Violent ‘anti-gender’ threats to continue over coming year, Canada’s spy agency warns
Canada’s intelligence agency predicts violence fuelled by “anti-gender” ideology is expected to continue over the next year, potentially driven by recent attacks and religion-motivated extremism.
“While violent rhetoric itself does not equate or often lead to violence, the ecosystem of violent rhetoric within the antigender movement, compounded with other extreme world views, can lead to serious violence,” an annual report released Tuesday from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) notes.
“CSIS assesses that exposure to entities espousing anti-gender extremist rhetoric could inspire and encourage serious violence against the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, or against those who are viewed as supporters of pro-gender ideology policies and events.”
CSIS is referring to a movement it says is rooted in “ideological opposition” to the acceptance and integration of sexual and gender-diverse communities in Canadian society.
It falls within one of the agency’s four categories of ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE): a classification of “gender identity”-driven violence that also includes misogyny and the incel movement.
“While the movement may collectively hold extreme views, CSIS assesses that only a small portion of adherents are willing to engage in serious violence,” the report said.
Nevertheless, the agency’s assessments show that the “violent threat posed by the antigender movement is almost certain to continue over the coming year,” and that domestic supporters of religion-motivated violent extremism are continuing to spread anti-2SLGBTQIA+ and antisemitic rhetoric through online channels.
“I worked at the service between 2012 and 2015, and if you told me in 2015 the leading public safety threat to Canada would be gender-based violence, or anti-gender violence as they call it, I would be astonished,” said Stephanie Carvin, a former CSIS analyst and now associate professor of international affairs at Carleton University.
“I do think it’s positive that we now understand that not all violence comes from just al-Qaeda inspired narratives. It comes from a range of threat actors, even if we just haven’t traditionally considered it as such … I think if they’re leading with this, it means that’s the thing they’re almost certainly most concerned about in this space.”
The report zeroed in on specific examples that could inspire future violent incidents, such as last June’s knife attack at the University of Waterloo, in which a professor and two students were stabbed in a gender studies class by a recent graduate who is now facing terrorism charges.
“CSIS assesses that the attack constitutes an act of IMVE and represents an example of antigender ideology violence. The alleged perpetrator’s actions appear driven by a desire to express his grievances and send a message to his perceived enemies,” the report notes.
Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism expert at Queen’s University, said gender and gender identity-based threats are now moving beyond the incel movement.
Amarasingam and other experts have noticed “a stark rise in groups and individuals pushing back against policies and educational programs that promote gender equality, the acceptance of transgender rights, or even the broader concept of gender as a social and cultural construct,” he wrote to the Star in an email.
The extremism landscape, he said, is now a melding of “disparate movements from religious conservatives to misogynists to right wing actors.”
The intelligence agency’s report comes after several provinces have pushed for contentious policies concerning transgender and non-binary youth, the most controversial of which has been proposed by the Alberta government and would place sweeping restrictions on gender-affirming care, education and participation in sports.
Amarasingam said politicians have keyed into confusion and misinformation about sexual and gender-diverse communities, which he said can morph into “anger and mobilization.”
Carvin cautioned that clear lines must be drawn between political rhetoric and anti-gender violence, but said politicians must think carefully about how they convey their policies.
“There is a responsibility for politicians to do this in a responsible way, so as to not further feed into these narratives, or so that extremists feel that their campaigns are justified,” she said.