School Stonewalls Parent Concerned with Gender Ideology

A Parent's Request For Information Regarding The School’s Use Of Gender Identity Lesson Material Is Ignored

Photo by Norbu GYACHUNG on Unsplash

This post was written anonymously by a concerned parent with a child enrolled in a KPRDSB school in Ontario, Canada.

Below is the text of a letter to an Ontario school sent by a mother concerned when her son (in grade 4) was upset by a lesson on gender identity. Originally the school was open to this mother’s concerns, but that didn’t last. From the mother:

“The school was initially receptive and supportive but they have since ‘closed ranks’ and are no longer answering emails or providing me with requested resources and lesson plans.”

Can you imagine a school upsetting your kid in a gender identity lesson and then refusing to provide you with relevant details?

Before you read the letter, here is a timeline and a summary of the correspondence this parent has had with the school:

Nov. 16th: My 9 year-old son said "we learned pronouns at school today", which started a conversation that revealed his teacher had done a lesson introducing "transgenderism" to the class for "Trans Awareness Week". He was upset so I emailed the teacher to let her know and ask to speak about it.

Nov. 17th: Teacher replies to my email in the morning to let me know she will call later that day. She calls and we speak for approx half an hour. She explains that the school has students and families who identify as trans so she is trying to be inclusive and respectful. She lets me know that another teacher at the school acts as the DEI resource teacher for the entire school, and she offered to put me in contact with that teacher and ask her to provide me with access to the resources she distributes for gender identity and related topics. She said she would be speaking to the principal and asked me to put some of my ideas that we discussed in writing so that she could share with the principal.

Nov. 23rd: I sent the email (which you can read below). Later that day, she sent me an email to say that she had forwarded my email to her principal and she gave me a brief lesson summary: class used online dictionary for the definition of transgender--link to video read-a-loud Jazz Jennings reading children's book "I am Jazz"--students shared thoughts about acceptance, inclusion, and kindness.

Nov. 28th: I asked for more detail about the lesson, for example was "transgender" the only term they looked up, or was other terminology taught? How did she frame and explain the origin and reason for "Transgender Awareness Week"? Which online dictionary did they use? Did she stimulate discussion with particular prompts or questions? THE EMAIL REMAINS UNANSWERED.

Nov. 29th: Received call from acting principal and vice-principal. Shared my concerns and complaints, had long conversation about the controversies around gender identity, they offered to notify us when certain topics are taught and I said yes, please let me know whenever my son's teachers will be dealing with subject matter such as sex, gender, sexuality, and race. Acting principal said perhaps I should speak with the board's DEI principal. I said I would. She offered to provide me with contact info.

Dec. 2nd: Received email from the VP who said they had contacted DEI principal and he said I should just look at their DEI website (subtext: principal not interested in speaking with me). She also said that my son's teacher had already provided me with lesson info, meaning I suppose that they told the teacher not to offer any further details that I requested in my last email.

Dec. 2nd: I replied to say I looked at the board's DEI website. Wanted to know how a parent gains access to sexuality and gender ID resources, and other DEI resources, such as those related to race that are recommended for use in their child's school. Asked if the school's DEI resource teacher could send me links or documents. THE EMAIL REMAINS UNANSWERED.

So, they made noises like they understood and cared about my concerns and my child's confusion and frustration, but in the end: no discussion with DEI principal, no access to resources being distributed by DEI resource teacher at school. No further communication details provided about what was discussed or viewed in the lesson that upset my child.

Dec. 9th: I emailed trustees x2 and MPPs x2. Those emails have not been answered...

Read the letter from this concerned parent below.

To my son's grade four classroom teacher:

This is to follow up on my email of last week, regarding my son's confusion and frustration around your gender identity lessons. As you requested, I've articulated some of my concerns and requests in writing. 

My son is now nine, has been in school since age four, and has never before come home distressed about what he learned at school that day, so I think this topic is an important one to address. 

Gender identity theory is a radical and relatively new belief system -- its tenets are not widely accepted truths. If educators are determined to include it in our public school curricula, you must present it as just one theory, and explain it is a relatively new belief system. And this must be done in an age-appropriate manner, and with respect to alternate belief systems, such as conventional teachings about sex, gender, and sexuality that emerged from the sciences of biology and evolutionary psychology. 

That being said, I don't believe grade four students are developmentally ready for these topics, or for the complexity of analyzing competing frameworks of understanding with regards to sex, gender, and sexuality. 

