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Education

Toronto-area Catholic school hid ‘trans’ identity of 10-year-old girl from her parents

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8 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

A school in the York Catholic District School Board kept ten-year-old Julie’s ‘transition’ a secret from her parents and called the Children’s Aid Society when her parents questioned what was happening with their daughter. The girl has since detransitioned.

A Toronto-area Catholic school has been exposed for hiding a young girl’s “gender transition” from her parents, and calling the Children’s Aid Society on the family when the parents expressed concern over the decision. 

In a September 3 article, the National Post revealed that an unnamed school in the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB), located in the suburbs of Toronto, kept a ten-year-old girl’s “transition” a secret from her parents and called the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) when her parents questioned what was happening. The National Post article uses the alias “Julie” for the girl for privacy reasons, it also uses aliases for the names of the parents.

“Transgender activists were actively posting videos about ‘safe’ breast binding and how euphoric testosterone makes you feel and how it makes all your problems suddenly disappear. The more I was brainwashed by these videos, the more I started to resonate with them,” Julie, who is now thirteen and no longer thinks she is “transgender,” told the outlet.  

The article retells Julie’s experience, relaying that her gender dysphoria began in 2021 when she installed social media app TikTok and spent hours on it during COVID lockdowns. While online, Julie fell down rabbit holes and “discovered the LGBTQ+ community.” 

In 2021, at the start of her grade five year, after watching a video asking viewers whether they were “anxious and uncomfortable” in their own bodies, Julie became convinced she was “non-binary.”

In 2022, she came out to her class and began using “they/them” pronouns and a male name with the help of a teacher from the YCDSB. This development was kept from her parents who only discovered it in June 2022 when Julie began cutting her hair short and revealed that she did not feel “like a girl anymore.” 

“It was a horrible time for me as a parent because so much was happening behind my back. I didn’t know for a long while about many things that were happening. I suspected that something was really wrong,” Julie’s mother, Christina, recalled to the National Post.  

Many Ontario school boards have policies requiring teachers and staff withhold students’ private information from their parents, including the York Region District School Board, Thames Valley District School Board, and the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.    

By the beginning of grade six, in September 2022, Julie believed she was a boy, using a male name and looking into testosterone injections and a double mastectomy. 

However, instead of addressing Julie’s underlying phycological issues, doctors assured her that chest binding was safe and even asked if she would like to learn about puberty blockers.  

“At that age, I can’t make a conscious decision about medical interventions with an extremely high risk of life-threatening side effects that could make me unable to ever conceive a child,” Julie declared. “All accepted that I’m a boy and never tried to dig up any underlying problems that might be causing these suicidal ideations.”  

After Julie ran away, the school called CAS, claiming that Christina’s opposition to Julie’s transition is a potential “culprit of conflict.” Over the next few months, the school called CAS several times, leading the agency to visit the family in their home at least five times. 

The school principal told CAS that “she knows that the family loves their child and want the best for the child but they are doing a lot of damage emotionally at this time.” 

Finally, in the early months of grade seven, now aged twelve, Julie’s father brought home Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, which discussed the reasons behind gender dysphoria. While her father had bought the book for himself, Julie read it out of curiosity.  

“After reading about detransitioners and how they came to identify as transgender, I understood I was heading in the wrong direction and needed to turn around before I hurt my loved ones or myself,” she revealed.  

This began Julie’s detransition journey, which she discovered was not as celebrated as her initial decision to identify as a boy.  

“When we announced that she wants to go back to female pronouns, everyone kept asking: ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you want to transition?’” Christina said. 

Similarly, Julie revealed, “I did not really lose any friends, but my closest friends seem to be, pushing away from me. Like, they’re not talking to me as much, and they’re part of the LGBTQ” community.” 

Now, as she enters grade eight, Julie revealed that she “finally felt truly at peace with my identity.” 

