On September 27, 2025, Trans Rights Commission Toronto held a counterprotest demonstration at Queen’s Park as a public statement of opposition to rising anti-trans extremism and a consolidation of community power. Although our counterprotest was organized in response to an anti-trans hate rally calling for healthcare to be forcibly withheld from trans kids, we explicitly planned our counterprotest to reassume the public narrative on trans rights from anti-trans extremists. As such, our focus is not on the violent demands of these extremists; rather, it is on how we now move forward to most effectively safeguard trans rights in Toronto and throughout Canada.

In order for us to successfully defeat anti-trans extremism, we must recognize why it exists in the first place. It is true—common knowledge, perhaps—that latent prejudice against trans people is ingrained in society. However, what we are seeing today is this latent prejudice being deliberately nurtured and exploited by malicious actors in a bid to persecute and eventually genocide trans people out of existence. This activity often occurs at the behest of well-connected and heavily funded actors who use their resources to set up or facilitate ‘alternate infrastructure’ intended to mimic legitimate nonprofit organizations and professional associations to unsuspecting observers with the actual purpose simply to spread malicious anti-trans viewpoints. Indeed, the organization behind the hate rally we counterprotested cites several such sources in its website in an attempt to give its extremist views the veneer of institutional credibility.

Such networks have no place in a free and democratic society. They disrupt the ordinary democratic decision-making process based on consultations with impacted groups, good-faith debate on an evidentiary record, and a decision on merit; as these networks build influence through non-democratic means and by recourse to their financial resources and connections, they contribute to the ever-increasing difficulty of continuing to uphold democratic decision-making. This is by design: these networks have no intention of actually participating in democracy where their extremist ideology will fall flat in the fact of evidence, expert testimony, the lived experience of trans people and logical thought. They necessarily must find alternative means—those based on power, infiltration, threats, disruption and abuse of process—in order to impose their extremist agenda on society. We have to recognize this to recognize how to defeat it: because their modus operandi is not based on evidence or good-faith debate, it is impossible to defeat it simply by producing more evidence or presenting more convincing arguments.

Instead, we must target the means they actually do rely on: their power, their infiltration, their threats, their disruption, and their abuse of process. We have to consolidate our own power—one based on community and solidarity instead of irrational hatred—and be prepared to wield it in opposition to these networks. We must restrict their access to the processes they seek to abuse, and must hamper their recruitment efforts by increasing the social cost associated with aligning oneself with their extremist agenda. We must stand in solidarity with trans people, protect them from the threats these networks issue, and require the prosecution of anyone who engages in such threats to the fullest extent possible. We must recognize those aligned with these networks when we find them in our institutions and spaces and ensure they are stripped of power and promptly ejected before they have the opportunity to harm members of our society.

This will undoubtedly be a complex endeavour. It is not something that can be done independently by sympathetic individuals; it requires access to community resources and backing as well as careful coordination. As an organization responsible for advocating for trans rights that does not answer to corporate donors or other entities with conflicts of interest, we are uniquely situated to foster a space where these resources are accessible and where such coordination can occur. The counterprotest we organized in response to the hate rally served as a useful opportunity for us to bring trans people and those supportive of their rights—many of whom do not have prior involvement in advocacy for trans rights—together so as to strengthen community connections and introduce ourselves to the community.

Besides the inherent merits of that, it also sends an important message to the organizers of the hate rally we counterprotested and any other hate organizers considering a demonstration in opposition to trans rights: their efforts are not only futile but also entirely counterproductive. Instead of shifting the political environment towards anti-trans extremism, they further strengthened the movement for trans rights and allowed us to build connections rooted in solidarity that would have otherwise taken several months to build. With the fact that they had to bus people in and out and provide them with the same printed signs, they also offered the public a rare glimpse into just how fringe their extremist ideology is—something that may not be readily apparent owing to our biased media environment and manipulated social media algorithms.

We are grateful for this opportunity and look forward to making Toronto, and Canada in general, a better place for trans people.