Bill C-2 affects 2SLGBTQIA+ in "Canada" through cross-border authoritarianism
Bill C-2 has implications for data accuracy, human rights, and represents a broader departure from Canada’s current policy norms.
By L.L.
* Note that this piece was submitted and discounted by eight different Canadian news-media outlets during Bill C-2’s first reading.
The Liberal Government’s first tabled bill in Parliament—Bill C-2: the Strong Borders Act—has drawn significant criticism for its sweeping legislative changes. The omnibus bill would give authorities additional powers to search mail, allow officials to cancel or pause immigration applications, empower police to demand subscriber information from internet service providers, and expand the Canadian Coast Guard’s role to include security activities, among many other things.
Additionally, buried in a portion of the bill is a seemingly minor “administrative tweak” that represents an alignment with American authoritarian views on 2SLGBTQIA+ people, but is couched in certain sensitive content. That is, Part 13 of the bill amends the Canadian Sex Offender Information Registration Act (or the SOIRA).
Amendments to the SOIRA propose expanding reporting requirements and lowering the legal bar for information sharing. Additionally, provision 153 of Part 13 replaces the term “gender” with “sex” in several key places, altering how individuals’ identities will be recorded in the SOIRA moving forward. While this shift may be depicted as administrative, it has far-reaching implications for relevant data collection, legal recognition, and Canada’s purported commitment to 2SLGBTQIA+ rights.
These changes are an ideological concession to the United States, where Republican-led governments have mounted a sustained campaign against personnes transgenrestrans people, gender diversity, and DEI. Bill C-2 is framed as a border security measure, but it aligns Canadian policy with the interests of the United States under the Trump administration.
Just a mere few months ago, Canadian Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree acknowledged that the bill addresses certain “irritants” in Canada-US relations and enhances cross-border law enforcement cooperation. While presumably (and problematically) speaking about drug legislation and immigration policy, addressing certain “irritants” also extends into social policy affecting 2SLGBTQIA+ people.
Undermining Gender Identity, Violence Prevention, and Human Rights
Replacing “gender” with “sex” in federal law represents a move away from self-determined approaches to identification. Self-reported gender identity plays a crucial role in understanding experiences of violence and harm, particularly for people marginalised under settler-colonialism, racial capitalism, ableism, and immigration and refugee status. A static framework that reduces gender diversity simply to “sex” obscure these realities, undermining existing prevention efforts.
In practice, changes to the SOIRA contradict Canada’s limited—but important—legal recognition of gender identity as a protected characteristic under federal, territorial et provincial human rights legislation. This contradiction models how authoritarian ideology is being slipped past the very voters who were told they would be protected from it. Moreover, the move is pernicious given that the Canadian government has repeatedly leveraged its public image as a bulwark against America-style politics.
Government Statistics on Gender Identity and Violence
Bill C-2 is particularly concerning given that trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people experience disproportionate rates of sexual violence. According to the 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces and the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, trans people—who comprise just 0.33% of the population—experience significantly higher rates of violence, harassment, and inappropriate behaviour across professional, public, and digital spaces.
These figures are likely underestimates, especially since government statistics predominantly rely on police-reported data. Sexual minoritized Canadians are already less likely to report these incidents to police. Certainly, a 2015 report prepared by the Trans PULSE project team found that half of trans people in Canada experience sexual violence, with 1 in 5 targeted specifically for being trans. Additionally, the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres also reports that 70% of trans youth have experienced sexual harassment.
By replacing “gender” with “sex” in official registries, Bill C-2 would distort the already incomplete picture that government statistics represent. Moreover, the proposed changes in Bill C-2 contradict existing federal standards deliberately put in place to uphold the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ Canadians.
Gender Identity and the Government of Canada
In 2018, the Canadian Treasury Board Secretariat and Department of Justice recommended modernising federal data practices by distinguishing between sex and gender and determined that gender—not sex—be the default for data collection. These directives also required Canadian departments to follow Data Reference Standards to ensure accurate and respectful representation of gender diversity in federal systems.
Most recently, the federal government also passed Bill S-12 (2023) to amplify the voices of survivors’ of sexual violence and launched the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan (2022) to promote equity and support for marginalised communities.
Additionally, the Liberal platform for the 2025 federal election also reaffirmed commitments to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and pledged to protect 2SLGBTQI+ people, women, Black and Indigenous peoples, and disabled people, as well as pledging to apply a Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) to all policy decisions.
Bill C-2 contradicts these commitments and reintroduces discriminatory policy. It tangibly signals human rights transgressions and possible impacts on existing efforts to understand and prevent sexual violence and harm. Rather than a neutral administrative update, Bill C-2 reverses important legal and socio-political recognition of gender diversity and experience under the guise of bureaucratic efficiency and border protection.
Rather than a neutral administrative update, Bill C-2 reverses important legal and socio-political recognition of gender diversity and experience under the guise of bureaucratic efficiency and border protection.
American Authoritarianism, Surveillance Culture, and Policing
Proposed changes to the federal law through Bill C-2 entrench a data regime that misrepresents and effaces 2SLGBTQIA+ people’s experiences and their rights. These changes undermine existing Canadian federal frameworks designed to represent and reflect gender diversity and suggest a concerning pattern from the Liberal Government.
By prioritising policy alliances with the United States, Canadian federal efforts are amplifying ideologies that are hostile toward trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people. These shared cross-border security norms come to reflect a broader shift toward an increased surveillance culture and authoritarianism in both the US and in Canada.
Importantly, advocating for data tracking trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people is not the goal. Rather, shifts occurring in Canadian policy and the broader socio-political landscape are a warning signal. We need to carefully consider—not how to make registries like the SOIRA more inclusive—but rather how American authoritarian interests have a stake in both effacing 2SLGBTQIA+ people and how this mode of governance is encroaching on rights in Canada.
Bill C-2 has been shown to contain multiple confounding problems arising from cross-border collaboration with the United States. Concerns around 2SLGBTQIA+ rights in Bill C-2 represent yet another complicating factor which deserves sustained and carefully considered attention, not the hurried passing of bills by the federal government.