It's rare I leave a demo filled with anxiety or tension in my body, but that's certainly how I felt after leaving the counter-protest to the homophobic transphobic "million march for children" in Montreal this morning. I wanted to share a few thoughts here.

First, it was inspiring to see so many queer folks and accomplices/allies come out to confront people who want to deny their existence, and make schools much less safe for queer kids. When I first arrived around 8:30am, our side outnumbered the other side by about 20-1. But sadly their numbers swelled over time, and within an hour I would estimate that both sides were roughly equal in numbers (400 per side, give or take).

This is a really crucial time for us all to be mobilized as there is an active movement looking to force queer people back into the closet and roll back the clocks on everything we've fought for. From what I'm seeing, the "million march" was an epic failure, with pro-queer counter-protests outnumbering or matching their numbers in most places. In Ottawa, the anti-queer group was completely surrounded by counter-protestors on Parliament hill.

But the difficult thing to grapple with is the fact that, at least in Montreal, the "million march" crowd was mostly made up of Muslim folks. There has been a clear effort among the alt-right to make alliances with Muslim communities on the basis of homophobia, despite the alt-right being virulently Islamophobic. There needs to be much more attention paid to this dangerous phenomenon.

I suppose the irony was lost on most folks that they were protesting and making appeals to Quebec's PM Francois Legault outside his office, despite Legault and his party's blatant Islamophobia.

At one point a young Palestinian man came up to me, seeming a bit confused, and asked me what side I was on. He noticed that I was wearing a shirt for The Toronto Palestine Film Festival. I told him I was on the side of "human rights for everyone". He then looked at the queer crowd and said:
"Any of these people would be killed in a second if they set foot in Palestine".

To which I said, "That's not true".

"Yes it is!" he shot back. "I should know, I'm Palestinian".

He then took off quickly on bike. I would have loved to have had a nuanced conversation with him. I would have loved to talk about how yes, Hamas has an awful record of being anti-LGBTQ, and that needs to be denounced. I would have loved to talk about أصوات - Aswat and all the amazing Palestinian queer organizing happening in 48 Palestine, or how there is documented evidence that the Israelis exploit Palestinian queers and turn them into informants at the threat of being outed to their families. But alas, it wasn't the moment for that conversation.

I was kind of dis-heartened by the amped-up anti-fascist rhetoric on our side, with people chanting "fascists go home" at a largely Muslim and probably mostly immigrant crowd. As a committed anti-fascist, I think we need to be crystal clear about what exactly we're talking about when we call something or somebody fascist. I think it's safe to say that the "million man march" is organized by white Christian nationalists, and yes, fascists. See this great article from Press Progress: pressprogress.ca/anti-lgbtq-mi…

But I think in this case, the message should have stayed centred on supporting trans youth and calling out homophobia and transphobia rather than "fascism".

I don't want to make excuses for anyone though. Nor do I want to single out any one particular community. The people on the other side are far from innocent, and they need to be called out on their hate and fear. But like everything in this difficult world, it's just so fucking complicated. Some people very dear to me helped to sponsor a refugee family from Iraq who arrived in Canada last year. They are devout Muslims, and they take their kid out of school when pro-queer stuff is discussed. These people are not the enemy. But a dialogue does need to happen.

Our organizing needs to be intersectional, or else it's not gonna go anywhere.

I'm thinking a lot today about my queer Muslim friends and trans friends who are living their lives at the crux of this debate. And the debate is being had at the expense of their lives. They're doing the difficult work, and we all gotta step up to support them.

Lastly, I'm proud of the union I work for, PSAC - AFPC, for encouraging all its staff to take the morning off to go to the demos across the country, and for the clear position it has taken to defend queer workers and queer youth. Solidarity with all the unions, especially teachers unions, who are getting involved in this fight. Left-wing populism for the win.

And finally, a pic of Alabaster dePlume, who I had the sheer joy of seeing play live in Montreal the other night. He repeatedly thanked the mesmerized crowd "for being alive. It's not easy being alive, because to live means you have suffered. And being together helps us heal".