Meet Kristopher Wells, Trudeau's New Senate Appointment and Champion of "Trans Kids"

If he can't transition children, then he'll at least confuse the hell out of them

Kristopher Wells. Source: X/@PrideTape

If you haven’t heard the news, I am sorry to be the one to break it to you: Justin Trudeau has appointed two new senators from Alberta, and one of them is a man by the name of Kristopher Wells. The problem is that Wells is a radical far-left queer activist who strongly believes that some children are “trans” and that those children should be able to transition hormonally and surgically. If you don’t agree with this, then Wells thinks you are a bigot responsible for youth suicides.

Wells is a former professor at the University of Alberta, where he served as the Faculty Director of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (now the Fyrefly Institute for Gender and Sexual Diversity) from 2012 to 2018. He then moved on to MacEwan University, where he became the founding Director of the MacEwan Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity. He was the co-founder of Camp Fyrefly (a camp for “queer and trans” youth ages 14 to 24) and the co-creator of Pride Tape (rainbow-colored hockey tape). Among the many organizations he’s been involved in include the Alberta Hate Crimes Committee.

I had the unfortunate experience of running into Wells in person when I attended a “2SLGBTQQIA+” stakeholder roundtable discussion last February. I was very taken aback by his unpleasant behavior, which I described at some length:

At one point, [Wells] went off on a tirade against the minister, his voice growing louder and louder. I would say one could easily interpret it as yelling. He was berating Fir about how she would be personally responsible for kids’ deaths.

I requested to speak and, when it was my turn, I told the minister that it was emotionally manipulative, abusive, and disgusting to lay dead children at her feet and at the feet of the Premier. Wells leaned out and told me I could say that directly to him, so I did. He then proceeded to try to argue with me and I told him very firmly that it was my turn to speak. I elaborated on the fact that it was highly irresponsible to tell children, especially children already struggling with mental health issues at disproportionate rates, that their Premier and their government hate them and want them dead.

Wells monopolized the conversation during the entire roundtable and requested to speak multiple times, as he was perfectly well allowed to do. But every time he spoke, he disrespectfully went on for very long periods. At the very end of the roundtable, when he was asked to keep it short, as two more people from his own side were still requesting to speak, he ate up the last 10 minutes and they did not get their final chance.

One of his final “points” was that there is a consensus on gender-affirming care (this was right after I had gone through the list of countries that have walked back their affirmative care model after a review, including Finland, Sweden, France, the UK), and that it was dangerous to question the consensus. Yes, Kristopher Wells is a proponent of the tyranny of the mob. After all, we know the way that science and medicine work is by never, ever questioning consensus.

There is a lot I could say about Wells and about the various initiatives he has founded or been a part of. It would all go to show that he is an avowed ideologue bent on pushing queer theory and gender ideology onto society and that he smears anyone who pushes back even slightly as “hateful.” Here is just a tiny sample of him throwing this accusation around:

But I won’t bore or overwhelm you with every pot he’s had his finger in—there’s just too much of it. Instead, I have found an example that I think perfectly sums up the absurdity and the harm caused by the radical ideology that Wells is pushing.

Earlier, I mentioned that he is a co-founder of Camp Fyrefly, a program of the Fyrefly Institute for Gender and Sexual Diversity. The Fyrefly Institute also runs a program called Fyrefly in Schools. As it sounds, this program offers workshops in schools with stated goals to

help reduce discrimination against 2SLGBTQ+ youth, increase awareness of the impacts of homo/bi/transphobia, and equip students with the tools they need to become effective allies for diversity, equity, and human rights within their schools and communities.

Not only is this obvious ideological indoctrination problematic enough on its face, but what really happens in these workshops is even worse. As I was trying to look deeper into it, I came across a report by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms that references an autistic and obsessive-compulsive child who had experienced significant anxiety and stress after attending a Fyrefly in Schools presentation.

The report linked to two affidavits, one from her father and one from the girl herself, which described what happened during the presentation and how it affected her. Essentially, the presenters told the students that “gender” is a spectrum which differs from “sex assigned at birth” and can be changed. They were also told that boys and girls can be born in the wrong body. As a result, the girl was plagued with thoughts that she was really a boy born into a girl’s body.

Here’s a snippet from the father’s affidavit for more details:

And from the girl’s:

It is obvious how damaging the lies of this ideology can be to children with mental health issues. Such children and those with other vulnerabilities are more likely to fall prey to these ideas. In fact, as I have written before, the rates of suicide and suicidal ideation among trans-identified kids do not differ from those of other kids when psychiatric problems are controlled for. Autistic children in particular are more likely to identify as trans because they and careless adults around them often interpret their symptoms as signs of “gender dysphoria.”

But make no mistake: while more vulnerable children are more likely to be negatively impacted by programs like Fyrefly in Schools, no children at all should be exposed to this nonsense. Not only does this ideology lie to kids about basic biological facts, but it also encourages a highly neurotic level of self-centered rumination that is sure to have an impact on even the most mentally stable child.

Why on earth would you want to encourage any children to ponder such crazy-making questions as whether or not they were “born in the wrong body”? Why would you want them to obsess about whether their likes, interests, behaviors, and style preferences are appropriate for their sex or a sign that they are actually the other sex? What kind of mature and responsible adult thinks it’s okay to psychologically experiment on children in this way? It’s hard and painful for me to imagine.

Then there’s the fact that programs delivering this kind of ideological brainwashing are everywhere. It is far and away not just Fyrefly in Schools or Wells that are to blame. The SOGI 1 2 3 program of the ARC Foundation suggests lessons that introduce the gender and sex “spectrums” using cartoons like the gender unicorn and the genderbread man. Out In Schools is another program in British Columbia that does the same thing. Last summer, I infiltrated a Zoom meeting for parents held by Out In Schools and witnessed the three presenters spout all of the same garbage, right down to the claim that “intersex” people constitute different sexes entirely.

It’s true that more people are becoming aware of what’s going on and, as regular readers know, I tend to be optimistic about the eventual demise of gender ideology. But then the Prime Minister of Canada goes and appoints one of our country’s greatest proponents of this cult to the senate, and it’s hard not to wonder what it’s going to take to truly get out of this mess.

Related Reading:

For more insight into Wells’ deranged ideas and beliefs, check out Mark Proudman’s deep dive into his doctoral thesis:

Senator Wells' Thesis: Activism as a Career