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Shops “A food company in Canmore is facing a backlash over a transphobic response to a donation request by Canmore Pride.
As the Canmore Pride Society prepares for its second annual celebration, the volunteer-led group has been reaching out to local businesses to ask for sponsorships. The group’s co-chair, K Kealey, sent an email to Valbella Gourmet Foods to ask for donations for an upcoming BBQ and was shocked by the response. The response was signed by Jeff von Rotz, whose email signature identified him as the deli’s owner. He started the email with a dig at Kealey’s single-letter name, then continued with transphobic and homophobic remarks.
“I’m sorry to say but you could not pay me to sponsor anything to do with child grooming tranny’s [sic].
“Please keep these sick people away from the children of this community, you should be disgusted with yourselves.”
He added that he’s sure there would be “some woke organization mentally ill enough to help” the group with their event, but it “isn’t Valbella’s.”
We should be clear here. This is not the most appropriate way to respond to a request for a donation from a special interest group. It isn’t a professional business appropriate response and should not have been sent out. A simple “no thank you” would have been entirely sufficient.
People feel strongly about issues and those emotions and impulses should not automatically be transferred to electronic media where they live forever. Stuff happens. However, lets take a look at the response.
“Kealey, who identifies by the pronouns they and them, said they were disappointed and hurt by the response.”
Welcome to society. The expectation not be offended and have your feelings hurt is an unrealistic and unhealthy belief.
“I shared the email because I was concerned about the safety of my own community and, as a trans person myself, I was thinking I didn’t want to go into that place or if I would be safe there anymore,” Kealey said Wednesday.
The bad man said words? And you are that fragile that you’d feel “unsafe” entering the store? This is classic vulnerable narcissism in action – pity me and (or I will make you pay for!) my bruised feelings…
Of course, if it ended there it would have been fine. Perhaps an adult conversation could have taken place and an apology elicited for the rude behaviour.
Ooooooooooor, we can take it the media and start a shit-show.
“We think we deserve spaces where people can go and be safe, and not only be safe but be fully accepted,” they said. “There are so many great people out here and they deserve better and deserve to exist in spaces as who they are and feel embraced for that.”
No one in society gets to be fully accepted automatically. And we really need to connect the dots between a heated email about donations and then somehow not being able to buy deli meat safely? It doesn’t compute outside the realm of those who are always on the lookout to be offended.
“Chantal von Rotz — Jeff’s sister and the daughter of the company’s founders, Walter and Leonie von Rotz — said in a post online Tuesday that Jeff has been removed from the company and its operations.
“The owners and leadership of Valbella Gourmet Foods express its deepest apologies to the Canmore LGBTQ+ community for an intolerant email that was sent (Tuesday) by one of our former team members,” said Chantal.
She said his words do not reflect the opinions of the Valbella team and that the company strives to make its workplace inclusive.”
Whoops – there is the damage control in action. The knee must be bent fully to the needs of fragile people with access to media and social media.
“We hope to soon be able to work with experts from the LGBTQ+ community to implement new training and education,” said Chantal. “Our priority is regaining the community’s trust.”
Valbella Gourmet Foods was founded by the von Rotzes in 1978 and has grown into a 40,000-square-foot production plant.
Chantal said a thorough review of internal policies is underway and the company will implement new equity, diversity and inclusion policy to make sure employees feel supported”
It won’t be enough. It is never enough. If the vulnerable narcissists want you cancelled, you will be cancelled. Better to stick up for your beliefs and tell them to go to hell, at least you will have your character and integrity intact.
“Several businesses that worked with Valbella Gourmet Foods have posted statements that they will no longer be doing business with the Canmore deli. The page on Valbella’s website listing its retail partners has been removed.
The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity said in a statement that it will remove all Valbella products from company operations and has ceased all business relations. The Fairmont Hotels at Jasper Park Lodge and Banff Springs said it will no longer work with or purchase from Valbella. Blush Lane and SPUD posted statements saying they have discontinued their relationships with Valbella.
Dan Berezan, founder and CEO of online Alberta farmer’s market Cultivatr, said in a statement his company has immediately suspended selling products from Valbella. The Canmore business was a vendor on the website.
“At Cultivatr, we have no place for hate of any kind,” said Berezan. “We have received tremendous support from the LBGTQIA2S+ community and we want you to know that we appreciate you and we support you right back.”
ACME Meat Market promised to halt future purchases of Valbella products and will donate any existing stock. And Monki Bistro said it will remove all Valbella products from the restaurant.
Canmore Folk Festival said it has returned a donation from Valbella in full.
After taking a day to determine how to respond, Sunterra Market released a statement Wednesday that it will also cease all business relationships with Valbella.
“Some may see the time we took to have these conversations as a concern. Please know this was done solely to consider all those affected by our decisions,” said the market.
“We believe Sunterra’s choice to cut ties with the company will have a significant impact on their 50 team members and their families.”
How did this Woke shit get so deeply embedded in our society? It is because stepping out of line has drastic real life consequences as illustrated here. The consequences are completely out of whack for the real offense/harm done. Do the employee’s at Valbella deserve to have their jobs put in jeopardy because some fired off a poorly worded email? (No, of course not. But those other companies do think that their virtue signalling is more important than the Valbella employee’s livelihoods.)
Apparently the answer is yes. This will continue until enough people say no to the bullying and coercion that some factions of the rainbow community seem to wield. Also, it isn’t helpful that the news media amplifies this sort of hyperbolic sob story that somehow lends credence to the overreaction that started this whole kerfuffle.
So yeah, a terrible email, but does the business deserve to be shut down/lose significant revenue because someone was offended? Probably not, if you value a reasonably tolerant and reasonably free society.
