Tell me a Story

Premier Scott Moe was asked by a reporter about the evidence on which the decision to require—by law—that teachers must inform parents of any student’s expressed wish to be addressed with gender free pronouns. The new directives also legislate that any parent will have the right to withdraw their child from a sex education program if they deem it inappropriate, plus a few other provisions claimed to be "parents' rights" supportive. 

His response[i] to the reporter cited a survey of some 3000+ people, the majority of whom agreed that any student’s request to have a name change or to be addressed with gender-neutral pronouns in school should be reported to the child’s parents.

It’s easy to word a question that will elicit a positive response in favour of parental rights regarding children. Of course, the people who manage the household in which a child spends most of his time are justified in claiming greater authority over that child than does a neighbour. Not the government nor his teacher can set a bedtime for my boy.

There are a number of factors that make of the premier’s defense of the policy a naïve and hopelessly incomplete. Some that come to mind include:

First: in in loco-parentis law (local parent), the adult in legitimate supervision of that child has the responsibility of a parent, and by the same token, the biological or adoptive parent cannot maintain parental supervision while his/her/their child is in a classroom or on the school playground. Are we clear about what that means in this case? As it stands, a teacher's relationship to a student's parent is not like that parent's relationship to, say, a babysitter. 

Second: “Parent,” as used in the survey for instance, conjures good, responsible, thoughtful, informed mother and father who live together and plan and cooperate in the teaching and mentoring of their children. Parents out of Dick and Jane readers, sort of. Meanwhile, every teacher knows that some minority in their class are coming to them from dysfunctional homes. It requires four years of pedagogical training including internships and regular evaluations in order to become qualified for the in loco parentis role. Heated copulation in the back of a Nash Rambler is all that’s required to make of yourself a “parent.”

Third: Is “parental rights” the appropriate term for what we’re talking about? In general, human rights are our way of defending the basic well-being of individuals, not of classes of people. If a child is badly injured and doctors determine he/she/they require a blood transfusion to survive, would an ability of the parent to overrule the doctors—in obedience to a religious tenet, say—be a legitimate right? Or is it the child’s human right to life that is in question? Likewise, if a teacher senses a danger to a child if the child is outed to the parent(s), would that be like the doctors following the parents’ wishes in the blood transfusion case if the teacher is forced to inform? Do human rights of the individual extend to, say, a ten-year-old child who has already decided that coming out to parents will bring him/her/them harm?

Fourth: Saskatchewan once had a premier whose grasp of issues went well beyond political or religious calculations. Tommy Douglas would say things like,[ii] “We are all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. How we look after each other, not how we look after ourselves. That’s all that really matters, I think.” There’s no arguing that people with same-sex orientation or gender dysphoria’s manifestations form a minority in Canadian culture. Do their unchosen natures fit them into Douglas’ “least fortunate among us” category? If so, is Moe’s new legislation an attempt to “look after” their well-being? Or is it another too-hasty reaction of turning the dilemma of being born different into a simple question-simple answer, solution?  

Five: Is there any part of pitting teachers and parents against each other that can be logically justified? If a teacher is attacked verbally, pejoratively and a school is ordered by a parent to otherwise engage their child when a provincially authorized sex education curriculum is being taught, what outcome should we expect for the well-being of the child, either in school or at home? Isn’t the sex education curriculum already carefully tailored to match the students’ developmental ages? Is parent education on these curricula lacking? Are there better ways of doing Home and School?

Six: The legislation curtails schools’ utilization of outside resources in sex education instruction. Are we remembering that this all started in Saskatchewan with a Planned Parenthood presentation to a school class in Lumsden whose participation there wasn’t criticized, except for having left behind a brochure that a parent found offensive because of its explicit illustrations? “Is the decree proportional to the problem?” I ask myself. And myself answers, “No, it’s not. It’s too much like banning all people under the age of twenty-five from owning Pitbulls because one twenty-two-year-old in Melville had such a dog that bit his neighbour twice.”

Finally, opinion surveys are not research; for one, responses are far too subject to the phrasing of the question. Also, we know full well that, “the majority think so” doesn’t necessarily make an assertion wise, true, or even practical, although it can help a political party plan its election strategy. Lastly, a society that heeds Tommy Douglas’ statement on what matters, and is therefor proactive in defending the rights of minorities, by this same impulse can’t help but be a defender of every child: yours, mine, the neighbours’. Sexual behaviour affects everyone; education to help all of us get it right is key; surely the timing and content can be arrived at in better ways than through arbitrary and hasty legislation.

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[i] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-poll-policy-1.6949760

[ii] https://www.azquotes.com/author/4101-Tommy_Douglas

I haven't a thing to wear.

“Spaghetti straps. Ultra-short skirts. Excessive cleavage. Midriff-baring tops. Shorts with a hem shorter than where a person's fingertips graze when they are standing.”
     Here we go again! That old what's-appropriate-for-girls-to-wear-to-school-and-what's-not debate. True, school boys are required to “dress appropriately,” but when the question resurfaces—as it's done constantly since coed education was invented—it's the girls who make it into the news.
     The CBC story about 17 year-old Lauren Wiggins being sent home from school for wearing an off-the-shoulder, full-length halter dress to school elicited the old saws about what clothing is appropriate for the classroom and what isn't. “It's a sexual distraction,” her teachers said, and others said that assuming boys to be helpless against bared shoulders, cleavage and belly buttons isn't helpful in their development as women-respecting men.
     I went to a high school where school uniforms for girls were mandatory and boys couldn't wear jeans or shorts to class. 60 years later, they all wear “uniform” clothing to class, but they have choices among a number of prescribed items. 
     The most compelling argument for uniforms in my day was that they relieved anxiety about what to wear, particularly for girls. I guess the fringe benefit was that girls wouldn't dress to provoke and distract the boys.
     Surely, attracting or distracting, being noticed—or at least fitting in—are what dress and fashion are about. Lauren Wiggins certainly got noticed; she made it onto national television! She'll be lucky if the on-line taunting doesn't undo her in the end, though.
     Wearing a ball gown to class is not a crime. But for appropriateness, it has to rank with the wearing of high rubber boots to gym class.
     Individualism has been given a boost in the post modern age. It's not unusual for people to play the “I have my rights” and “you can't make me” cards when confronted about their behaviour. Surely education is partly about teaching the balance between individual rights and community needs. Lauren Wiggins hasn't accepted the need for such a balance, yet. But she's only 17, right in the middle of her Sturm und Drang period.
     Often, I find, these teapot tempests are symptomatic of unresolved social tensions. In this case, it's the ambivalence about human sexuality. This confusion, in turn, can be traced back to the simple fact that we have, over the centuries, evolved dramatically in our capacity to reason, to organize and to assume mastery over ourselves and our environments. Meanwhile, our procreative instincts remain unchanged; our biological “progress” has hardly surpassed that of the Bonobo monkey. This discrepancy represents a Gordian Knot that we are having a hard time untying.
     The Christian Bible is clear in its admonitions of sexual restraint. But restraint is not a watchword in currant Western cultures; permissiveness, maybe. But I fear that a tug-of-war between permissiveness and restraint (externally applied, if necessary) is not ever going to resolve issues involving sexuality.      
     Until Lauren Wiggins sees conformity in the area of dress as beneficial and satisfying, I expect she will continue to seek attention in an “off-the-shoulder, full-length halter dress” manner.
     And the restrainers will feel forced to pounce.