Front Burner - The Canada-wide protests over LGBTQ school rights

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

A call from a group called “1 Million March 4 Children” drew protestors in dozens of cities across Canada over LGBTQ-inclusive education and school policies. According to the organizers’ website, the day was supposed to be about advocating for the elimination of a number of things in schools: the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum, pronouns, “gender ideology” and mixed bathrooms. Coast-to-coast, they were met with counter-protesters who said they were there to defend LGBTQ rights. Today, Mel Woods, a senior editor with Xtra Magazine, recaps what they saw at the Vancouver protests and what turnout looked like across the country. Then we speak with Alex Harris, a grade 12 student in New Brunswick, about how the controversy over inclusive education policies and curricula is affecting LGBTQ students. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Tamara Kandaker. On Wednesday, in cities across Canada, protesters and counter-protesters rallied in response to a call from a group called One Million March for Children. According to the organizer's website, the day was supposed to be about advocating for the elimination of a number of things in schools. The sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum, pronouns, quote unquote, gender ideology and mixed bathrooms. My role is leading the people in a march to protect our children's innocence, to give family rights back, and to protect parental rights in school.

They don't have the maturity to decide to drink or to have guns or to vote. How the hell do they have the right to change their sex without even the knowledge of their parents? But critics, like the president of the BC Teachers Federation, say the group and its concern for parental rights is being driven by misinformation and disinformation. There is no influence on students to do anything other than to learn and to be themselves

and to be comfortable with themselves, to be comfortable with everyone in their school around them, and to understand that there are differences in each of those people around them and how to live together and support each other to be happy and healthy. The turnout looked different from city to city. In some places, counter-protesters outnumbered protesters. And there were some pretty heated exchanges between the two groups, with arrests reported in Ottawa, Halifax, Vancouver, and Victoria.

Today, we're taking a closer look at the protests, who was behind them, and how the controversy over inclusive education policies and curricula is affecting LGBTQ students. My first guest is Mel Woods, a senior editor with Extra Magazine. They attended two separate protests in Vancouver on Wednesday. Hi, Mel. Thanks for joining us again. Oh, thanks so much for having me. So can you start by describing the scene on Wednesday in Vancouver where you were? How many people showed up for what the organizers called the One Million March for Children? Definitely not one million people, I'll tell you that. It was a fairly small contingent of the quote-unquote main protest there. I'd say maybe a couple dozen people.

Tops at the Vancouver Art Gallery and a bit of a few more people at a subsequent event down at Jackpool Plaza. But they were outnumbered by counter protests by like metrics of like hundreds to one, I would say. Like there was several thousand pro-trans counter protesters who came out to the Vancouver Art Gallery. So definitely outnumbered in Vancouver by far. Okay. And yeah, that sounds similar to what I heard about other cities, but we'll talk about that in a second. What did you see in Vancouver? What were people saying and what kinds of chants did you hear? What kinds of signs did you see? Talk a bit about that. This, you know, One Million March folks are really focused in on this idea of parental rights, this idea of, you know, a lot of messaging of hands off our kids or leave our kids alone. At one point, they even broke into that song, you know, hey, teacher, leave our kids alone.

You know, anti-grooming discourse. We see some, you know, LGB without the T, which is a reference to kind of a movement that moves to disclude trans people from bigger queer and trans issues. But then there was also kind of anti-gay messaging, too. You know, there is a lot of disparate groups. also kind of anti-gay messaging too. You know, there is a lot of disparate groups. It's kind of like the convoy in a lot of ways where they all kind of have these like disparate causes coming together under this banner, but it's not really organized and they're not necessarily unified in what they're saying or who they're associating with. So it was quite scattered, I would say, the messaging that they were putting forward. Whereas on the other side, the counter protesters,

it was a lot of no space for hate, you know, trans kids have rights, that sort of messaging over and over. The organizers had said this wasn't about targeting LGBTQ plus people, but some of the things that you're mentioning, and I've seen other reporting on this about signs calling people in the community, groomers and pedophiles. Can you talk a bit about that? Did you see, you know, stuff that was about more than just what's being taught in schools? Oh, 100%. It's a historic thing goes all the way back to, you know, the 80s and 90s talking about about gay people about this idea of, like, hyper-sexualizing queer and trans people and this idea that queer and trans issues are somehow indoctrinating children and trying to like you know recruit us to the cause simply through being able to give kids information that trans people exist and are people with rights and a lot of these groups are

