The Vancouver (BC) School Board met on Wednesday as members continued in its attempt to update their policy on sexual orientation and gender identity.
I can tell you about being taunted, and yelled at and spat on when we try to use the washroom that doesn't correspond to our gender identity.
I spent months using only the washroom in the basement of my school where no one ever goes. I would sneak into it, making sure that no one would see me, just so I wouldn't get yelled at for using the 'wrong' washroom.
I can tell you how hard it is to do anything, let alone study and pass your classes, when you are consumed with the hatred that people pour on to you. I can tell you how kids try to take their own lives or cut into their skin because of the hatred that surrounds them.
--Rowan Reimer, 17, who identifies as queer
The VSB first adopted a policy in 2004 in support of "a positive learning environment for students and staff who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning."
The proposed changes would allow students to be addressed by the name and pronouns that correspond to their gender identity and that a gender neutral bathroom be provided at all Vancouver schools and worksites.
There is, of course, opposition. Cheryl Chang of the Parents Advisory Council for Lord Byng Secondary School believes that gender identity should not be addressed at school.
It is inappropriate for teachers to be writing up a policy without having approval by the B.C. College of Physicians and College of Psychologists.
--Chang
The main opposition calls itself
Protecting All Children in School in keeping with the recent trend to exclude transkids from "all". Ms. Chang is a member of PACIS.
In my view, you should cancel all further public meetings until this goes back to the staff to talk to the professional organizations that should be involved in approving this policy. Chang What this is doing is setting up a war, and I call tell you in my petition it says we care for all people, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.
I don’t hate those people. I care for those people, and yet rumours are being spread around, and by the way, I have served my PAC [parent advisory council] for four years — two as chair — and now the whole Grade 12 class is upset because they are saying that I’m homophobic. How do you think that affects my child? Bullying? You want to know about bullying? Try being a Christian in this town; try being a Conservative in this town.
--Chang
Ah, yes. Once again it's the people who favor protecting transgender teens who are the bullies.
Andrea Szewchuk is a family physician who works with Vancouver's gender-diverse residents.
These youth we are discussing are highly vulnerable. A national study in 2010, long after the last VSB policy was put into place, showed that nearly 80 percent of trans kids felt unsafe in their own schools, and when half of them went for help it was not to be found. So it’s very clear that current policy is not doing enough to support our kids.
--Szewchuk
Dora Ng works with LGBT youth at South Arm Community Center in Richmond student. She wants Chinese-Canadian parents to know that being gay or trans is not just a white or Western thing.
Ng, 26, attended St. Francis Xavier Catholic elementary school on Great Northern Way. She was “tomboyish,” liked to play soccer and was bullied by peers who said she wanted to be a man. The acceptance she received from new friends at Hamber secondary helped transform her from fearful to confident.
That’s the kind of difference your environment makes.
This kind of bullying comes from ideas on gender role and gender behaviour and what people think proper gender behaviour should be.
--Ng
There’s this argument that this is a white thing, that this is a Western idea, that this is a Western pollution to traditional Chinese morals.
And I really do want to make it a point that actually there are folks from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of cultures that are gender variant, that are homosexual.
--Ng
Dr. Daniel Metzger is a pediatric endocrinologist at BC Children's Hospital. His team has provided care for gender-variant children, youth and young adults since 1993.
One of the biggest arguments [against the revisions] that we saw was that there was no medical input, so since I’m the person that sees the most trans kids in the province it was important for me to write what I did.
It’s sensible, logical and it completely complies with our standard of practice… our best knowledge of how to do things with kids.
--Dr. Metzger
VSB will hear more speakers on May 22 and is expected to vote on the new revisions in June.