Sexuality education divides in Europe
It was playing hard Wednesday in the streets of major Canadian and Quebec cities around sexuality education. However, compared to Belgium, these demonstrations look like innocuous playground squabbles.
About ten days ago, arson attacks were set in four nursery and primary schools in the Charleroi region and in two schools in Liège. Two others were vandalized. Tags added warnings and explained the affront: "No EVRAS, if not the next ones, it's you."
This acronym stands for Education for relational, affective and sexual life, the name of the new program adopted almost unanimously by the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation a few hours before the attacks. The course provides two modest hours per year devoted to various sexuality-related issues taught by accredited external speakers for students in late primary and late secondary school. Mandatory training since 2012 has not been systematic until now, due to a lack of resources that have now been strengthened.
David Paternotte, who co-directs the Interdisciplinary Research Structure on Gender, Equality and Sexuality (STRIGES) at the Maison des sciences humaines of the Université libre de Bruxelles, is not surprised by these protests. He cites precedents. In France, after La Manif pour tous (2013) against marriage for all, a disinformation campaign completely blackened the objectives of a school program to talk about promoting pedophilia.
Anti-LGBTQ+ protests were held around schools in Birmingham, Britain, in 2019. Russia and Hungary use homosexuality as a foil for the West. Do we really need to recall the politicization of the issue of gender in and around schools in the United States?
"These topics come up repeatedly," says Paternotte. But what is special about Belgium and unique in the world is the use of political terrorism. Such violent acts, we have never seen that. That said, it is not known who is behind the fires and vandalism. »
The participants in the Belgian and Canadian demonstrations of the last few days also show something new. Some conservative Christians have always been against courses dealing with sexuality. The Vatican stimulated this position by inventing the discourse on gender ideology in the mid-1990s in response to the UN's recognition of sexual and reproductive rights. Only, Catholics of strict obedience now find themselves with traditionalist Muslims and conspiracy groups.
« Ça fait un mélange assez curieux et assez nouveau », dit M. Paternotte, en notant que les liens entre ces branches sont encore mal connus. À la manifestation de dimanche dernier à Bruxelles, une instigatrice de la manif, la femme voilée Radya Oulebsir, Franco-Algérienne résidente de Belgique, a vilipendé « les ultraféministes » et « le lobby LGBT ». Le président belge de l’organisation d’extrême droite Civitas a enchaîné pour dénoncer une volonté prétendue d’imposer « un projet mondialisé » voulant instaurer « un nouvel ordre sexuel ».
Families, I unleash you The anti-sexuality education coalition is united around the theme of elites imposing their values and a certain vision of so-called natural things not to be disturbed. The cause also seems to clearly bind opponents of state intervention in private affairs and the lives of families in particular.
"We have to think about what these resistances say," says Nicolas Sallée, a sociology professor at the Université de Montréal. Basically, they aim at the idea that the education of children, and in particular gender and sexuality, escapes the family
and the project that parents build for their children. »
The resistance fighters are worried about what will remain in the hands of the family and what will escape them. "We can say that these reactions are therefore conservative, in the broad sense of the term. They denounce a weakening of the family's monopoly in the manufacture of gender identities and sexuality. »
It can be said that these reactions are therefore conservative, in the broad sense of the term. They denounce a weakening of the family's monopoly in the manufacture of gender identities and sexuality.
— Nicolas SalléeProfessor Sallée is currently studying social, clinical and parental reactions in France and Quebec to different forms of gender non-conformity in children. He mentions that the deep roots of the socio-moral position against sex education in schools are traditionally carried by religion, obviously, but also by some medicine. Psychiatry has long pathologized forms of identity deemed non-conforming. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness until the mid-1970s. The pathologization of trans identities has been increasingly contested since the early 2000s, but it is still far from having completely disappeared.
"The current intensity of resistance is a kind of mirror of a growing social openness on these issues, including the rise of expertise in medicine, sexology, social work," says the professor. Scientific evidence shows that supporting children in their self-exploration increases their well-being and reduces their health risks. »
Anti-wokism also finds something to grind into conjunctural alliances. Political parties and right-wing media support criticism of gender theory to denigrate the so-called radical left, says the Montreal sociologist. It is then accused of being in the pay of a communitarianism that deconstructs traditional identities, republican universalism for example.