really opposed to that. My kids don't go to school to learn this they go to school to learn mathematics languages they don't go to school to learn this. They go to school to learn mathematics, languages. They don't go to school to learn about Soji. Well, when they get talked to, do you want to be a boy or a girl or do you decide this and that? They shouldn't be deciding nothing at young ages. They should be having fun, learning ABCs, learning the proper English and maths and stuff like that. Sex education is up to the parents. And so I definitely saw a lot of messaging around that so i definitely saw a lot of messaging around that i definitely heard a lot of this messaging but it's also i think really important with this to say that these things are are based in a lot of disinformation you know lies suggesting

that kids are undergoing genital surgery at the age of four or that we're trying to pump 10 year olds full of hormones or things like that. These are like categorically untrue. And so much of this kind of these chants, these banners, these ideologies come from that misinformation. Right. What can you tell me about how these protests played out in other cities across the country? Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I think that Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, like those places, we saw a huge contingent of counter protesters meet these much smaller contingents of protesters, you know, varying degrees of proportion there. But overall, the vibes were nice. Like I will say it was like I had a bit of fear going in, you know,

as somebody who's quite visibly trans, you worry about your own personal safety going into these situations, you worry about how big one side will be versus the other. And it was very nice to show up to the plaza and have 5000 people carrying trans flags and only a few people saying that I shouldn't exist. That's not the case everywhere, though. And I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind with all this that in places like Mississauga, in Surrey, out here in BC, you know, the contingent of protesters to counter protesters was flipped in the skew. There's a lot more of the anti-trans protesters than there were the supportive counter protesters. And that led to some really escalating tensions. And so I think it's really important when we're like painting the narrative of what happened on Wednesday, that we keep in mind that it looked very different across the country. And that has to do with demographics.

It has to do with where these kind of ideas and this misinformation I was talking about are getting footholds into communities and into school boards and into parents groups and things like that. So it's different from place to place. This is a pretty big thing to pull off, though, like organizing protests in so many different places across the country. What do we know about the organizers behind this event? It's really a disparate group of people. You know, there's not one central group that's like,

yes, we are the ones. It's kind of like the convoy in that sense. You know, I think it's a really good comparison. I think that this group probably took a lot of cues from the convoy and how it played out and are mobilizing under very similar tactics. Because we see this kind of disparate group of anti-trans organizations, anti-queer organizations, parental rights groups, right-wing organizations, you know, there are groups with ties back to the convoy, back to the anti-vax movement, all kind of promoting these marches and these events. And I'm participating in kind of the promotion and the dissemination of them. events and I'm participating in kind of the promotion and the dissemination of them. We have groups like that are based in the UK and the US that have a track record of fighting against,

you know, pro-trans legislation in those places who are now trying to find a foothold in Canada. We have groups that have been advocating for school boards to get more conservative candidates into school boards to help pass, you know, policies that restrict some trans rights and that sort of thing. But they really vary across the spectrum. And you can see even just from like the posters promoting these events, it was kind of disorganized. Interesting. And then what kind of reaction did we see from political leaders? I know some of them were at these protests and put out statements about them, right? Talk a bit about that. So in Ottawa, you saw NDP leader Jagmeet Singh joined counter protesters,

marched on the front with carrying a banner. Other politicians who came out kind of strongly in support of the counter protests included out here in BC, you know, Premier David Eby wasn't at the Vancouver event, but of several MLAs were, including Chilliwack Kent MLA Kelly Padden, who spoke at the counter protest and really kind of firmly affirmed the government's support of trans kids, trans rights, and opposition to this protest. All of our kids, mine and yours, deserve to know in a crystal clear way where their government stands. We have been very clear, and Premier David Eby has been crystal clear in speaking with students and teachers. We stand for everyone.

A lot of other politicians kind of put out statements saying, you know, we love LGBTQ2S plus folks. Trudeau did that. Other political leaders did that. But then on the other side of things, you have New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs, who, you know, there's a picture going around of him shaking hands with a protester.

