1 Million transphobes: Comparing far right anti-trans politics in Canada and the UK

On September 20th, 2023, the “1 Million March 4 Children” was held across Canadian towns and urban centres. Bringing together a coalition of far-right groups that crossed religious and ethnic divides, these demonstrations purported to contest the “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI)” curriculum in publicly funded schools. While Anti-trans politics in Canada are certainly not new, the “1 Million March” can be seen as a flashpoint in Canadian far-right political organizing on this issue, bringing together seemingly disparate actors such as: those involved in the 2022 ‘Freedom Convoy’, anti-vaccine demonstrators, white supremacist groups, conservative Muslim communities, and elected representatives from multiple levels of government. In order to understand the growth of this seemingly ideologically and organizationally muddled movement, we propose a comparative analysis of the uptake of anti-trans politics by the far right in both Canada and the United Kingdom, which is known internationally for promoting trans exclusionary radical feminism and anti-trans politics more generally. We ask: what are the distinct manifestations of anti-trans politics in these two countries; how have these manifestations been formed and what political alliances have made this possible; what are the formal political impacts of anti-trans politics (i.e. their de jure and de facto norms); and finally, what, if any crossover, or learning-from-one-another, has occurred and what can be gleaned from this in order to counteract these politics?