"You have to deconstruct the image of the idealized family," says the professor. Parents' love for children can still block the right decisions in their best interests. We must also deconstruct the moral panic around young people's sexuality. A few years ago, there was panic about the supposed hypersexualization of young girls when, to take just one example, the age of first sexual intercourse has remained more stable than we think, often since the 1960s. »
About ten days ago, arson attacks were set in four nursery and primary schools in the Charleroi region and in two schools in Liège. Two others were vandalized. Tags added warnings and explained the affront: "No EVRAS, if not the next ones, it's you."
This acronym stands for Education for relational, affective and sexual life, the name of the new program adopted almost unanimously by the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation a few hours before the attacks. The course provides two modest hours per year devoted to various sexuality-related issues taught by accredited external speakers for students in late primary and late secondary school. Mandatory training since 2012 has not been systematic until now, due to a lack of resources that have now been strengthened.
David Paternotte, who co-directs the Interdisciplinary Research Structure on Gender, Equality and Sexuality (STRIGES) at the Maison des sciences humaines of the Université libre de Bruxelles, is not surprised by these protests. He cites precedents. In France, after La Manif pour tous (2013) against marriage for all, a disinformation campaign completely blackened the objectives of a school program to talk about promoting pedophilia.
Anti-LGBTQ+ protests were held around schools in Birmingham, Britain, in 2019. Russia and Hungary use homosexuality as a foil for the West. Do we really need to recall the politicization of the issue of gender in and around schools in the United States?
"These topics come up repeatedly," says Paternotte. But what is special about Belgium and unique in the world is the use of political terrorism. Such violent acts, we have never seen that. That said, it is not known who is behind the fires and vandalism. »
The participants in the Belgian and Canadian demonstrations of the last few days also show something new. Some conservative Christians have always been against courses dealing with sexuality. The Vatican stimulated this position by inventing the discourse on gender ideology in the mid-1990s in response to the UN's recognition of sexual and reproductive rights. Only, Catholics of strict obedience now find themselves with traditionalist Muslims and conspiracy groups.
« Ça fait un mélange assez curieux et assez nouveau », dit M. Paternotte, en notant que les liens entre ces branches sont encore mal connus. À la manifestation de dimanche dernier à Bruxelles, une instigatrice de la manif, la femme voilée Radya Oulebsir, Franco-Algérienne résidente de Belgique, a vilipendé « les ultraféministes » et « le lobby LGBT ». Le président belge de l’organisation d’extrême droite Civitas a enchaîné pour dénoncer une volonté prétendue d’imposer « un projet mondialisé » voulant instaurer « un nouvel ordre sexuel ».
Families, I unleash you The anti-sexuality education coalition is united around the theme of elites imposing their values and a certain vision of so-called natural things not to be disturbed. The cause also seems to clearly bind opponents of state intervention in private affairs and the lives of families in particular.
"We have to think about what these resistances say," says Nicolas Sallée, a sociology professor at the Université de Montréal. Basically, they aim at the idea that the education of children, and in particular gender and sexuality, escapes the family
and the project that parents build for their children. »
The resistance fighters are worried about what will remain in the hands of the family and what will escape them. "We can say that these reactions are therefore conservative, in the broad sense of the term. They denounce a weakening of the family's monopoly in the manufacture of gender identities and sexuality. »
It can be said that these reactions are therefore conservative, in the broad sense of the term. They denounce a weakening of the family's monopoly in the manufacture of gender identities and sexuality.
— Nicolas SalléeProfessor Sallée is currently studying social, clinical and parental reactions in France and Quebec to different forms of gender non-conformity in children. He mentions that the deep roots of the socio-moral position against sex education in schools are traditionally carried by religion, obviously, but also by some medicine. Psychiatry has long pathologized forms of identity deemed non-conforming. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness until the mid-1970s. The pathologization of trans identities has been increasingly contested since the early 2000s, but it is still far from having completely disappeared.
"The current intensity of resistance is a kind of mirror of a growing social openness on these issues, including the rise of expertise in medicine, sexology, social work," says the professor. Scientific evidence shows that supporting children in their self-exploration increases their well-being and reduces their health risks. »
Anti-wokism also finds something to grind into conjunctural alliances. Political parties and right-wing media support criticism of gender theory to denigrate the so-called radical left, says the Montreal sociologist. It is then accused of being in the pay of a communitarianism that deconstructs traditional identities, republican universalism for example.
"You have to deconstruct the image of the idealized family," says the professor. Parents' love for children can still block the right decisions in their best interests. We must also deconstruct the moral panic around young people's sexuality. A few years ago, there was panic about the supposed hypersexualization of young girls when, to take just one example, the age of first sexual intercourse has remained more stable than we think, often since the 1960s. »