Unfortunately, Julie’s story is not unique.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, many Ontario parents revealed that public schools did not ask for parental consent before “gender transitioning” their children, resulting in child-parent relationships being destroyed.     

Despite the claims of LGBT activists, a significant body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.

Studies find that more than 80 percent of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence  and that “transition” procedures, including “reassignment” surgery, fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

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Education

Fired Alberta Professor Largely Vindicated

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Hymie Rubenstein

“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated”

An arbitrator has ruled that Calgary’s Mount Royal University (MRU) acted in a “disproportionate” manner in late 2021 in its firing of Frances Widdowson, a tenured political scientist with a specialty in Indigenous issues.

Dr. Widdowson, an outspoken critic of the politically charged but theoretically simplistic notions of the academic culture wars at MRU was dismissed just before Christmas 2021 during what arbitrator D.P. Jones called a “Twitter War” between her and a few activist colleagues opposed to her views.

The hearing took 30 days, over ten months, as 25 witnesses gave evidence. Its main findings were on the appropriateness and fairness of the procedures used to dismiss her, not on the reasons given for her dismissal.

The latter concerned September 2020 comments from Widdowson that far from constituting genocide, aboriginal children gained educational benefits by attending Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, an outrageously scandalous opinion among some at MRU.

Her position on Indigenous issues would certainly have been considered heretical at MRU where extreme pro-indigenous, anti-colonial, anti-white privilege perspectives have long ruled.

Following her dismissal, Widdowson filed ten grievances, eight on procedural grounds and two on substantive ones. In his nearly 300-page decision, Jones threw out the grievances involving the improper procedures employed by the university in its dealings with Widdowson.

On discipline, Jones found that while Widdowson’s behaviour was “just cause” for discipline, her firing was “disproportionate” to that behaviour.

On one of Widdowson’s substantive grievances, Jones ruled that her two-week suspension was disproportionate, ruling that a letter of reprimand be substituted for the suspension.

When it came to Widdowson’s firing, Jones wrote that there was just cause for discipline based on Widdowson’s conduct, but that dismissal was an inappropriate penalty.

However, Jones said that Widdowson’s continued employment with the university would not be viable for several reasons, including Widdowson’s ongoing hostility toward the university and colleagues, witness testimony that stated her return to the university would be disruptive, and her “persistence” throughout the arbitration hearing that several tweets investigated did not constitute harassment.

Instead, the arbitrator suggested, “In my judgment, this is an appropriate case in which to substitute a monetary payment rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties.”

In an interview with CBC News on Friday, October 4, Widdowson said she’s pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling that she was wrongfully terminated but that she continues to be upset about how the arbitration approached the issue of harassment.

“People continue to think that I engaged in harassment, which I did not. I’ve done extensive analysis of the different findings which were put forward by the different investigators,” she said.

“There were four different investigators hired by MRU, and these investigators all had different, contradictory findings. What we need from the decision is for there to be a neutral person who makes findings of facts about this.”

“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated,” she said during a phone interview with a national media outlet.

“The people who don’t want me to return to MRU, I don’t work with those people,” she replied.

She doesn’t “work with those people” because she shares nothing with them intellectually.

The irony is that Widdowson is an old-school leftist, a classical Marxist whose views on inequality focus on inter-class conflict having little to do with racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identity, the preoccupation of contemporary identity politics, also known as wokeism.

Traditional Marxists and disciples of wokeism are both on the left, often the hard left. But they support incompatible paradigms about the causes and consequences of social and economic inequality, hence their mutual loathing.

Widdowson said she is appealing the decision to regain her tenured faculty position. It seems likely, however, that she’ll end up accepting a huge payout instead.

In his ruling, Jones found that although Widdowson has “controversial views on a number of topics … there has never been a complaint about the quality or ethics of her scholarship; she has never received performance management counselling for either her teaching or scholarship; and the University has supported and recognized her scholarly activities.”

Mount Royal officials said, “While the formal process continues, we will have no further comment.”

Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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DEI

CA school taught 5th graders gender identity, had them teach it to kindergartners

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From The Center Square

By 

Plaintiffs “were especially bothered that they had to push the idea that individuals can select their own gender to a kindergartener, knowing this kindergarten buddy looks up to them as role models and trusts their opinions.”

A California school district allegedly had a teacher teach a lesson and read a gender identity book to fifth graders, then have those fifth graders watch a video version of the book with their kindergarten mentees and teach them the lesson they just learned.

Outraged Encinitas parents are now suing the school district and demanding a notification and opt-out program for all objectionable content; currently, content notifications and opt-outs are only available for the health unit.

The fifth grade students’ parents had first asked to review a health unit with lessons on “puberty, health reproduction, media influences on health habits and body image, hygiene, boundaries and bullying and diseases and their transmission, including information about HIV/AIDS.”

After finding the unit’s  “instruction on gender identity and transgenderism” was “affront to their religious beliefs,” the parents tried to opt out of just the gender section, but were told they would have to opt out of the entire unit, which they did.

But this opt out did not cover the school’s buddy program that pairs older students with the same younger students every week for one class.

The lawsuit says “with the buddy relationships in place and well established, [school district staff] planned a unique event for May 1, 2024. During this “buddy” program, the District would use fifth graders to help kindergarteners learn about gender identity.”

The school district used My Shadow is Pink, a picture book for young children in which a boy “wonders about his gender and how he believes it differentiates from his father’s gender” and says he “loves wearing dresses and dancing around.” The boy wears a dress to school, making the father “anxious and stressed” until he too wears a dress after his son has a difficult day. The father then tells his child, “pick up that dress! Your shadow is pink. I see now it’s true. It’s not just a shadow, it’s your inner-most you.”

Before the buddy session, one staff member said to another, “We might just inspire some sweet things to fly toward their shadow tomorrow,” suggesting the lesson had a desired outcome, according to the lawsuit.

At the start of the session one teacher allegedly read the book to the fifth grade class, which students found unusual because “It was rare for [him] to read any book to them, and he had never read a book to them for the ‘buddy’ program.”

Immediately after, the fifth graders each sat next to their kindergarten mentees, and shown a read-along video version of the book, leading one 5th grade plaintiff to allegedly say “[he] wanted to cover his buddy’s eyes and ears to protect him.”

Next, 5th graders were allegedly told to have their buddies choose a color representing their buddies’ gender, and draw their buddies’ outlines in chalk in that color to communicate “gender was determined by an internal feeling.”

Both plaintiffs “were especially bothered that they had to push the idea that individuals can select their own gender to a kindergartener, knowing this kindergarten buddy looks up to them as role models and trusts their opinions.”

“The blatant promotion of gender identity in the My Shadow is Pink book is self-evident and obvious,” says the lawsuit. “The book is marketed as “a rhyming story that touches on the subjects of gender identity, equality, and diversity.”

A petition to require parental notification for controversial curriculum items at Encinitas Union School District, but the school did not respond to the petition or its concerns, aside from sending a template letter describing the district’s opt-out policy.

The lawsuit is claiming the students’ First Amendment  rights were violated by compelling them to speak messages to kindergarteners that violate their religious beliefs and consciences, and that the school districts’ policy of allowing opt-outs only in some parts of schooling but not in others is a violation of the 14th Amendment. Among other demands, the plaintiffs seek opt out and parental notification policies for “curriculum, activities, or any other instruction related to gender identity or other LGBTQ topics.”

“You have the absolute right to opt your child out of any program out there,” said Lance Christensen, Vice President of the California Policy Center, to The Center Square. Last month, the CPC issued an “opt-out toolkit” explaining to parents how they can protect and expand opt-out policies.

“These parents have the right to not have their children subjected to a radical ideology,” continued Christensen. “We’re talking about elementary school kids. What’s wrong with these teachers, and these schools?”

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