I come here angry, with a lot of thoughts and feelings I don’t know where to place. That’s why I tend to start blogs like these, because on some issues I get very stuck in a mental process, and the block is so huge I just can’t get on with my life. And I have other stuff to do. I can’t be stuck here for too long.

After the French-language debate today there was a “press” conference where each party leader took 10 minutes of questions from “journalists,” who apparently had been pre-credentialled. Several representatives from a couple of right-wing outlets dominated the session, asking dumb questions and spreading misinformation.

Jagmeet Singh had the right tactic. He said, “I don’t respond to questions from outlets like [retracted] that spread misinformation.”

[I refuse to name the outlet, Google it, or further train the algorithm that its opinions or trash are worth recycling and circulating by posting about it here beyond the basics of what I have to in order to get my feelings out.]

Let’s just say the misinformation Singh was faced with was significant.

But Jagmeet was up second. Up first had been Mark Carney, who was likely expecting questions from legitimate journalists, not some random person who asked him how many genders there are.

It isn’t the first time I’ve seen him get questions like this. The other time I can recall was when he was asked about gender-affirming health care, which seemed semi-policy related at the time, since he was in Alberta, where the issue was before the courts.

But this seemed like a low, deep blow that went beyond inflammatory right-wing rhetoric modelled upon similar vicious political language that occurs elsewhere around the world. And I’ll just say it — it’s a low blow because only Carney got these questions, and one of Carney’s adult children expresses their gender outside the binary.

(Not knowing this person outside of what’s written online, including their own writings, I won’t give them a label when I don’t know what that label is for them — I also gather they’re in the early stages of adult life, and those labels can change.)

I hesitate to even bring up the issue, because in so doing you’re bringing someone into a fight who didn’t ask to be in it — Carney’s kid — and you’re maybe giving this repulsive outlet that’s just trying to make money by inciting hatred a few extra clicks. You’re also reinforcing the idea that this kind of “conversation” has any place in public life.

But I need to say to the person who asked that question: There is a special place in hell for you. There is a special place in hell for someone who would try to trap a father into going against his child. For their own twisted, selfish purposes.

Kids of politicians don’t typically have a place in Canadian politics. This is a new import from you-know-where.

This obviously strikes a personal nerve for me, because I remember what it was like in the 80s and 90s to be gay when people still thought it was ok to openly say homophobic things. I remember what it was like when these discussions would happen to you and around you, because no one would assume you could be gay or might be gay. Gay was the other, gay was over there somewhere. Gay couldn’t be right there sitting in the room with you.

I have that scene from Milk in my head. The one where he tells his burgeoning group of advocates that “They vote for us 2 to 1 if they know they know one of us. Everybody has to come out.”

Gender nonconformity is right now significantly stigmatized and marginalized. The otherness is still very strong. Carney’s kid has every right to privacy. But no one should ever try to trap Mark Carney into going against his child because of what they know — or think they know — about that child.

If you try to do that, there is a special place in hell for you. And I know one of your colleagues, in their misinformation tirade in the “question” to Jagmeet Singh implied a war on Christianity, but it’s you who’s waging that war. You’re the one who has to account to your God for what you say and what you do and how you treat people.

Special place in hell.

Let’s hope the scrum after the English debate doesn’t have the same foul residue.