When our child explained what he learned for Trans Awareness Week, and my husband and I responded by explaining that we don't believe in that theory, his already apparent stress increased markedly. He is really too young to manage the cognitive dissonance that this topic engenders, and he wants his beloved teacher and his parents to share the same beliefs about sex and gender. He asked me to speak with you, and when I asked what specifically he wanted me to talk with you about, he said "I just want to know what is true".

Due to my concern that you are sharing age-inappropriate information in your class, and my son appeared to be psychologically harmed as a result, I respectfully request that going forward, you and the school provide us with information as to when and how teachers will be approaching the topics of sex, gender, and sexuality with my child.

Have you had a chance to ask the school's DEI resource teacher to provide me with the school's assortment of approved gender identity lesson plans and resources?

Will you please provide me with the specific lesson plan and resources that you used last week?

Have you given any further thought to my idea that if you share the story of a trans kid's struggles and joys, that you should also, for balance, share a detransitioner's story? 

Trans Awareness Week was created to recognize a category of people deemed to be vulnerable to systemic victimization and oppression. Detrans people fit that description perfectly. 

Perhaps you should honour and respect the journey and suffering of the many young people irreparably damaged by gender ideology and resulting medicalization. Would you consider implementing a "Detrans Awareness Week" to ensure their stories are included, and students are being adequately introduced to the complexity of the topic?

I did a bit of research on Jazz Jennings, since the only lesson content that my son mentioned you used was the "I am Jazz" video that the class watched, which celebrates the transition of a young boy into living as a young girl, a process that Jazz's family and physicians committed the child to at the unprecedentedly young age of five.

I found out that Jazz is now a young adult who suffers from serious mental and physical health problems. Many of these problems appear to be related to the medical procedures (some of which were experimental) that Jazz underwent.

Jazz's health issues include:

• Binge eating disorder and morbid obesity

• Incapacitating episodes of mental illness resulting in cancelation of seasons of the reality TV show and deferral of studies even though accepted to Harvard university

• Sexual dysfunction: chemically desexed as a child, and then castrated as a young adult, one episode revealed that Jazz had never experienced orgasm and so bottom surgery had to be delayed because those who get bottom surgery and haven't experienced orgasm have very little chance of ever having an orgasm in their life.

The book and reality show "I Am Jazz" both strongly emphasize the theme "be your true self" and "show the world who you really are". It is sad to see what this young adult is dealing with now, and many of the problems likely resulted from Jazz's parents and society affirming the belief that Jazz's self-actualization required a medical sex change.

My son's takeaway from the lesson was that if a person has a "girl heart" but "boy skin and bones", then that person has to become a girl, because the most important thing in life is to show the world who you are on the inside. 

I can't see how this messaging, and the medical sex change it led to, has helped Jazz achieve authentic selfhood. Objectively speaking, Jazz has been irreparably harmed. 

I refuse to allow the education system to indoctrinate my child to believe untruths about sex, gender, sexuality, and authentic selfhood.

The Canadian government recently banned conversion therapy. Gender identity ideology that normalizes and recommends medical sex changes as a treatment for dysphoria and dysmorphia, and the hormones and surgeries that frequently and increasingly result, are the most dangerous and damaging form of conversion therapy in widespread use in our society. 

To make matters worse, affirmation-only treatment protocols are now mandated  in medicine and counseling professions, and this, combined with systemic indoctrination with gender theory via schools, has resulted in a massive increase in youth seeking sex change therapies and other treatments for gender identity disorders. Children can now self-identify as trans and access medical treatment with minimal professional assessment (and zero pushback). And if parents object, they can lose authority, and even lose custody.

Adults have a duty to ensure that every child requesting treatment so radical, life-altering, and risky receives professional support to undertake deep and meaningful inquiry into the complex of underlying causes of their discomfort with their natural body. This is a recurring complaint of detrans youth... no one helped them fully understand why they were hurting, no one pushed back against their delusions. 

Detransitioners often report finding out too late that their distress was caused by trauma, abuse, family dysfunction, social anxiety, sex stereotypes and hyper-sexualization in our culture, isolation, loneliness, depression, etc. 

A worryingly high number are neurodivergent/autistic. 

Many are gay and were struggling with their budding homosexuality when they "came out as trans".

Many "trans kids" are not transgender at all, a fact that is obvious from the growing legion of detransitioners. We have a duty as the adults in society to stop funneling distressed kids into lifelong medicalization.

I am looking forward to seeing the school's resources related to sex, gender, and sexuality. 

And I deeply appreciate your concern for my child's wellbeing, and your  professionalism and calm manner when we spoke on the phone last week.

All the best to you,

A Concerned Mother

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Thanks for reading. For more information about ideological indoctrination in schools read - Ontario’s Kindergarteners As Critical Theorists