Alberta parents appear divided — some are pleased while others are dismayed — over Premier Danielle Smith’s proposed new policies surrounding transgender youth and pronouns.
“I broke down crying and, thank goodness it was at work and not in front of my kids, because that gave me time to collect my thoughts,” said Catie Jones, whose 10-year-old child has identified as a transgender girl since she was seven.
“It felt like an attack on my family — a direct attack on my family. And I wish I could say I didn’t see it coming,” the Sherwood Park mom said.
Premier Smith said the goal of the proposal, expected to be tabled in the fall legislature sitting, is to stop youth from making life-altering biological decisions before they are mature enough to do so.
Among the changes would be a ban on gender reassignment surgery for those 17 and under. There would be no puberty blockers or hormone therapies for the purposes of such surgery for anyone 15 and under, unless they’ve already begun such procedures.
Jones and her husband support their child, and with the blessing of their pediatrician and a transgender specialist, have begin talking to her about puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The mom worries now, that process will be halted.
“The policy could effectively stop our daughter from getting the treatment that would make her feel whole,” Jones said.
“I was enraged. I was very angry, scared.”
The policies also require parental consent for students 15 and under who want to change their names or pronouns at school. Students 16 and 17 would not need consent, but their parents would have to be notified.
Jones said that will harm her child and others like her.
“These policies actually bring to light our transgender children when they don’t want to be brought into the spotlight,” she said, explaining her daughter specifically asked her mom not to share with future teachers or friends that she’s transgender because the girl doesn’t want to be seen as different.
“If I have to sign a piece of paper at school saying you are allowed to use her name and her pronouns, that’s going to out her to the school and that should be her decision and her journey, not the policy’s decision.”
Smith said parental consent is at the core of the changes because family is paramount. Jones contends the rules infringe on her family’s right to privacy.
“It all absolutely entrenches on parental rights of those who have transgender children,” Jones said.
“Hiding these policies under the title of ‘parental rights’ is exceptionally hypocritical in the sense that these policies take away my parental right to parent my daughter the way I see fit.”
Other parents in Alberta are pleased with the decision.
“I think it’s a reasonable infringement on their rights,” said John Hilton-O’Brien, the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education.
He said while the advocacy organization would normally call for parents to be making all decisions, they were swayed by the premier’s reasoning about preventing kids and teens from making irreversible medical decisions about their bodies before adulthood.
“While we would normally be saying why, yes, the parents should be making the decision here — her reasoning is really very persuasive.”
Hilton-O’Brien said the organization was pleased overall with the proposal but still has concerns about parents not being informed about sex education happening in school clubs like gay-straight alliances.
He’s also worried about the burden of another proposal on educators: on Thursday, Smith said under the changes, parents must be notified and opt-in to any instance when a teacher provides formal instruction on subject matter involving gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality.
“We do wonder what the burden of that might be for teachers? The question would be, how often are people actually teaching classes that relate to sexuality or gender, and is this really a burden? How will that be administered?” Hilton-O’Brien questioned.
Right now under the Education Act, parents can opt-out of formal instruction over human sexuality. Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said the proposed changes would flip that.
“What the premier announced is an opt-in process, which is a huge burden on schools and teachers who are already dealing with so much,” he said. “And now we’re going to add one more layer on to things that schools and students need to do and teachers need to do?
“It just seems like there’s not a lot of thought into the unintended consequences.”
Another proposed change by Smith: all third-party resources or presentations related to gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality must be pre-approved by the ministry of education.
Schilling said school boards and teachers have had the professional autonomy to decide what resources to bring in, using their professional judgement to ensure it was age-appropriate.
“Now, all of a sudden, the government is going to micromanage and oversee the approval of all of these resources from a third party? They’ve not done a good job approving resources for the new curriculum. I’m not sure how they’re going to be able to turn this around in a timely fashion, so that schools are able to do the work that they need to do.”
The ATA worries the changes will have a chilling effect on classrooms, where Schilling said teachers work hard to ensure they remain safe spaces for students from all walks of life.
“Teachers are worried about the impacts of what this means and how it will affect their relationships with students and their families as well, because parents are a key part to the relationships and success for students at school. Teachers are worried about what this will look like.”
Schilling said the ATA needs to see the specifics of the policy to have a better sense of how educators will be impacted.
“How will it be implemented, what’s the timeline, what will it look like, and how will this affect our students? In the meantime, teachers are still going to work hard to ensure the safety of their students in their classrooms,” Schilling said.
Hilton-O’Brien said Smith seems to be trying to balance the desires of parents to be involved in critical decisions with looking after the medical needs of transgender Albertans.
“This is the first time I’ve heard a politician think about all of these issues together, systematically and coherently,” he said.
“There’s people on the right and people on the left who are both very upset,” he said of the province’s announcement.
“The truth is, that these sides have been colliding for some time now. It’s getting more intense. We’ve been sitting on a powder keg, and what Smith is doing is actually taking the fuse away from the powder keg.”
Jones doesn’t buy the reasonings and has launched a petition in protest of the provincial announcement.
“Knowledge and understanding is how we have acceptance. If the resources are filtered and restricted within our schools, that’s going to result in more discrimination and hate. There’s already a lot of that targeted towards our transgender kids,” she said, adding her daughter already has experienced bullying from other 10-year-olds.
“I think it’s going to create a bigger divide between kids who understand the kids who don’t. And as they get older, that’s just going to get wider and wider and wider if we continue on with these restrictions and lack of information.”
— With files from Colette Derworiz and Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press