FIRST READING: B.C. school trustee quits to call out gender ideology in schools

FIRST READING: B.C. school trustee quits to call out gender ideology in schools Laurie Throness, a former BC MLA, cites Tumbler Ridge massacre as a wake up call First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. TOP STORY Recommended Videos A B.C. school trustee has resigned for the specific purpose of calling out the influence of gender ideology in schools following the Tumbler Ridge school shooting, which was committed by a trans-identifying 18-year-old. “We need to suspend SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) province-wide until a examination is done on its impact, if any, on the perpetrator of the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge,” wrote Laurie Throness, in a Monday statement posted to Facebook following his late February resignation from the Chilliwack School Board. On Feb. 10, Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, murdered six people at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, including five children. Initially identified by police as a “gunperson,” Van Rootselaar was a biological male who had begun identifying as female a few years earlier. Throness, who previously served as a BC Liberal MLA, is calling for a “full public inquiry” on the impact of SOGI in B.C. schools. First introduced in 2016, SOGI differs from prior approaches to sex or LGBT curricula in its emphasis on the idea of gender as a self-identified trait disconnected from biology. Among the more noticeable impacts of SOGI is an increase in “rainbow displays” on school property, a policy of “affirming” the self-stated gender identity of students, and enforcing observation of said identity among the student body. It’s also involved an official push towards “gender neutral washrooms and change rooms,” and the demarcation of girls’ and boys’ sports based entirely on self-identified gender. “The Board is committed to reducing, and where possible eliminating, the practice of segregating students based on sex and/or gender in order to ensure the full inclusion of transgender and/or gender non-conforming students,” according to the Sooke School District. It’s a typical passage in the SOGI-aligned policies of many B.C. school boards. As to why Throness felt the need to resign before coming out against SOGI, he cited the example of Barry Neufeld, another former member of the Chilliwack School Board. Just last month, Neufeld was fined $750,000 by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for his public opposition to SOGI, including the policy of unquestionably affirming the stated gender identity of students. The decision would notably cite Neufeld’s long-time refusal to accept that gender was distinct from biology. “A person does not need to believe in Christianity to accept that another person is Christian. However, to accept that a person is transgender, one must accept that their gender identity is different than their sex assigned at birth,” the tribunal decision read. As Neufeld was a trustee at the time, the tribunal premised their ruling on the claim that his comments had created a discriminatory work environment for transgender teachers in his district. The $750,000 was ordered to be paid to an unnamed consortium of those teachers. “A school board trustee is technically an employer, and any one of 2,500+ District employees could claim discrimination in the workplace if I made a remark about gender,” wrote Throness on Monday, adding that he could face a “huge penalty” for speaking freely while serving on the board. “As the disastrous recent Human Rights Tribunal ruling made clear, the bar to prove workplace discrimination is low,” he wrote. The Tumbler Ridge shooting was one of several recent high-profile massacres committed by assailants identifying as transgender, something that Throness referenced as a “pattern of similar events in the States.” Last August, a 23-year-old biological man identifying as female opened fire on a Minneapolis Catholic school, killing an eight-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl. In 2023, a religious school in Nashville, Tenn., was attacked by Aiden Hale, a female alumnus of the school who had since begun identifying as male. Hale murdered three children, and three adult employees. Just six days after the Tumbler Ridge massacre, Robert Dorgan, a 56-year-old biological man identifying as female, shot and killed his ex-wife and one of his sons at a Rhode Island hockey game. The three incidents represent a small portion of the overall number of U.S. mass-shootings recorded each year. But there is research drawing a link between gender dysphoria and other mental health comorbidities, including those that can lead to violent behaviour. A 2023 Danish study, for instance, found “significantly higher” rates of suicide, suicide attempts and “suicide-unrelated mortality” among transgender individuals. A research review published in 2021 in the Journal of Psychiatry Treatment and Research found that among trans adolescents, as many as 45 per cent “have some type of psychiatric comorbidity.” And mental health comorbidities were certainly a factor in Tumbler Ridge. The shooter had previously been taken into custody under the terms of the Mental Health Act. IN OTHER NEWS It came out last week that Canadian troops may have been fired upon for the first time since the war in Afghanistan, only for the federal government to neglect mentioning it. In the first hours of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran beginning Feb. 28, the Islamic Republic responded by firing missiles at almost every country in its immediate neighbourhood, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait. It was one of those Kuwait-aimed missiles that reportedly struck near Ali Al-Salem Air Base, which houses a contingent of about 250 Canadian soldiers in an area of the base known as Camp Canada. The same day as the Camp Canada strike, meanwhile, an Iranian drone strike would kill six U.S. Army Reserve soldiers in another area of Kuwait. Although Prime Minister Mark Carney had many things to say about the start of the Iranian offensive, none of his early statements ever mentioned that Canadians may have narrowly dodged becoming some of its first casualties. It was La Presse that first published details of the attack, along with satellite photos appearing to show damage to Camp Canada facilities. Only upon its publication did Carney confirm that Canadian troops had indeed been caught up in the conflict. This week, defence minister David McGuinty offered no apologies for keeping the information secret, attributing it to “a policy of being very careful.” First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.