Speaking during an event marketed as being about opposition to an internet censorship bill, the son of the former US president used his speech to cast transgender people as violent and dangerous.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle in July 2019. Source: Gage Skidmore/Wikicommons
During a ticketed speaking event in Toronto, Donald Trump Jr. took the stage to deliver comments and lead a panel discussion on free expression. Despite the focus of the event billed as being about opposition to Bill C-63, Trump used a large amount of his time to malign transgender people.
Hosted by the video streaming site Rumble and Rebel News, Trump was welcomed by cheers on Friday, May 10.
Dubbed “Rumble LIVE: Defending your human right to freedom of expression,” the event took place at The Warehouse Venue outside downtown Toronto. According to Rumble, the event was the first in a series of upcoming live shows.
“I'm fully in opposition of Bill C-63, a bill that violates our human rights to free speech,” Rumble founder and CEO Chris Pavlovski wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I chose our first Rumble Live event to be in Toronto so I can express my opposition to this horrendous bill.”
Taking place over two days, Trump was the headline speaker after hours of talks from Rebel News personalities, Glenn Greenwald, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump’s fiancée.
Taking the stage after reportedly having knee surgery, he joked he did not take pain medication that day to avoid comparisons to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who has had significant issues with drug addiction.
Unlike some of the other presenters, Trump’s remarks had little to do with press freedom and focused more on addressing a variety of his personal and political social grievances.
After objecting to using terms like “firefighters” over “firemen” he launched into a series of statements particularly targeting transgender people.
“If you want to be trans while an adult, I don’t give a crap,” he began after stating “I don’t want to pay for it, I don’t want to hear about it ad nauseam, I don’t think you’re special. I don’t think I have to conform to whatever you think I need to conform to at the time, and stay the hell away from our toddlers.”
Saying that issues around transgender children drives him the “most nuts,” he says people involved are “probably a groomer” and accuses “rainbow-haired teacher(s)” of convincing children to have a “permanent sex change operation” and going “on hormones for the rest of their life.”
Despite talking “crap about this stuff for a living,” Trump was also perplexed by the two spirit aspect of Canada’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Trump then went on to call transgender people violent and dangerous.
“Per capita the most violent group of individuals right now is the radical trans agenda," he said. “When you see the amount of shootings that happen, the amount of people that are killed … for something that makes up such a small portion of the population, also such a powerful portion of the population.”
Invoking a Nashville school shooter alleged to be a transgender man who murdered six people at a Christian school until being killed by police, Trump continues.
“They can shoot up a school of Christian children and their manifesto is protected because God forbid maybe someone figures out that it was a bad idea to put a 3-year-old on drugs their entire life without knowing the side effects.”
“Two spirit, who knew? For people who don’t believe in God it seems like a stretch, but I guess their religion is leftism,” he said.
Two-spirit is a pan-Indigenous term used in English-speaking communities, though many 2S individuals prefer Nation-specific terms. It is broadly understood to refer to a person who identifies as having both a feminine and masculine spirit, according to the Native Women’s Association Of Canada.
The conference's focus was predominantly on Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act. A bill designed to regulate content online and on social media, aspects of the bill would amend or change the criminal code and Human Rights Act. A recent open letter from 16 civil and human rights organizations and several other individuals has advocated for separating these more controversial aspects of the bill into separate legislation.
“Critics, academics, and civil society members have raised many concerns that the proposed changes to the Criminal Code,” the letter reads, “including potential lifetime sentences and preemptive peace bonds for acts of speech, are disproportionate, unlikely to meaningfully reduce the expression of hate online, and risk creating a serious chilling effect on lawful speech and debate.”
The $44 million lawsuit against the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the government, and banks failed to show any evidence of CAHN involvement in a (non-existent) wide-ranging conspiracy.
Bubba Pollock is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of criminal harassment against a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, after he taunted her with photos he took of her sleeping father in a hospital room.
