A teacher in Canada was removed from a local school board meeting after being accused of “transphobia.”
Carolyn Burjoski, a Waterloo Region District School Board teacher, expressed concerns over themes found in children’s books that related to sexuality and gender identity during a January 17 presentation which took place over Zoom.
“I am very concerned that some of the resources in our elementary school libraries are inappropriate for young children,” said Burjoski. She then proceeded to give examples of books available in libraries accessible to children aged six to twelve years old.
“In the book Rick, by Alex Gino, a boy named Jeff keeps talking to Rick about naked girls. Rick is confused because he doesn’t think about naked girls, so he wonders if something’s wrong with him,” explained Burjoski.
“Rick gets invited to the school’s rainbow club and ends up declaring an asexual identity. While reading this book I was thinking, ‘Maybe Rick doesn’ have sexual feelings yet because he is a child. Also, what message does this send to young girls who might be in grade three or four? They are children. Let them grow up in their own time and stop pressuring them to be sexual so soon,” asserted Burjoski.
Ms Burjoski then began to express concerns that the book The Other Boy by MG Hennessey made it seem “simple, or even cool to take puberty blockers and opposite sex hormones.”
In the page highlighted in Burjoski’s presentation, a young girl called Shane had been placed on puberty blockers which in turn prevented her from “going through a female puberty.”
A doctor then tells the girl’s father that she “won’t be able to have children naturally,” to which Shane replies, “It’s cool.”
It was at this point that WRDSB trustee Scott Piatkowski interrupted Burjoski to say, “I’m getting a little concerned that your content may be problematic. I would caution you to make sure that you’re not saying anything that would violate the human rights code.”
Undaunted, Burjoski continued: “This book is misleading because it does not take into account how Shane might feel later in life about being infertile. This book makes very serious medical interventions seem like an easy cure for emotional and social distress.”
Piatkowski again interjected, stating, “The Ontario Human Rights Code includes gender identity and gender expression as grounds for discrimination and I’m concerned that your comments are in violation of that. I’m ending the presentation,” Piatkowski said.
“I believe the delegation is talking about age appropriateness,” said Trustee Cindy Watson, who was supporting Burjoski’s right to continue speaking.
On January 19, Burjoski’s comments and censorship were made public when evolutionary biologist and Quillette editor Colin Wright shared the link to the video of the school board meeting. The WRDSB subsequently removed the video from YouTube, and Piatkowski tweeted, “I made a ruling. Trustees upheld that ruling. I stand by it.”
