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Letting little children choose to change gender is nothing short of child abuse

Last October, the chair of the school board called on Neufeld to resign and the province’s education minister condemned him, when Neufeld wrote on Facebook calling members of B.C.’s education system “radical cultural nihilists” for their policies on gender rights and education. He also wrote that “letting little children choose to change gender is nothing short of child abuse” and included a photographic internet meme juxtaposing a father in 1997 telling a little boy he wouldn’t allow him to get his ear pierced with a mother in 2017 responding to her child wondering if he should be a girl by telling him “we’ll start hormone treatment immediately.” Rob Fleming, the education minister, said Neufeld had “jeopardized student safety, divided his school community and acted against board and ministry policies” with his comments, and said his comments were working to “undermine” goals of the district and the ministry. Neufeld later apologized.

Following announcement of the human rights complaint, on Jan. 18 the Chilliwack School District board urged Neufeld to resign. On Jan. 19, so did Fleming, the education minister. But Neufeld is hanging tough. In a published response, he states that he supports the principle of inclusion for LGBT children, but “I have simply taken issue with one facet of the SOGI 123 learning resources, the teaching of the controversial gender-fluid theory as fact.”

I have simply taken issue with one facet of the SOGI 123 learning resources

This is an important freedom-of-speech case. Section 13 (1) of the B.C. Human Rights Code states that a person must not (b) “discriminate against a person … because of the … gender identity or expression … of that person.” But Neufeld has not discriminated against a person; his criticisms are directed at a hypothesis being presented as settled, anodyne fact, its purposeful omission of well-documented caveats, and the politicized environment surrounding SOGI 123’s rushed implementation (the board of trustees was not consulted beforehand, for example, nor did SOGI follow the normal route of pilot project followed by assessment, nor were all CUPE members consulted regarding the complaint). He argues that on the contested terrain of children’s “best interests” in transgender education, his role is that of proxy for parents’ rights to deal with their children’s sensitive health issues as they see fit.