A Toronto District School Board (TDSB) school hosted a performance by a drag star, leading protesters and counterprotesters to gather outside.
The performance was part of an assembly at York Mills Collegiate Institute on April 12 for Pink Shirt Day, a day to raise awareness about bullying. Some have taken the day as an occasion to focus on bullying against LGBTQ+ people specifically.
Icesis Couture, the 2021 winner of “Canada’s Drag Race,” gave a performance to the high school students. Couture was dressed in a short-cut yellow dress with a big bow at the neck and danced to the song, “Mother,” by Meghan Trainor.
Student emcees explained that Couture has been touring and speaking with schools across Canada.
Save Canada, which describes itself as an organization that promotes Christian values, called for protesters to gather outside the school to “end grooming.”
Save Canada activist 17-year-old Josh Alexander posted on Twitter a picture of himself and several other youth praying outside York Mills CI. The post included the words, “You tried to indoctrinate us. You tried to confuse us. ... You have waged war on our faith and our way of life. ... The youth are rising up.”
York Mills CI and TDSB did not reply to The Epoch Times inquiry as of publication.
The school’s assembly also included a talk from gay rights activist Martin Boyce.
“People who express different views aren’t allowed inside,” a young man standing outside the school who identified himself as a York Mills CI student said in a video posted to Twitter.
“They’re not going to show you any other side,” he said, adding that the school’s Pink Shirt Day has involved “mostly LGBTQ propaganda; I didn’t see anything about bullying.”
TDSB schools broadly discussed LGBTQ issues with students for Pink Shirt Day. Rawlinson Community School held assemblies for students from kindergarten to Grade 8 hosted by the Raise Your Flag Club, a LGBTQ pride club at the school.
Earl Haig Secondary School held an assembly “showing solidarity with the 2SLGBTQIA+” and came up with a pledge to “commit to standing up and speaking against hate, intolerance and oppression.”
The school board’s professional library directed teachers to resources for educating students on these issues for Pink Shirt Day. Books recommended for primary and junior grades include “Born Ready: the True Story of a Boy Named Penelope” about a five-year-old girl who identifies as a boy.
Pink Shirt Day started in Nova Scotia when a grade 9 boy was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. Two other boys at the school and their friends distributed pink shirts for everyone to wear as a way of supporting him.
