In a clip posted online, a P.E.I. PC leader and a voter talk about transgender rights
Dennis King, the leader of the P.E.I. PCs, is defending himself and his party’s position on protecting transgender rights after audio of him saying “you don’t have to shove everything down everybody’s throat” when asked about trans issues was made public.
In a 32-second video posted to social media on Friday, King can be heard talking with an unnamed voter about Prince Edward Island’s transgender community. He later found out that the other person was one of his constituents in Brackley-Hunter River District 15, where he is running for re-election on April 3.
No one knows who the constituent was, when it was recorded, or where it happened. Kevin Arsenault, who ran against King for PC leadership in 2019, posted it on social media. CBC tried to get more information from Arsenault about the audio, but did not hear back.
King said that the whole conversation with the voter took about 30 minutes, so people shouldn’t judge it by a short clip.
Here is the full text of that clip:
Voter: What else? Oh yeah, the situation with trans people—
King: Yeah.
Voter: Yes, and it’s being forced down the throats of Islanders. And anyone who raises their hand, especially young women and young mothers who are trying to protect their children, and we have people like Paul MacNeill, who runs a weekly newspaper called The Graphic. Basically, you could say that they were crazy.
King: [I can’t hear you.] You can’t talk.
Voter: Okay, I guess that’s it. And it needs to be that way—
King: In a perfect world, be happy with who you are and go be happy with [inaudible]. You don’t have to force everything down people’s throats. And it’s okay if they don’t agree.
King said that he didn’t know he was being recorded when CBC News asked him about that comment on Monday.
“I think that’s a good example of the kind of conversation you sometimes have at a door, where you try to figure out what someone is thinking and where their ideas came from,” King said.
“If I remember correctly, that conversation was more about what the person thought about the book-reading situation at the King’s Playhouse in Georgetown,” he said.
A planned time for a drag story Reading at the theater was the subject of online protests in February, which caused the event to be pushed back to April 15.
It happened after some Island parents tried to get the Public Schools Branch to get rid of rules meant to make sure schools are open to everyone.
…In the world we live in, we have to be able to talk to each other… There is no place in the world for hate, homophobia, or discrimination.— Dennis King
King said, “I guess my whole point would still be that we have to be able to talk to each other in the society we live in.”
“Hate, homophobia, and discrimination don’t belong in the world, but we need to be able to talk to everyone about these hard transitional issues.”
He also said that during the taped conversation, he was trying to figure out why that person had that opinion.
King said that he has been very supportive of the trans community on P.E.I. and that human rights “need to be protected and defended on P.E.I.”
Last week, at a meeting of the P.E.I. Coalition of Women in Government, King said that transphobic comments “need to be called out right away.”
“There are people who have lived here for too long who are afraid of change and don’t know how to deal with it,” he said Thursday. “I want Prince Edward Island to be a place where you can be who you want to be, love who you want to love, wear what you want to wear, and celebrate your uniqueness.”
King said Monday that he still feels that way.
“That’s what I think, too, that we need to talk about,” he said. “We need to talk to people to get to the bottom of why they believe what they do.”
‘Extremely disappointing, damaging and harmful
Lucky Fusca is in charge of the P.E.I. Transgender Network as its executive director.
They said that based on what they heard on the tape, King did say that he thinks the transgender community is “shoving our existence down people’s throats.”
Given what King had said at the leaders’ forum on Thursday, Fusca called it “a very disgusting answer” and “spineless.”
“A true ally would have called out the person Dennis King was talking to for his anti-trans rhetoric and either ended the conversation or made room to try to teach this person.”
Fusca said that it was “extremely disappointing, damaging, and harmful” to try to call out transphobia in public while also having private conversations like the one in the released audio clip.
“Anti-trans groups in Prince Edward Island have attacked our community in the past and continue to do so now… It’s not surprising that the leader of this province isn’t giving them direct and strong support, but it’s also very disappointing that they aren’t.”
PC leader apologize
In a statement released late Monday afternoon, King’s office said, in part:
“I should have stood up for the transgender community more strongly, and I sincerely apologize to those who are offended by my lack of action.”
“I had a chance at that time to be a stronger ally for the rights of transgender people, but I fell short of both my own and Islanders’ expectations. I can do better, and I will.”
Pride P.E.I. issues releas
Late Monday night, Pride P.E.I. announced that it no longer wants political leaders to take part in the Island’s annual Pride Parade. The next one is set to take place on July 29.
“In recent years, Pride P.E.I. has been proud to have representatives from all of the Island’s major political parties in the parade. Unfortunately, this symbolic form of allyship has not been followed up with real efforts to stop the rise in hate speech and violent acts against our community,” the statement said.
“We don’t think we have any other choice but to stop all provincial political parties from joining until they make promises that will be kept when the legislature meets again after the election.”
Pride P.E.I. didn’t single out King in the statement. Instead, the group said it’s time for all political leaders to take a stand and invest in LGBTQ projects.