Fae Johnstone is Putting It All on Display

Just letting it all hang out

Fae Johnstone leading the March for Trans Rights in Ottawa, August 25.

Fae Johnstone is one of Canada’s most influential trans activists. If there is something gender ideology-related bringing national shame to my country, it would be a safe bet that he’s involved in one way or another.

Many people probably know Johnstone best from his involvement with Hershey's Women's Day campaign, which featured the activist on one of its limited edition "HER for SHE" chocolate bars. The bars were meant to feature the faces of five inspiring women. The choice to include Johnstone, who is a man, sparked international outrage and ridicule.

But Johnstone was on the radar of Canadian gender criticals long before this. Though quite young, he has played a prominent role in Canadian trans activism for a few years.

He is the Executive Director and Co-Owner of Wisdom2Action, a consulting firm that pushes gender ideology and that voiced its support for Canada’s “conversion therapy” bill (a bill that makes it illegal to not affirm a child’s declared “gender identity). As a report on Gender Dissent discovered, Wisdom2Action has received over one million dollars in federal funding.

On his website, Johnstone also advertises himself as a “sought-after public speaker,” offering keynote speeches for $1,500 to $2,500 and workshops from $350 to $600 an hour.

Johnstone has been giving talks for several years. In 2017, for example, he presented at the International Association of Youth Mental Health (pictured below).

But his most controversial speech was the keynote address he gave at Durham College in Oshawa for the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women in December 2022.

Every December 6, this day commemorates the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, when a gunman murdered 14 women after saying, “You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.”

Many women, including yours truly, considered it the height of insult for Johnstone to be chosen to speak at such an event. The fact that he had the gall to accept speaks volumes as well.

One brave Canadian sex-based rights activist by the name of Jennifer Anne stood up during the question period and confronted Johnstone about conflating “gender-based” violence with sex-based violence and about the wisdom of letting males speak for women on this issue.

“Thank you. Next question please,” said Johnstone, displaying his typical dismissal of women who won’t capitulate to his sex-denialist fantasy.

Perhaps the best encapsulation of Johnstone’s derision and downright hatred of such women is displayed in the series of tweets below, in which he expresses his desire to politically terrorize “TERFs” into silence.

Not surprisingly, none of this gives pause to Canadian “journalists” who regularly throw themselves at Johnstone’s feet.

He recently received glowing coverage from mainstream Canadian news as co-organizer of a March for Trans Rights that took place in Ottawa on August 25.

Judy Trinh of CTV News also posted a series of videos from the event in which Johnstone is seen sporting a shirt that says “protect trans kids” and features a dagger. Once again, Johnstone prominently displayed the not-so-subtle undercurrent of intimidation and violence of the trans movement, among other things.

While Johnstone gets to brandish images of daggers at people who don’t believe kids can be the wrong sex, the rest of us poor Canadian shmucks have to sit in fear of a human rights complaint for not pretending that an obviously anatomical male is a woman.

It’s also not enough for Johnstone to lead trans-focused parades, of course. Two days later he was also the grand marshal for Ottawa’s pride parade.

Unfortunately, as we here at The Distance know, there is no such thing as gay pride anymore. Men like Johnstone not only represent women here in Canada, but they represent same-sex attracted people as well. Oops, I mean, “same-gender” attracted.

Men like Johnstone get to serve as our representatives while fearing zero institutional fallout for his barely contained rage at the women he calls “TERFs” and at anyone who dares to question whether men can really become women on their say-so and whether we should be sterilizing children.

Sure, there is public outcry every time Johnstone pulls a ridiculous stunt, but that hardly matters when his consulting dollars keep rolling in and mainstream media and politicians continue to serve as his lapdogs.

There is nothing oppressed about the trans movement and its major players like Johnstone. In fact, it is the height of privilege to be shoving a lie into everyone’s faces and have most people too frightened to say anything about it. But Johnstone and his ilk are making it impossible for people not to take notice, and they are likely to come to regret it one day.