People are gaining the courage to call out exactly how harmful transgender ideology is for children and society. We need treatment that follows the evidence and medical best practices, not ideology.
Sir, Dr Hilary Cass’s report marks an important chapter in a long history of mistreatment of children and young people with gender dysphoria who were put on a medical pathway with insufficient exploration and often little consideration of consent (reports and leading article, Jul 29). The complete lack of any follow-up of those who have undergone what can only be regarded as experimental treatment is lamentable. Staff who raised concerns were intimidated. The Cass recommendations are being misrepresented as purely a way of managing the long waiting list. But it was a long waiting list for the wrong treatment. Gender dysphoria in children is complex: many have histories of trauma and are on the autistic spectrum; others are depressed or have family problems. A high proportion are gay and lesbian but are confused about their sexual identity. Our thoughts now must be with the large number of children and young people who are living with the irreversible consequences of having been put inappropriately on a medical/surgical pathway that they now regret.
Dr David Bell
Former consultant psychiatrist and governor, the Tavistock clinic.
Sir, The findings of the interim report on the Tavistock clinic are truly shocking. Children have been subjected to potentially damaging life-changing procedures by a system that allowed aggressive political dogma to take precedence over professional medical practices. While swift action has been taken to close the clinic, we in the gay community should be questioning why LGBT organisations such as Stonewall and Mermaids, along with much of the LGBT media, have supported and defended the activities of the Tavistock clinic.
When I helped to establish Stonewall I never dreamt that one day it would be supporting the practice of encouraging young gay and lesbian people to change their gender rather than helping them to be comfortable with their sexuality. Gay people need to speak up against this aggressive trans-extremism that has taken over our movement and which is so damaging to the lives of ordinary LGBT people.
Paul Barnes
Chairman, Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality 1993-97
Sir, As a former governor of Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust who resigned over the management of the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), and as the husband of Susan Evan, the first whistleblower 17 years ago and the woman who, with mother A, started the judicial review before Keira Bell took her place, I was relieved to learn that the Tavistock gender service will be replaced by regional clinics. Whenever the trust’s managers or the service’s leaders were questioned or challenged about Gids they repeated the mantra that they were a world-class service, even though none of their attitudes or behaviours backed up their claim. There was no long-term research on treatment outcomes and no curiosity about the cultural forces influencing the demographic of those presenting for treatment. The clinic did not encourage discussion within the clinical team about approaches: there was a culture fostering blind devotion to orthodoxy rather than clinical challenge and debate. Thank goodness Dr Hilary Cass, in her report, is now putting clinical governance, debate and research back where it belongs: at the heart of these new services.
Marcus Evans
Former consultant psychotherapist at the Tavistock clinic
Finally some positive news on the gender front. The Tavistock Centre in the UK is to be shut down because they are not adequately helping the children sent there. The BBC reports –
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“Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has been told to shut the clinic by spring after it was criticised in an independent review.
Instead, new regional centres will be set up to “ensure the holistic needs” of patients are fully met, the NHS said.
The trust said it supported plans for a new model due to a rise in referrals.
The changes will take place after an independent review, led by Dr Hilary Cass, said the Tavistock clinic needed to be transformed.
She said the current model of care was leaving young people “at considerable risk” of poor mental health and distress, and having one clinic was not “a safe or viable long-term option”.
Challenging Gender identity is career kryptonite for mental health care professionals. Speaking out against it carries a high social cost as transgender activists and those on board with the anti-reality transgender ideology have made the the scientific debate and conversation around the issue nearly untouchable. The similarities to religious dogma and how heretics were punished/excommunicated is apt in this situation. It took an independent review and court cases to shine the light on dubious practices – gender affirmation therapy for instance – and bring them into question.
“There were rising referrals and a long waiting list but at the same time some former staff were raising concerns about the way it operated.
Then, former patient Keira Bell went to court saying she had not been challenged enough about her decision at 16 to take drugs that began her transition from female to male – a decision she later regretted.
Earlier this year, Dr Cass’s report said there was a lack of understanding about why the type of patients the clinic was seeing was changing, with more female to male patients and more autistic children. Dr Cass also highlighted inconclusive evidence to back some of the clinical decision making.”
Yeah, the gender-magic has run afoul of good evidence based medical practice –
In an interim report earlier this year, Dr Cass said:
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The service was struggling to deal with spiralling waiting lists
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It was not keeping “routine and consistent” data on its patients
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Health staff felt under pressure to adopt an “unquestioning affirmative approach”
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Once patients are identified as having gender-related distress, other healthcare issues they had, such as being neurodivergent, “can sometimes be overlooked”
Most of the current psychological treatment of gender disorders has been warped by transgender ideology and activists. Gender dysphoria is the only body morphic disorder that has a affirmative care approach.
What does this look like? Well consider Anorexia – the idea behind most treatments is to guide the patient back to a body image that comports with reality and to dispel the illusions and misconceptions of being “fat” while in fact being severely underweight and malnourished. Affirmative therapy would agree with the anorexic’s self diagnosis and would look for ways for them to flourish in their quest to be thin…
Gender affirmation therapy starts with the preordained conclusion that the child or person in question perception of their gender and body are correct and work toward that goal.
Ludicrous.
“Dr David Bell – not related to Keira Bell – is a former consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock NHS Foundation Trust, where he raised concerns. He said it was a “good thing” the service was closing down.
Proper funding was needed for mental health services for children and adolescents, he said.
He told the BBC: “Some children have got the double problem of living with the wrong treatment, and the original problems weren’t addressed – with complex problems like trauma, depression, large instances of autism.”
The tide is beginning to turn against this wave anti-science, transgender ideology, and not a moment too soon.
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