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Young and old, queer and straight, they gathered under the shade of trees at Ottawa’s human-rights monument to rally loudly against the new Ontario government’s rollback on the province’s modernized sex-education curriculum.

All had their own reasons for spending a Sunday afternoon chanting and condemning the Ford government’s return to a 1998 curriculum that pre-dates social media, same-sex marriage laws and clear consent.

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In a particularly moving address to the 200-strong crowd, Amanda Jetté Knox shared the story of her daughter, who after coming out as transgender was subjected to unbearable ridicule at school and bullying online. Some classmates called her awful names and thought the girl had some kind of sickness, her mother told the crowd at the Elgin Street monument.

“She felt lost,” her mother explained.

Photo by Patrick Doyle / Postmedia

Jetté Knox, a writer and LGBTQ advocate, homeschooled her daughter for a bit. When she returned to class in 2017, some teachers had already started teaching the new curriculum and she was welcomed with open arms. Classmates used the right pronouns and the experience was overwhelmingly positive because she was surrounded by students who finally understood her daughter, Jetté Knox said.