A First Nation in Alberta, Canada has declared itself a safe haven for gender-affirming medical care amid the province’s crackdown on providing such care to trans kids under 16.
“All children, including trans and two-spirit children and their family, will have safety under our treaty,” said Dale Steinhauer, chief of Saddle Lee Cree Nation, on Wednesday, as reported by Global News.
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Steinhauer also reportedly declared, “No longer will children and families have their rights taken away. When one group’s rights are removed, we are all affected.”
The Saddle Lee Cree Nation is justifying its decision using the “medicine chest clause,” from an 1876 treaty between the Crown and a group of First Nations, which indigenous people have long interpreted as a guarantee of comprehensive health care by the federal government to First Nations people (though the government disagrees with that interpretation).
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Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta government banned access to puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for trans kids under 16 last year and invoked the Notwithstanding Clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to block the law from being challenged in court. The clause allows the government to override people’s fundamental rights when it feels it is absolutely necessary.
Dr. James Makokis, a two-spirit family doctor from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, said during Wednesday’s announcement that the anti-trans movement is “a public health emergency that has to stop.”
“When there’s a threat to the buffalo calves in the herd, all of the adult buffalo form a circle around those young ones, because they’re the next generation,” Makokis said, according to CBC.
The First Nation is reportedly working to recruit gender-affirming care providers to work on its land, where Steinhauer said, they will be exempt from Alberta’s laws.
Indeed, Smith reportedly said she will honor the safe haven plan, acknowledging the Saddle Lee Cree Nation’s sovereignty.
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