So you mentioned Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, but did we hear anything from Pierre Polyev on this? No, the Conservative leader was quiet, much as he has been about the anti-trans policy resolutions that were passed by the Conservative Party at their recent convention. The Canadian press did report that there was a memo sent out to Conservative MPs, basically telling them to do the same thing, to not talk about it to the media, to not post online about either the protests or the counter protests. And I think things like this protest, things like the continued pushing forward

by provincial premiers like Moe and like Higgs, shows that this is going to be an issue in the next federal election. This is going to be a hot button issue. And Polyev is going to have to say something at some point to appease the right-wing base that is pounding the drum on these issues right now. And also the queer trans folks and allies on the other side who are rightfully very concerned about the potential of Canada's next government endorsing these sorts of ideas. But as for right now, he is choosing the silent route. Okay, Mel, thank you so much for your reporting on this and for taking the time to do this. I appreciate it. It was really good to talk to you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me and I really appreciate it.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to,

50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Alex Harris is a 17-year-old student in Riverview, New Brunswick. He came out as trans about five years ago, before it was provincially mandated that parents give their consent for students to be able to use their chosen name or pronoun. give their consent for students to be able to use their chosen name or pronoun.

Alex was watching as the protests unfolded across the country on Wednesday, and we wanted to get his take on the debate at the heart of them and hear about how it's impacting his life and that of his peers. Hi, Alex. Thanks for being with us. No problem. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So seeing these marches take place across the country on Wednesday, what did that feel like for you? It was really scary because it really it shows that that many people are misinformed about what's happening in school and what it is to be trans and what it is to be a trans youth. And it's scary because these people are very loud. Sometimes they can be violent, and it's scary to see that in my own country as a trans youth.

Yeah. You were probably paying attention to the coverage of these protests, right? I'm wondering if you saw kind of the messages that were coming out of them. And was there anything that stuck out to you as particularly concerning? in similar messaging coming out of the United States. One of the big ones that kind of got me was the idea that children belong to their parents. I'm not a parent. I'm still a child. I still live with my parents. But it was something that kind of got me because I don't belong to my parents. Yes, my parents are responsible for taking care of me, but I don't, I'm not their property. I know you were invited to go to a counter protest in Moncton, but you decided not to, right? How come? What made you decide against that? Yeah, so originally I was planning on going to the counter protest in Moncton, but I decided against it simply because of safety. It is dangerous to go to counter-protests, and we weren't sure how violent the protest in Moncton was going to get. or if you are counter protesting a protest then you are clearly in two groups that are

firmly against each other and that can cause violence really easily and I also like I wanted to keep myself physically safe but I also wanted to stay mentally safe being around that kind of messaging just isn't good for my mental health because that's messaging that something is wrong with me or that somehow I'm dangerous or somehow the teachers who support me are dangerous or my parents supporting me is dangerous. And I just didn't want to be exposed to that much of that messaging. Yeah. So these protesters, they say that they're against what they call gender ideology in schools. So LGBTQ inclusive education policies that they say exclude parents and the way that issues around sexuality and gender identity are taught in schools. And you're obviously someone who's at the center of this debate, and you did come out at school. So I wanted to ask you, what was that experience like for you? It definitely wasn't what people who were at the protests was describing. I came out to my teachers and I came out at school before I came out to my parents. The first step for me was I talked to my GSA, my Gender and Sexuality Alliance teacher at my school, and I said, hey, I'm trans, what's the safest and easiest way to go about this?

helped me come out to my teachers because I wasn't ready to talk to my parents yet. And that was an easy process. And then soon after, I felt comfortable that even if my parents didn't react the way I hoped they would, I would still have support somewhere. So I gained the confidence to talk to my parents. And that went, it didn't go exactly as I'd hoped. It took them a few months to wrap their minds around the subject. But even during that period of time where they hadn't quite wrapped their minds around things yet, I had support at school. And it really meant a lot to me. And it wasn't like nobody encouraged me not to tell my parents. I was encouraged to tell my parents. My GSA teacher at my school is incredible. And she guided me through the whole process. She taught me safe strategies to use to start that conversation. She offered to be there as a mediator to have that conversation with my

parents. And it was with her encouragement that I gained the confidence to talk to my parents in the first place. You're in New Brunswick and you came out before the conservative provincial government changed school policy so that teachers can't use a child's requested pronouns without parental consent. We heard on Wednesday, Premier Blaine Higgs tell protesters outside the legislature in Fredericton that inclusive policies were teaching students to lie to their parents. What we found is that parents didn't know. Parents did not know that in the education system, children are being taught to lie to their parents. They didn't know that. And now they know. So it's a pretty sad situation, really. But you're saying that that was never the case. Yeah, I was encouraged to tell my parents. And I know some students who can't tell their parents because it would be unsafe in their household if they were out as transgender or if they were out as any LGBTQ identity. But yeah, there was no point where I was ever encouraged to lie to my parents.

