Nothing Is As It Seems

"Gender binary is a colonial and white supremacist structure rather than a natural and indisputable truth."

"Because of colonialism, gender in Ontario and Canada, and specifically in the education system, still tends to be understood in binary terms or as being on either end of this 'spectrum' or somewhere in between it."

"European settlers forced their rigid views on gender upon the civilizations they invaded, reforming Indigenous gender roles through colonial restrictions as a tool to align patriarchal family and kinship structures that mirrored the privileged European family systems during the time of the invasion."

"Cisgenderism, cissexism and cisnormativity are the root of the violence perpetrated against trans and gender diverse people."

Trans-Affirming Toolkit for teachers, federal gov't funded

The Progress Pride Flag flies at Syncrude's Wood Bison Viewpoint. Photo by Vincent McDermott/Fort McMurray Today/Postmedia Network

As difficult as it is to credit, the Liberal government of prime minister Justin Trudeau has financed a 'Trans-Affirming Tookit' for the use of teachers with a stated purpose to educate teachers on transgender-identifying students. This is a 100-page instructional to be used in Canadian schools, addressing social justice theory, leftist identity politics, and assertions relating to biology, history and sex.

Teachers are informed via this teaching tool that biological sex has seven elements to determine gender; no single element, it insists, can determine sex; certainly not DNA. No, the elements related to external genitalia, internal sex organs, gonads, secondary sex characteristics, hormone production, hormone response and chromosomes all come into play, and teachers had better familiarize themselves with all of them for they will be held accountable  for the manner in which they disport themselves in the classroom as advocates of promoting the well-being of .09 percent of the population.

Above all, teachers must flush out of their minds the wildly inaccurate assumption that people are either male or female, for this is clearly racist. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence and common sense, it points out, must acknowledge that gender norms are of European derivation, and since Europeans were colonial settlers that oppressed indigenous populations everywhere, so-called gender norms are inherently oppressive.

The instructional encourages teachers to 'audit' their personal views on gender and take the time to introspectively deconstruct them -- in the classroom. According to Statistics Canada, 99.7 percent of the population identify as female and male. The vast majority of any population are not trans-represented despite the toolkit insisting such assumptions to be cruel and unjust social constructs. Teachers would do well, the teaching tool emphasizes, to review their 'cis-privilege', and reflect on unfortunate instances when they made 'cisnormative assumptions'. 

Progress Pride flags should be on display in every classroom and gender ideology embedded in the curriculum. Teachers have an obligation to speak about trans people throughout lessons, and students should be taught about dogmatic privilege hierarchies that are the driving mechanism behind social justice. Teachers must consider reading books about transgender children to their classes. Students should be charged with completing gender-introspective worksheets.

In the toolkit, Critical race theory has its place, encouraging teachers to apply 'intersectionality' theory to identify layers of oppression. This new initiative can partner with the federally funded "Anti-Hate Toolkit" for teachers that speaks of the Red Ensign as a symbol of white supremacy. Wayne Martino, professor of 'equity and social justice education' at Western University had a hand in producing the Trans-Affirming Toolkit. Teacher trade unions are circulating the treatise to their member-teachers.

University of Western Ontario

"Every single student needs to learn about gender diversity in all areas of the curriculum, inclusive of science and mathematics, and not just in language arts and history."

"Knowledge about gender diversity in the study of biology is important, for example. Learning about trans and gender diverse communities for their brilliance beyond gender-based activism, survival in the face of violence and transition stories that center linear representations of transition is vital."

"Students must be affirmed in their identities, and so no assumptions should be made about them [for example, educators should not assume that all students are cisgender as the default]."

"Dedicated separate spaces must also be provided for students who are Othered so that they might find support if and when they experience harm."

Trans-Affirming Toolkit