Opinion: Right-wing leaders’ obsession with gender puzzling

Article content

Someone needs to explain to me why right-wing political leaders are so obsessed with a person’s gender.

Article content

Is it religion? Where did this start? Is Donald Trump to blame or is this truly a movement? Seems to me we went through this ‘otherism’ when Hitler was in power and look where that got us.

The fascist dictator (my opinion) who was just elected in the USA is prepared to take over our country so our political leaders, left, right and centre need to focus on what they’re going to do about that. If anything.

Article content

If you’re all true Christians as you suggest you are at every turn, then, as one bishop in the U.S. stated recently, have some mercy. The transgender community has done nothing in my opinion to invoke this hatred. What are you afraid of?

I say to all of you, we as citizens — gay, straight or transgender just want to live in peace and live our lives to the best of our ability and not worry about whether any of us have the correct genitalia according to our elected politicians.

Jan Niekamp, Saskatoon

City must secure spaces under bridges

The recent fire under the University Bridge made me pause and think, why hasn’t the city secured these crawl spaces?

Over 50 years ago, myself and friends would investigate these areas, which included the easiest bridge to access, the Sid Buckwold Bridge. We would climb up into the east-side portion of the bridge to catch pigeons hoping to raise them.

All these years later and nobody within the city can come up with a solution — it doesn’t require the services of a rocket scientist!

John Thomson, Saskatoon

Pressure builds to spend on defence

The word from the current World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is that NATO can’t wait for Canada to get its defence spending to at least two per cent of its annual gross domestic product

Article content

And the bar will soon be set higher by NATO, in hopes of securing a fighting chance in the face of soaring defence spending by China and Russia. But those same NATO countries are under immense pressure to attract new business investment by reducing regulation and taxes.

This race to the bottom has to end if “free enterprise“ wants free countries in which to invest and thrive. NATO nation business leaders and investors must contribute fairly toward their government coffers, for their own defence.

Gord  Brock, Regina

(The above letter was originally published in the Regina Leader-Post.)

America First has dual meaning

Trump’s approach is not just America First. It is equal parts everyone else last. That is, unless you are Hungary, Russia or North Korea.

Jeff Taylor, Saskatoon

Share your views

The StarPhoenix welcomes letters to the editor. Click here to find out what you need to know about how to write one in a way that will increase the odds it will be published. Send letters to [email protected].

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.

With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.

Share this article in your social network