WE WON’T TELL – Parents in Ontario are being kept in the dark about their child’s gender identity

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

I am not sure why this has not made front page news, but I suspect that it was not meant to. Parents, what I am about to tell you might trigger you, and I want you to know that the reaction you have, whatever it is, is perfectly acceptable, and we would love for you to share your thoughts after reading this.

There may be a lot of parents in Ontario who are being kept in the dark about their child’s gender identity. I spoke with a parent last week, and she was the one who first let me know what is happening throughout the province behind parent’s backs.

There are a number of Ontario school boards who have quietly implemented directives that a school not tell parents when a child asks to “transition” to another gender at school. So, you can have a five-year-old boy, or a seven-year-old girl who is thinking about switching genders, or that they want to be another gender, and the board says that the teacher can’t tell the parents. In the case of the parent who reached out to me, she told me that her daughter’s friend goes by her female name at home, and her transgendered name at school, and of course, the guardian knows nothing about this.

According to the school boards who have implemented these policies and procedures accommodating transgender students explicitly direct the school not to tell parents a child has “transitioned” to another gender at school, without the child’s express permission. According to them, some students who identify as transgender are not open at home, because of safety and/or other reasons. Therefore, a school shall not disclose a student’s gender status to the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) without the student’s explicit prior consent.

To think that this has been going on since 2017, and there are many of us who had no clue. The school boards at that time who had implemented this include:

• Toronto District School Board
• Thames Valley District School Board
• Greater Essex County District School Board
• Upper Grand District School Board (505-C)
• Waterloo Region District School Board

These school boards, amongst the new ones, instruct teachers to willfully deceive parents by withholding information about a child’s self-declared gender identity and change of name and pronouns.

In guidelines for the Accommodation of Persons who Identify as Transgender which came into effect in March 2017, and was updated in March 2021, teachers are told to keep a student’s transgender identity a secret, even from the child’s parents.

“There is no age limit on making an accommodation request, and young students have the same rights to privacy and to have accommodations made on their behalf with or without their guardians’ knowledge.”

Toronto District School Board

With this mandate, when a school staff contacts the home of a student who identifies as transgender, the student should be consulted first to determine an appropriate way to reference the student’s gender identity. According to them, not doing so can potentially put a student’s well-being and safety at risk.

If students have first disclosed their gender status to staff, it is strongly suggested that staff privately ask transgender students at the beginning of the school year how they want to be addressed in correspondence to the home or at meetings with the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) What this does is encourage an us-and-them situation, that positions school staff in the compassionate, understanding role (good cop), and the parents as untrustworthy, abusive (bad cop) and therefore undeserving of being privy to their child’s self-declared transgender identity.

In November 2021, it was reported that the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB)  informed staff that students will have the option of being referred to by their chosen name and pronouns, and will be able to change their names on all non-legal documents used by the school. The OCDSB gender identity and gender expression guidelines also instruct teachers not to inform parents of a child’s self-declared transgender identity.

It is understandable and natural for parents to want to know personal details about their children. Often, the motivation is well-meaning, such as wanting to better protect their children. Our children are already subjected to gender identity theory in schools at too young an age. These policies will leave young kids without the protection of their parents against gender theory ideologues. The harm to a child could be irreparable, including increased risk for depression and suicide.

We have to also consider the emotional fatigue and trauma of a child who is living two lives — at school presenting one gender, at home another, or the confusion of a parent who knows something ‘isn’t right’ but can’t get to the bottom of it and hits endless brick walls in talking to their child and/or the school.

The school boards might think that they are doing these children a favor, but by maintaining secrecy, they are underscoring the shame that the child may already be feeling. Assisting a child to open up the dialogue with their parents actually empowers the child. With the support of caring school staff, children who might be nervous about telling a parent can begin the conversation that needs to happen with their parents.

Parents now that you know what can be done. Well, the first thing you need to know is the rights that you have. Parents have a number of common law custodial rights that have been “elevated to constitutional rights” by various court decisions since the 1982 Charter came into force. These include directing and controlling the education and medical treatment of their dependent children.

The “accepted rationale” for recognizing these rights is that it’s “irrational and fundamentally unfair” for the state to impede parents’ ability to do what it legally obliged them to do. Under the Family Law Act, Ontario parents have the legal duty to support their children up to age 18, or age 16, if the child then voluntarily withdraws from the home.

So, a school board’s “authority over a child has been delegated to them by the child’s parents” according to common law. As the parent’s agent, the school and the teachers have a “legal duty” to tell parents all they “reasonably” need to know to meet their support obligations “even if the child says he or she does not want the parent to be told.

Like they say, anything done in darkness must come to light; parents, now that you know, it is time that you start paying more attention to what is happening with your child at school, if not, they certainly will.