Commentary
Last year, the Toronto District School Board asked elementary school students to fill out a highly intrusive survey focused on questions of race and sexuality. Among the more than 50 questions posed, the kids were asked to describe their “current gender identity” and whether they were familiar with practises trans-persons use to contort and hide their genitals, such as breast-binding and penis-tucking.
There really was no defending the questions, and the board promptly removed the survey following outcry. (My own young boys were given the survey.)
While it would have been better if the survey had never been released, the occasion did expose just how extreme the mindset is getting for some activists in terms of how they talk to kids about gender issues.
It’s incidents like this that are fuelling an emerging parental rights movement in Canada, where people of all backgrounds—including gay and lesbian persons—are saying enough is enough.
This has become a political issue in recent weeks as several provinces have taken a stand on the need for schools to notify parents and seek their consent if their child requests to be known as a different name or gender.
It began with New Brunswick’s Policy 713, which says students under the age of 16 can’t use a different name or pronoun in class without their parents’ consent.
“Parents deserve to be respected, and we must recognize the critical role in their child’s life and education,” New Brunswick education minister Bill Hogan told reporters. “We stand by the changes we’ve made to Policy 713 and we believe that parents should be involved in every aspect of a young child’s education.”
The governments in Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan have all voiced support for a similar approach. And a new poll by Angus Reid Institute indicates that public opinion is very much on their side, with a “vast majority” of respondents reportedly saying parents must be kept informed.
It’s just common sense. Yet some groups are lashing out in worrisome ways. This is what happened after Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce said parents “must be fully involved” in what’s happening with their children.
The president of Unifor issued a bizarre statement saying she was “appalled” at Lecce’s remarks. Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, continued: “For queer and trans students, exploring their identity in social settings is hard enough without their teachers being forced to out them to parents for the simple request of going by a different name or pronoun in class.”
Samia Hashi, regional director of Unifor Ontario, went further, calling Lecce’s statement “a sharp right turn that will endanger students and force them to be deadnamed at school or outed at home.” (Deadnaming is the practice of calling a transgender person by their former name.)
These are alarming responses. That’s because few people are troubled by the idea that some adults choose to present as a different gender and that they deserve the same basic rights and freedoms as everyone else. But what is troubling more and more parents of all walks of life is this notion from some corners that it’s completely OK for people to not only talk encouragingly about the very serious and life-altering subject of gender transition with kids, but that it’s preferable to do it behind the backs of parents.
A lot of gay and lesbian people are also upset that this is being pushed under the guise of gay rights and they want nothing to do with it.
“It outrages me as a lesbian to read how the TDSB would endeavour to ram such concepts down the throats of vulnerable students,” True North columnist Sue-Ann Levy wrote when covering the school survey.
The way the issue is being pushed is causing a lot of division in some communities. Muslim parents are particularly upset with how transgender issues are being given attention in the classroom. One Ottawa businessman, Kamel El-Cheikh, is planning what he’s calling a Million Person March for late September in the hopes of getting parents of all faiths out nationwide to protest against gender ideology in the classroom.
The hardline activists may think they can prevail against this growing parental rights movement, but the reality is they’ve got protests, public opinion, and premiers all against them.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
