Canadians Need To Be Vigilant About Anti-LGBTQ Hate Spilling North of the Border. So We're Ramping Up Our Coverage

Spencer Macnaughton | Uncloseted Media Weekly Newsletter

Oct 30, 2025

I remember taking an “Introduction to Canadian Studies” course in my third year at McGill University. The takeaway from the class was that Canada’s national identity is built around an ideology that we are proud to be not American.

As America’s northern neighbor, we are fractional in size, with only slightly more people living in Canada than in California. Perhaps due to an inferiority complex, we pride ourselves in being better than the U.S.: we boast about how we are happier people and have universal healthcare, less income inequality, more tolerance for diversity and less gun violence.

But therein also lies the problem. This “grass is greener” mentality gives Canadians an out from not having to reflect on the problems we face within our own borders.

This idea is particularly relevant when it comes LGBTQ rights. While the U.S. government is waging an unprecedented attack on the queer community, Canada is far from perfect: Alberta’s government, egged on by anti-LGBTQ parent groups, has instituted a new book ban policy; Saskatchewan’s “Parents’ Bill of Rights“—which has been cited as an example of the encroachment of America’s culture wars—requires teachers to get parental consent to call trans kids by anything other than their deadnames; and former prime ministerial frontrunner Pierre Poilievre has an anti-trans track record that closely mirrors Donald Trump’s.

These policies have a tangible impact: 56% of Canada’s LGBTQ youth meet the criteria for a variety of mental health and substance use disorders compared with 29% of their cisgender heterosexual counterparts, and hate crimes against LGBTQ Canadians went up by 388% between 2016 and 2023.

In the last few months, I’ve had countless conversations with Canadian friends and colleagues about how we need to remain vigilant and take action to make sure America’s anti-LBGTQ ecosystem doesn’t bleed north of the border. I’ve reflected on what that means for Uncloseted Media. How can we, as a journalistic organization, help hold the line in my home country, which has been a trailblazer for LGBTQ rights on the global stage?

The answer is simple: we’re going to start telling more Canadian stories. In the next few months, expect a rollout of more Canadian content examining the country’s anti-LGBTQ ecosystem that fuels misinformation and misunderstanding and promotes principles—such as division and intolerance—that are antithetical to Canadian values. Expect investigations, but also human-centered stories that unpack what it’s like to be, for example, a kid growing up in an intolerant household in rural Alberta.