A Vancouver secondary school received an unwanted Christmas gift this week as hateful and offensive graffiti was found on the outside doors and walls around the property.
Phrases like “Grab her by the p***y” and “There’s only 2 genders” adorned Lord Byng Secondary School, located on W 16th Avenue in West Point Grey. There was also trans-phobic language directed toward a specific school staff member.
Former Vancouver school trustee Patti Bacchus was alerted to the graffiti on Friday night by parents on Twitter, and arranged for a school staff member to come by just after noon on Saturday and paint over the offensive slogans.
The graffiti is thought to have appeared shortly after classes broke for the winter break on Dec. 16. For Bacchus, the larger issue is that the Vancouver School Board (VSB) left the graffiti unaddressed for so long.
“To leave this kind of messaging up on a school is disturbing to me,” Bacchus said, “and I’m already hearing from members of the community that they feel the same way.”
Bacchus, who served as a school board trustee from 2008-16 and was chair of the board for six of those eight years, says school grounds also act like neighbourhood parks, which makes such hateful language even more unacceptable.
The “grab her” phrase calls back to comments made by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump that were caught on tape in 2005 and released in October during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Many Trump supporters subsequently adopted the phrase as a rallying cry.
Morgane Oger, chair of the Trans Alliance Society, says the kind of language on display at Lord Byng is unacceptable today.
“I just shook my head,” Oger said when describing her initial reaction to the graffiti. “We have to guard ourselves against this. We have to all stand together and remember that picking on any of us picks on all of us.”
Oger was particularly concerned about the language directed at a school staff member, which suggested that the staffer in question, identified as a male, “needs a bra.” She says language like that is “disgusting,” especially if that person is actually struggling with their gender identity.
“Naming someone… takes away their control to identify as who they are and to be themselves,” Oger said. “That is despicable, that’s a despicable act.”
No one from the VSB was available for an interview, however a statement was sent to Global News on behalf of official trustee Dianne Turner:
“This is a hateful and sad commentary that our society is dealing with some troubling behaviour from individuals who could make our students, staff and parents feel unsafe. VSB schools do not tolerate this disgusting demonstration of misogynistic and offensive hate.”
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