Canadian intelligence agency: Anti-LGBTQ groups are ‘extreme threat’
The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service is warning that anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ activists are posing a risk of “extreme violence” against the LGBTQ community in Canada, following a year of spreading organized anti-LGBTQ+ protests, anti-transgender rhetoric coming from provincial governments and an attack on a gender studies university class.
In a report obtained by the public broadcaster CBC, the CSIS Integrated Terrorism Assessment Center says it is monitoring the potential for a violent attack on Pride festivals and nightclubs across the country.
The ITAC is charged with forecasting the possibility of terrorism in Canada, based on analysis of actor intent, capability and opportunity. “Anti-LGBTQ+ narratives remain a common theme in violent rhetoric espoused by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Freedom Movement and networks such as Diagolon and QAnon,” the report says, according to the CBC. “Trans and drag communities in Canada have been the target of several online threats and real world intimidation tactics in recent months.” The Washington Blade has requested a copy of the report, but it has not been made public at this time.
Last June, a knife-wielding man attacked a class on the philosophy of gender at the University of Waterloo, approximately 70 miles west of Toronto, injuring the professor and two students before he was subdued.
