EDMONTON—When Derek Horneland was attending teachers’ college, he recalls being told “not to rock the boat” and keep his identity as a gay man a secret.

“Maybe you don’t put a picture of you and your partner on your desk,” Horneland, who now teaches English at Ross Sheppard High School in Edmonton, said. “Whereas if I was a straight teacher, I could proudly display pictures of my family.”

Horneland began his teaching career in 2016. In his first year, he was openly out to his colleagues, but not his students — until an amendment was made to the province’s School Act under Bill 24 in 2017, which affirmed protections of each staff member employed by all school authorities under the Human Rights Act.

The amendments, which require all schools to develop policies that protect the diversity of staff and students, made Horneland feel like there was support he could fall back on as a teacher, and made him more comfortable to be open about his identity.

“When I talk about my partner in front of my class, or when I talk about my experiences coming out with the (school’s gay-straight alliance) ... that’s something I feel really safe and comfortable doing,” he said.

But with a possible reversal of Bill 24 under a United Conservative Party (UCP) government, Horneland and other LGBTQ teachers have expressed worries about theirs and their colleagues’ future in Alberta schools, as leader Jason Kenney stated his intent on the campaign trail to scrap the School Act and replace it with the Education Act of 2012.

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While a key piece of Bill 24 is the protection it provides for the privacy of students who are part of a gay-straight alliance at their school, it also spells out specific protections for staff members under Section 45.1, in accordance to Alberta’s Human Rights Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and extends those protections to private schools.

This “works to echo and reinforce — and arguably extend — obligations not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or other grounds,” said Jessica Eisen, a law professor at the University of Alberta. Eisen added Bill 24 also provides alternatives to costly and lengthy Human Rights Act processes, and gives the education minister power to look into possible breaches and make orders to remedy them. Those protections are not affirmed under the Education Act.

Eisen said the reversal of Bill 24 “would send a dangerous message that Alberta and its education system’s commitment to diversity and inclusion are eroding.”

The future of LGBTQ teachers in Alberta has since been pushed further to the forefront as a key issue in the province’s 2019 election with reports of Mark Smith, the UCP candidate for Drayton Valley-Devon, pushing for the drafting of policies to allow the firing of gay teachers in 2015. Smith is touted as the potential future education minister if the UCP forms the next provincial government.

In response to Smith’s comments on LGBTQ teachers, the UCP said they “support long-standing law on these matters, both statute and case law.”

“We believe that when issues of competing constitutional rights arise, they are better resolved by the judiciary than by politicians,” a UCP spokesperson said in an email.

For Alix Adair, an early childhood educator in the small town of Stettler who is non-binary, Bill 24 not only affirms legal protections for LGBTQ teachers, but it also provides social assurances and an overall feeling of being accepted in Alberta’s school system.

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“It is the difference between being seen for who you are and having to fake it,” Adair said. Adair added having the bill in place gives them confidence to ask for their pronouns to be used at their workplace, and gives them protection to disclose their identity to parents and colleagues without fear of backlash or losing their jobs.

“Bill 24 enables us to say, this is a safe space, and you can philosophically disagree with us, but you can’t hurt us here,” Adair said.

Legally, experts say the bill ensures there is nothing left up to interpretation when observing rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Alberta’s Human Rights Act, which recently included expressions of gender identity under protected ground in 2017.

“(Bill 24) clarified and solidified the expectation that boards needed to be compliant with both those pieces of legislation to ensure there’s no wiggle room or way around skirting the Human Rights Act,” Robert Mazzotta, member services co-ordinator for the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said.

These protections are exceptionally important, Mazzotta said, as more Alberta teachers are beginning to openly identify as members of the LGBTQ community, and have expressed worries about the security of their employment. The reversal of Bill 24, he added, could put some of those teachers’ careers in jeopardy, especially those working in the province’s private schools.

Alberta teachers would remain protected under the province’s Human Rights Act even with the reversal of Bill 24, but Bridget Stirling, a trustee at the Edmonton Public School Board and a researcher on gay-straight alliances in the province, said human rights cases are often lengthy and detrimental to the livelihood of teachers. Bill 24, she said, attempts to avoid discrimination against LGBTQ teachers entirely.

“People are forced into the courts, and even if they win, it’s often years of a person’s life and often huge damage to their career and their future,” Stirling said. She referenced the case of Jan Buterman, a transgender St. Albert teacher who was fired from his role in 2008, and filed a human rights complaint that lasted almost a decade in court.

Ultimately, both Stirling and Horneland said the protection of LGBTQ staff means the ability to have a more diverse representation of teachers for their students, especially those who also identify as LGBTQ.

“If we protect LGBTQ kids, but then we force their teachers into the closet, then we don’t show them that there’s a place for them to be when they grow up,” Stirling said.

Correction – April 4, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Derek Horneland started his teaching career at Ross Sheppard High School in Edmonton. In fact, that is the school he currently teaches at.

Nadine Yousif is a reporter/photographer for Star Edmonton. Follow her on twitter: @nadineyousif_

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