Jun 24, 2022 – Ewa Sudyk Western Standard News
A poster provided to Edmonton students teaches biological sex, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation are all separate from one another.
Writer and editor Jonathan Van Maren shared it on Twitter.
The poster image is a stick man with four different areas of the body where the different definitions provided belong on the body.
Labelled parts of the body
The images were emailed from a mother in Edmonton, but she did not disclose the school or grade because she was afraid of being identified, Van Maren told the Western Standard.
“If you’re wondering why so many children are confused about their identity, it is because they’re told they can have four different ones at the same time,” said Van Maren on Twitter.
These topics are endorsed by the provincial government who recommends these topics be taught in school.
In 2016, the Alberta government created a best-practices guideline for schools to “respect diverse sexual orientation, gender identities, and gender expressions,” which recommends teachers use learning resources which include “gender identities and gender expression.”
A website called Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) has reports from Alberta parents who are concerned about the increasing trend towards integrating sexuality and gender content in health classes and other subjects.
One report is from an Edmonton mother who found the same diagram explaining gender is independent from biological sex, she posted a full scan of the handout which consists of the same stick figure diagram, definitions of related terminology, and information on gay-straight alliances.
The handout provided by a program called Fyrefly, run by the University of Alberta, included an extensive list of definitions and an “allyship spectrum.”
Allyship spectrum
Fyrefly lists many partners including the Alberta Government, The Alberta Teachers’ Association, Calgary Sexual Health Centre (now known as Centre for Sexuality), and ATB Financial.
Another PCE report came from an older brother of a Grade 7 student — the girl’s school in Calgary had a presentation from the Centre for Sexuality.
The report read:
“My youngest sister came home upset from sex ed yesterday. The guest speaker in her class taught that gender is in the mind, totally separate from the body. That for the purposes of sexuality and puberty, there are no males and females but ‘people with penises’ and ‘people with vaginas.’ That ‘some people’ grow more facial hair than others. The speaker lumped the changes that come with puberty — breast development, facial hair, etc. — together into one de-gendered list. According to my sister, many of her classmates were confused. Some of them, not knowing what else to think, just accepted it.”
This is not the first time the Centre for Sexuality has had complaints about their curriculum, in April reports surfaced of a guest speaker informing eighth graders to experiment with their sexuality and made questionable points when teaching consent.