Note: the story has been updated since first published.
Dual rallies were held in Vancouver today (April 23) outside B.C. Teachers’ Federation headquarters in support of and in opposition to the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities 123 curriculum being taught in B.C. schools.
The SOGI program, which was developed by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the Ministry of Education, and introduced by the provincial government in 2015, aims to educate students and teachers on issues regarding gender and sexuality in school children.
While celebrated by LGBTQ+ and progressive groups, opposition to the curriculum has been vocal. Much of this has been spurred by social conservative activist Kari Simpson and her group Culture Guard, who were behind the anti-SOGI rally.
Morgane Oger organized the counter rally in support of SOGI. A prominent transgender rights activist, and possible mayoral candidate, Oger felt it was important to counter the anti-SOGI rally with one in support of gender and sexuality education in schools.
“When a society knows that people are being oppressed, it is our common responsibility to stand together and put an end to this oppression,” Oger said. “This is why we try to lift up equity seeking groups. There are people over there [at the anti-SOGI rally] who when they think of LGBT they think of disease and sin and these outrageous anachronistic ideas.”
Despite those opposed to the education program, Oger said she’s not concerned the group will have an effect on the new curriculum, or the current state of LGBTQ+ rights in general.
“Canada has never gone backwards on human rights, and this is not going to be the place that it starts,” she said. “We are really a diverse mosaic in Canada, and we’re not going where Kari Simpson is trying to take us. These words have no credibility in Canada in 2018.”
A Burnaby high school student, who attended the rally and asked not to be named, said the SOGI curriculum will be a major benefit to children in their development.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t have these resources, and I had to learn all by myself through the internet. There was a lot of misinformation, and I was really scared and didn’t know who I was,” the student said. “So I think if this education is provided at schools and kids are able to learn about it at a young age, it will be so much easier for them to know who they are and where they fit.”
BCTF President Glen Hansman agreed. He stressed the importance of the SOGI program and made it clear the curriculum was in B.C. schools to stay.
“Whether they like it or not, trans youth are part of our school communities. We have both the legal and moral obligation to make sure we’re proactively not just making those school spaces safe, but also inclusive,” Hansman said.
Like Oger, Hansman believes those protesting SOGI are poised to be left on the wrong side of history.
“This is a dwindling fringe group,” Hansman said of Culture Guard. “We’re long past the point in Canadian society where same-sex marriage has been legalized, where human rights codes provincially and federally have changed. Society has moved on.”
Hansman also made reference to past incidents involving Simpson, who has had a contentious history with the B.C. school system. In 2017, she posed as a parent to gain access to a lunch hour sex education discussion at Lord Byng secondary school. While there, she handed out pamphlets that were deemed discriminatory and offensive, and later posted images of the presentation to social media without authorization. As a result, the Vancouver School Board sent Simpson a letter telling her to stay off school property in the future.
Simpson has also launched multiple unsuccessful legal actions against various groups, including the BCTF and the Ministry of Education. Recently her appeal of a failed $11-million defamation lawsuit against late radio host Rafe Mair was rejected by the B.C. Supreme Court.
Despite this, Simpson has remained defiant in her pursuit of eliminating the SOGI program, and expressed confidence after the rally that momentum was on her side.
“This is a big movement, there’s a lot of energy and a lot of determinations. This isn’t going away, and the politicians need to reevaluate what they’re doing,” Simpson said.
She went on to claim the BCTF was acting nefariously in its implementation of the SOGI curriculum. “Public school isn’t up for political hijacking by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation or sex activists,” Simpson said. “Nobody has said that the B.C. Teachers’ Federation has that right to abuse our children within this system for their political purpose. It won’t be tolerated, it will be stopped.”
In addition to Culture Guard, other groups were present at the anti-SOGI rally, including Parents United Canada. The group distributed pamphlets claiming that “SOGI is a public political agenda that uses coercive techniques to sexualize children” and that “SOGI leads mastermind indoctrination of the SOGI sex activist’s agenda, without parental or School Trustees approval.”
The anti-SOGI rally was also attended by the Soldiers of Odin, an activist organization whose roots lie with far right anti-immigration groups.
Many signs at the rally also demonstrated support for Barry Neufeld, a Chilliwack school trustee who is now the subject of a human rights complaint brought forward by the BCTF. In an October 2017 Facebook post, Neufeld claimed that allowing children “to change gender is nothing short of child abuse,” and that “the B.C. Ministry of Education has embraced the LGBTQ lobby and is forcing this biologically absurd theory on children in our schools.”
Neufeld went on in the post to praise the governments of Russia and Paraguay, both notorious for their mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people, for having “the guts to stand up to these radical cultural nihilists.”
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