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But aside from the obviously offensive pretext of calling trans people disabled, it’s obvious that writing in these protections would have a huge impact. Indeed, they may have helped in the case of Shelby Tracy Tom, a trans woman who was strangled to death and dumped in an alley by a man who killed her because he saw the scars from her sexual reassignment surgery. He copped to manslaughter, serving just four-and-a-half-years, as there appeared to be no initiative to try that murder as a hate crime, even as the judge admitted that he killed Tom because she was trans.

Most police services don’t even report the number of crimes committed against trans people.

But not all Conservatives who are culpable in this; 18 supported the bill and, with their support, it passed the House of Commons.

Which is where the real offence comes in: the Senate is killing it.

The Senate Liberals, as well as several Conservatives, are trying to get it brought forward again to be voted on, but the government in the Senate is stalling. It’s increasingly likely that C-279 will simply die on the garish carpets of the red chamber, bludgeoned to death by a pig-headed government.

It’s incredibly clear that this is the work of the Prime Minister’s Office — evidenced by the fact MPs were given talking points insisting that “there is no need for a societal debate” on adding these protections for trans people.

The octogenarian bagmen in our broom-closet of so-called ‘sober second thought’ are thwarting a bill passed by our elected Members of Parliament to give people human rights protections, because the Prime Minister is telling them to.

For a government supposedly so endeared to reforming our national democratic hangover, and professedly so excited about their newfound friendship with the LGBTQ community, this is a case of petulant hypocrisy.

Angrily throw something out a window or flip a table, because this isn’t how our democracy is supposed to work.

Justin Ling is a freelance journalist. Twitter.com/Justin_Ling.