I was told if you're going to get kicked out, it's best not to mention it. But once I said, yeah, that's not a risk and I'm not at risk of abuse, then it was, yeah, you got to tell your parents, Alex, eventually once you're comfortable. And being given that space to come out to a community that I knew had to be supportive because of the policy that was in place before coming out to my parents gave me a lot more confidence. I didn't feel forced or rushed throughout my coming out process because it's a difficult and it's a really personal process to come out. So this is the first school year with this new policy in New Brunswick. Saskatchewan has introduced a similar plan.

Have you heard much from other trans students about how these new rules are affecting them? It's already affecting students. One of my friends had to ask me, is this teacher safe to come out to before coming out to our GSA teacher? It took me a minute to remember why they asked me that because I was like, well, of course that teacher's safe. And then I went, oh, yeah, teachers don't have to gain students' consent before talking to their parents. And for that student, they would have been at risk of physical abuse if their parents were to find out they're trans. Beyond that, I'm wondering, have you noticed a difference at school in how you're treated since this change in policy came

into effect? I'm lucky enough that I don't have any teachers at my school that I'm seriously worried about disrespecting me. And because I'm 17 and I'm out to my parents, the policy still protects me and it still protects my rights. I have noticed that students have been like bullying towards me has increased. The slurs that are yelled in the hallway has increased tenfold. And a lot of that has increased. And I think it's because that the government has said it's OK to be disrespectful to LGBTQ people. Just going back to the protests then, some of the One Million March organizers have said that these demonstrations weren't about fighting the LGBTQ community, but about, quote, the indoctrination of children in public schools and protecting children against LGBTQ ideology in the school system. And I'm wondering what you would say to that. What effect do you think these protests have on the LGBTQ community? I think that the people that organize the protests and most of the people that showed up at the protests aren't anti-LGBTQ as a whole, what is there is a misunderstanding of what being LGBTQ and what

being trans is. And there's a misunderstanding about how it's being taught in schools. And a lot of, it's a lot of the rhetoric that is coming to Canada from the States. And it's, it's the misinformation that's really,'s the misinformation that's causing this. So the day of cross-country protests is over, but these conversations are still happening, obviously. How does what you're seeing unfold within Canadian governments and in communities make you feel about the future? I'm scared. I'm scared for my rights and I'm scared for the students coming after me because I only have a year, maybe even less, left of school and I don't know what's going to happen when I'm not here to advocate for other students at my school. And there are people who are advocating for everyone at every school across

the country, but it's going to keep getting worse before it gets better. And I'm really scared because even like there's the conversation about how gender identity and sexuality is taught in school. And then there's other controversies about transgender people that are being brought into this country as shown by the conservatives adopting two points to do with transgender rights. And these are rights that when I first came out, I never thought would be under attack. And now my rights are under attack and it's really scary. Yeah. If you could speak to the protesters who turned out on Wednesday, what would you like them to understand? I'd probably remind them I'm here and I'm human and I'm not trying to do anything other than exist.

Like every other kid, I want to go to college and I have hobbies. I write, I do photography, and I have friends and I walk to school every day like any other kid. Trans kids and transgender people are not a theoretical concept. We're real people. And when this kind of rhetoric is shouted out into the world like this, it's hurting real people. world like this. It's hurting real people. Okay, Alex, thank you so much for your thoughts and your time. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right, that's all for now. This week, Front Burner was produced by Dennis Kalnan, Shannon Higgins, Rafferty Baker, Joyta Shangupta, Lauren Donnelly, and Derek Vanderwyk. Our sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Chabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McKay-Blokos. And the show was hosted this week by Jamie Poisson and me, Tamara Kandaker. Thanks so much for listening. FrontBurner will be back on Monday.