The media’s lip service to queer issues is obvious — more like a trap than an actual concern. Rest assured, conservatives, it feels that way to us queers, too

Nothing particularly special happens when you attend a Pride parade. You’ll have a good time, maybe you get hit with a water gun, or a drag queen gives you a back-handed compliment.

But you are unlikely to have a religious experience.

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But to hear the Canadian political media tell it, the parade is a real baptism by glitter. And reporters and pundits really want every politician to go through that trial-by-Cher.

For months, endless news stories and columns ran, decrying outgoing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s refusal to march in Pride. Now that Scheer, partly because of his discomfort with the festivities, is on his way out, his would-be successors — Peter MacKay, Marilyn Gladu, and Erin O’Toole — are tripping over themselves with promises to don a crop top and join the march. And they have, apparently, bought themselves lifetime ally memberships for doing so.

Pundits really want every politician to go through that trial-by-Cher

“I will show up to show that I stand up for rights,” O’Toole told the National Post earlier this week.

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It’s the perfect encapsulation of what’s wrong with this whole thing.

Showing up doesn’t automatically mean you stand up for the rights of LGBTQ people. Indeed, it would be awfully easy to march in the parade, Pride flag in hand, and aggressively defend the status quo for queer people. That’s not progress. And it’s a mockery of the political history of the parade.

The myriad issues facing LGBTQ people aren’t insignificant. Trans people face disproportionate levels of violence and higher levels of homeless and housing insecurity — and many shelters are not particularly welcoming to trans and gender non-binary people. Obtaining gender-sensitive health care is a challenge, too, and can be costly. Nonconsensual and irreversible medical procedures on intersex children, meanwhile, are still legal and common.

Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

Conversion therapy — a misnomer, as it neither converts queer kids, nor gives them therapy, but instead uses quack psychology to try to force them to hide their sexuality or gender — remains legal and practised in parts of the country.

These aren’t big city liberal issues, either. Queer people in rural and remote communities often have less access to services and support and see these issues more acutely.

Canada’s refugee system, too, is inherently skeptical of queer people and often sends people back to regions where they can be jailed or killed for their sexuality or gender.

Given these real problems, does the amount of oxygen and time put towards wondering will-they-or-won’t-they march in Pride seem sensible?

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No ma’am.

Given these real problems, does the amount of time put towards wondering will-they-or-won’t-they march in Pride seem sensible?

There’s no mention of those issues, yet we hear plenty from Derek Sloan, a neophyte member of Parliament launching a long-shot bid for Tory leader, with a hope and a prayer from social conservatives in the party. He was left to prattle on about trans issues, which he is woefully misinformed about, on CTV’s Power Play. Worse yet, the questions were designed to elicit exactly those responses.

From Scheer to Sloan, the media’s lip service to queer issues is obvious. There’s no attempt to figure out if MacKay wants to commit new funding to reduce HIV/AIDS transmissions, or whether O’Toole is keen to end the blood ban for men who have sex with men. Or whether Gladu would remove newly elected and openly gay Conservative MP Eric Duncan from the sidelines, where he has sat since being snubbed and left out of Scheer’s shadow cabinet.

Interrogating the candidates on those issues, I suppose, would require a level of competency on queer issues that the Canadian media, with some exceptions, doesn’t have. And apparently doesn’t care to gain.

Photo by Veronica Henri/Postmedia News

The conservative movement, too, seems increasingly frustrated with this clearly superficial concern with LGBTQ issues. The issue feels more like a trap than an actual issue of policy concern — but, rest assured, conservatives, it feels that way to us queers, too.

In the past election, the Conservatives were the only party without a single mention of domestic queer issues in their platform. That’s a shame, as there are plenty of areas where queer people and Conservatives share issues of concern. Ensuring justice for LGBTQ victims of crime, for one, or pressing homophobic regimes abroad — something that used to be a point of pride for Stephen Harper’s party.

Both sides may not see eye-to-eye on the solutions for many of the community’s problems, but progress only comes from talking about it.

Instead, the media is patting itself so hard on the back for peppering candidates with questions about the Pride parade, or doing limp interrogations of Derek Sloan, it’s likely to hurt itself.

Do better.

Justin Ling is a freelance journalist.