why Queer Momentum is recruiting drag performers like you to participate in our Drag the Vote campaign as Drag Ambassadors.
Their rallying cry, interestingly, is a frank admission that the concerns of many parents with events such as “Drag Queen Story Hour” are entirely accurate. Defenders of DQSH, in which costumed drag performers read to children in public libraries, insist that the events are all about fun for the whole family. Here, however, they admit that “drag is political,” and that drag “challenges gender norms” and “pushes the envelope.”
That, in so many words, is precisely why so many people believe that drag events are utterly inappropriate for children. Political events designed to tear down gender norms are not “family-friendly”; they are sanitized examples of the LGBT revolution.
The organizers state that the campaign aims to “mobilize their fans, 2SLGBTQIA+ people and allies in the next federal election” and that “our focus is recruiting drag ambassadors across the country.” However, they also insist that it is “a non-partisan (but staunchly progressive) initiative” that clearly intends to convey an “anybody but the Conservatives” message. The Western Standard noted that “(o)rganizers say they want to see leaders who will uphold legal protections for queer individuals, rather than roll them back.”
Interestingly, “Drag the Vote” doesn’t actually cite any examples of either the dangers posed to their movement (beyond vague references to being “under attack”) or what policies they are advocating for. The reference to the transgender movement clearly indicates the recent ban on sex change “treatments” for minors in Alberta, but the drag community has been the opposite of marginalized. Indeed, in 2022, Justin Trudeau became the first world leader to appear on the Drag Race franchise. The Trudeau government spent a decade handing the LGBT movement everything they asked for.
So what does the Society of Queer Momentum actually want? Clearly, the answer is: to hold on to power. The Trudeau government, and in all likelihood the Carney government, shares the goals of the LGBT movement (even if Mark Carney is likely to be far less performative about it). Trudeau stacked the Canadian senate with progressives, including prominent LGBT activists such as Dr. Kristopher Wells. The LGBT movement would like to retain their current influence, and this campaign appears oriented toward that goal.
It bears mentioning that despite Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s encouraging statements on gender ideology – that there are only two genders, for example, and his support for a number of common-sense policies disallowing males in private female spaces – he is largely supportive of the LGBT agenda writ large. LGBT activists, however, are so accustomed to power that even these deviations from their ideology constitute being “under attack.” This campaign is yet another example of how thoroughly Canada has been colonized by the rainbow flag during Trudeau’s tenure.
