Normalizing Pride

"It is incumbent on all school boards to ensure all students -- most especially 2SLGTBTQ+ students -- feel supported, reflected in their schools, and welcomed within our communities."

"[And] that includes celebrating Pride."

Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce -- Pride Month

"All schools must comply with the Human Rights Code and demonstrate they are creating safe, welcoming and inclusive environments for our students and staff."

"When students can see themselves reflected in the world around them through stories of same-gender parents or math problems that use 'they/them' pronouns in a school environment, it sends a strong message of acceptance."

British Columbia Education Minister Rachna Singh -- Pride Month

Shannon Boschy, a candidate for school board trustee in Ottawa, said Ontario’s sex education curriculum was partly to blame for a rise in transgender and non-binary identifying students. (Jean Delisle/CBC)

 

Pride Month celebrations within the Canadian K-12 school system were virtually non-existent a mere five to ten years ago. In 2018 the 'progressive' Toronto and District School Board noted Pride Month with a flag-raising and in the official Toronto PRIDE parade a group of teachers and staff took part. What an impressive change has taken place since then in school areas across Canada, where Pride Month routinely includes assemblies, craft projects, guest speakers, 'spirit' days (where children wear rainbow clothing to class) and school-wide Pride decor.

 

At an elementary school in Newfoundland this week a short video watched countless times on social media showed children being greeted at the door by a teacher wearing a unicorn costume. There, at St. Matthew's School in St. John's the provincial capital, children were ushered along hallways that were lined with their teachers waving Pride Progress flags, while loud dance music played. Libs of Tik Tok circulated a version of the video, seen over 1.3 million times.

 

Teachers in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board were sent an email to remind them that "2SSLGBTQ+ representation" is a "fundamental human right" protected by law. "The exclusion or erasure of 2SLGBTQ+ identities from educational materials constitutes a form of discrimination", read the email. The reason for these urgent 'reminders' appears to be based on a growing community reaction to what seems to many like an agenda promoting a way of life that most parents find disagreeable, and feel should be a matter of discreet and private discourse, not presented to schoolchildren as 'normal' or something worthy of celebration.

 

The Pride flag is raised at the Ottawa Catholic School Board. June 1, 2023. (Jim O’Grady/CTV News Ottawa).

For the first time, a rash of mysterious mass-absences has been seen throughout this year. of students from Canadian schools at significant times when events lauding Pride and the LGBTQ-2 community have been highlighted for special attention. The absences have been noted and interpreted as a silent protest against LGBT content in school curricula and special events. Close to a third of the entire student body of London, Ontario's largest elementary school last month was counted absent during a district-wide commemoration of International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.

 

Campaign Life Coalition, inspired by the student absence on particular celebratory days for the LGBTQ community named the phenomenon National "Pride" Flag Walk-Out Day: "Try to recruit as many families as possible" they wrote, "so that the number of absent students is unmistakably noticeable" wrote the anti-abortion group announcing a number of "pray-ins" scheduled for June 1st, around Ontario. They were building on the absence of students from the Muslim community at schools when these events were being carried out.

 

Student activist Josh Alexander in Renfrew, Ontario, led a May 17 walkout campaign to protest a new Ontario school policy that permits bathroom access by gender self-identification: "Josh and fellow protesters are demanding that all schools ban biological males using female restrooms and change rooms", a statement by Alexander and the group Liberty Coalition Canada read.

 

An entire East Vancouver elementary school was enlisted to march in a neighbourhood pride parade during school hours. Pride events in the Vancouver School Board last year included painting the rainbow flag on district infrastructure. In New Brunswick, provincial MLAs are revolting over changes to gender rules in public schools. One issue is transgender or nonbinry students under age 16 self-identifying at school  where a process was created for the student to inform their parents of any change in preferred first names where previously the student had total control over the decision to tell their parents.

 

'The data that we have in Canada shows that hate crimes against our communities are continuing to rise,' said Lyra Evans, a school board trustee in Ottawa who is transgender. (Lyra Evans/Facebook)