Are you as confused as I am? Or have Canada’s leaders lost touch with reality?

You have to be 16 to get a driver’s licence. Eighteen to vote. And that isn’t all.

There are age restrictions on who can smoke tobacco or marijuana, or legally drink alcohol. You can’t serve in the military until you are at least 17. You must go to school until you are at least 16.

That’s because many important choices are considered to require a certain degree of maturity. Unless you want to change your gender. That you can do at any age. And if anyone tries to stop you, they will be sentenced to five years in prison.

Some much for the Liberal party’s “evidence based” approach to legislation.

New Criminal Code amendments introduced this month will, if passed, make “conversion therapy”  a crime. Anyone suggesting to a child that gender reassignment surgery might be better postponed until adulthood can be prosecuted. That would include parents, no matter how concerned they are that someone not old enough to drive is about to have major elective surgery that some studies show to cause serious psychological harm.

I’ve read the legislation, Bill C-8. It is riddled with assumptions and statements about gender and sexuality that many would say are demonstrably untrue. It will be interesting to see how the debate unfolds in Parliament given the prevailing social mood. Maybe the government thinks this legislation will distract people from its mishandling of the economy.

There are plenty of reputable studies that show that the majority of those who experience so-called gender dysphoria as children grow out of those feelings and emerge as heterosexual adults. Or cisgender to use the language of the legislation.

That being the case, it seems rather extreme to chop off body parts and reshape others because a child feels a certain way. Are there no sane people in government who are willing to suggest that such surgery should be left to adults? Or did the common sense train leave the station long ago?

I suspect we’ll be returning to this topic a few times as the legislation moves its way through Parliament. I’m curious what you think.

Should children be encouraged to have gender reassignment surgery if they don’t feel right with being a boy or girl? Should adults who counsel against that be put in prison?

The comment box is open – let me know what you think!