NDP MP Leah Gazan is standing by her use of the initialism MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ and denouncing those who are mocking her online for using the term. A clip of the Winnipeg Centre MP saying "the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+" during a news conference in Ottawa went viral this week and sparked backlash, including insults from Elon Musk and U.S. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. "Bigots are bigots," Gazan told CBC News in response. MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ stands for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual+. It's derived in part from the more commonly used initialisms MMIWG (missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls) and 2SLGBTQ+. Gazan calls the pushback a distraction from the continued violence facing Indigenous women and girls, two-spirit and gender diverse people, along with federal funding cuts to programming aimed at prevention. Gazan used the term during a news conference at the House of Commons on Wednesday about the sunsetting of program funding to Indigenous women's organizations. The federal government has said conversations about sustained funding are ongoing. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gazan-mmiwg2slgbtqqia-pushback-9.7159796 With Carney pushing the Liberals to the right it would be really nice to have a serious-ish NDP capable of presenting a credible left-centre alternative. Instead we get Naomi Klein's house husband and this virtue signalling dork.
oddly enough, it's just lazy. MMIWG is a serious societal issue. LGBT+ issues are likewise serious. It detracts from both to mix them together like that.
Exactly. And "Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" (MMIWG) should be sufficient to cover all of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, even the lesbians and asexuals. Singling out certain subgroups like that only serves to "other" them further. Gazan is desperately trying to out-woke the rest of her party, she deserves the mockery.
Interestingly, most of my LGB friends would like to be completely removed from that asinine equation/abbreviation. They weren't even happy when they got thrown in with the 2S or the TQIA+. Totally separate issues. Maybe society should worry less about stupid fucking acronyms and more about actual equality. There's a novel idea!
Did she kind of go overboard in trying to represent everyone involved? Yeah. Did it seem well-intentioned and respectful? Also yeah. Should she be dragged over hot coals for it? No. I'd much rather someone seem a bit overboard in the name of preserving human rights and dignity than what we get with the clown car of apathetic sociopaths that seem to infest the upper levels of our respective Western governments happening right now. The fact is also true that MMIW and the LGBTQ+ are being exploited, oppressed, and in far too many cases silenced in the face of systemic abuse. The US and Canada alike have horrid histories of that abuse that are still ongoing. They're not separate issues, though, and the truth is that when bigots come for the "T," the LGB is never far behind. Not to mention that the "T" has always been a part of that group because we were fighting social injustice along side the other outcasts. We've always been here. To try and split us off is to be either immensely privileged, to seem like "one of the good ones," or to cut one's nose off to spite one's face. It's a foolish thing to do. Acronyms matter because without them, it would be far easier to ignore the injustices happening against them. It also helps because humans use labels to define things, to understand them, to comprehend their relationship with other forms of identification. In a world where the default is white, male, cisgender, and heterosexual, it just seems like an inconvenience, a nuisance, but it isn't, and LGBTQ+ people should not have to live in the margins so some white folks can feel comfortable about believing they're the apex of human evolution. I always recommend people read up on intersectionality, and learn about why we're all connected when it comes to social justice and equity. https://studylib.net/doc/10714281/intersectionality-101-olena-hankivsky--phd https://www.intergroupresources.com/rc/Intersectionality primer - African American Policy Forum.pdf
I disagree there. Knowing that "radioactive" means to stay away because it will kill you is good. A doctor knowing their patient is a transgender man is a good thing as it helps facilitate proper care. There is something to be said about labels interfering with getting to know people, but when it comes to bigotry that has never been a point of contention because bigots generally don't care to know people they hate. Indeed. The US still denies, at the top level and in its policies, that anything wrong actually happened.
We can agree to disagree. Labels on things are good (i.e, "radioactive"). Labels on people are stupid and create divisions, even moreso with the lovely advent of social media. Fuck labels.
Agreed. Nah. It's a cynical ploy for attention. But that's about all NDP members of parliament can hope for these days. I dunno, checking out her Wikipedia page she comes off as kind of a dope that loves crying racism. In 2022, Gazan faced controversy for a tweet about U.S. aid to Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine war, incorrectly stating the aid was being sent to "anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi & fascist militia". The Ukrainian Canadian Congress asked for a retraction and apology.[25] In 2025, after NDP leadership candidate Heather McPhearson advocated for opening up the political party and avoiding purity tests, Gazan called "McPherson’s rhetoric a tacit 'justification for white supremacy' that 'centres the comfort' of 'white, male, and able-bodied workers' over social justice."
She sounds generally correct to me, but then I'm further to the left than most politicians in the US and Canada.
