A Central Okanagan school trustee offered an ominous warning of the impact of conservative political rhetoric on the lives of transgender students in the U.S. and what it could mean here in Canada.
Wayne Broughton said the basic human rights of transgender students need to be championed, in particular now that President-elect Donald Trump has been swept back into the White House by U.S. voters. At the same time, his Republican Party has the majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Much of the rhetoric expressed by Trump during the campaign, and by many of his hard-right supporters, was targeted at transgender students, and what the U.S. school system should and should not be doing to support them.
"The U.S. election results are terrifying for transgender students in the U.S.," Broughton said at the Nov. 13 Central Okanagan Board of Education meeting.
"The rights of transgender students are under threat, teachers who support them will be under pressure and many are being advised to update their passports to be ready to flee the country."
Those concerns voiced by Broughton come from Trump using transgender students, along with rebuilding what is already a booming economy in the U.S., deporting millions of illegal residents and strengthening the policing of the border, as anchor platforms that he spoke of at his rallies.
"The Republican Party spent more money on the transgender students issue than any other in this part election campaign," Broughton noted.
Data released by Ad Impact last week cited the Republicans spent $215 million on network TV ads vilifying transgender people in this election cycle, not including what was also spent on cable and streaming ads.
There are an estimated 1.6 million transgender people over the age of 13 in the U.S. While trans people only represent around one per cent of the U.S. population, this community has been increasingly targeted by the right in recent years.
Civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo told the Washington Post last week that amounts to $134 per trans person in anti-trans ad spending.
While Trump's education proposals remain somewhat vague in specifics, what he has talked about is ending transgender athlete participation in women's sports, school teachers not superseding the wishes of parents in the gender identity of their children, and abolishing the Department of Education as a cabinet-level agency of the federal government and relinquish its mandate back to individual states to oversee.
Particularly with the Department of Education disappearing, critics suggest that much like the fragmented abortion bans now in place across the U.S., varying from state to state, student rights could also fall under the same guise, and leave transgender and other alternative gender students and staff treated differently in the same governing manner.
As the Central Okanagan Board of Education gave its support to proclamations in support of Harmony Day, where local schools celebrate diversity while committing to mutual respect, and Nov. 20 as National Children's Rights Day, Broughton also raised awareness of Nov. 20 as being Transgender Day of Remembrance.
It was started 25 years ago to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia, and to draw attention to the continued violence directed towards transgender people.
Broughton said the re-emergence of Trump in the U.S. is again heating up anti-transgender rhetoric that shows signs of also spreading north of the border into Canada. Asked to elaborate on that after the meeting, Broughton cited the influence of political conservative attitudes that can easily spread across Canada.
He pointed to legislation in Saskatchewan and News Brunswick aimed at transgender students not being permitted to publicly identify by their pronoun gender in school, which he argues is a violation of their adolescent rights.
"It does not make it safe for them to come forward if they wish, or they may deem to not come forward at all," he said.
Also in Alberta earlier this month, the provincial government introduced a trio of legislative bills focusing on transgender people and students using preferred pronouns, to prohibit doctors from treating those under 16 seeking transgender treatments such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy, and to ban transgender athletes from competing in female amateur sports and require schools and sports organizations to report eligibility complaints.
"Even here in B.C., a few votes the other way and the election of a Conservative majority would have surely meant the end of the SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) program in the schools," Broughton said.
SOGI is a ministry of education mandated resource to help schools and teachers build inclusive environments for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities. SOGI education is not a program, course, or curriculum.
