Gender Identity: Parents Have a Right to Transparency, Mr. Drainville
Mr. Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education,
We are concerned about the tendency of schools to withhold essential information about their children from parents as part of gender identity supports.
In New Brunswick, Premier Blaine Higgs has just announced that he will amend his province's 713 policy to ensure that parents of minors are notified of requests to change their child's name, pronoun or sex designation at school. According to a recent Leger survey conducted across Canada, the vast majority of those surveyed believe that schools should inform parents of such changes affecting their children, as well as of the teaching materials used in sensitive subjects such as sexuality education. This seems to go without saying.
However, in a document intended for the education network in Quebec, "Measures of openness and support towards trans and non-binary youth," schools are advised to "put in place a process to facilitate the change of the chosen first name and the mention of the sex of the young person in internal documents." without the obligation to inform the parents.
Such recommendations have no legislative basis. Under the Act respecting Access to documents held by public bodies and the Protection of personal information, parents have access to their child's file until the age of 18. In order to hide the information from parents, schools use a subterfuge of changing the way they address the young person at school, but without explicitly stating this in the child's file. This is unacceptable. While there are legal exceptions to the disclosure of information to parents, these relate to very specific situations relating to the child's medical records. But it is then the responsibility of hospital and health care services, not the school, to inform parents or not. Under no circumstances are school officials allowed to substitute for health professionals.
Social transition (change of name, pronoun and sex designation) is not a neutral therapeutic act. The approach is part of affirmative therapies of the genre, validating the fact that a child could be "born in the wrong body" and advocating lifelong medicalization to change the body. This can include taking growth blockers at puberty, hormones of the opposite sex, and even surgeries to remove healthy organs. A Commission of Inquiry into Gender Identity Treatment Services in Young People in the UK highlights the short- and long-term consequences of puberty blockers, as well as the increased risks of cardiovascular events, osteoporosis and cancers linked to hormone therapy, not to mention the risks of infertility. Due to a lack of evidence, the expert panel of 102 clinician specialists was unable to recommend such an approach. The report also notes that a large proportion of young people treated for gender-based distress suffer from mental health disorders that could explain their distress, but whose particularities are obscured by the term "trans". The BBC journalist Hannah Barnes, who investigated the Tavistock gender clinic, reports alarming figures in her book "Time to think": 97.5% of children wishing to change their gender suffer from various psychopathologies, 35% of whom are on the autism spectrum.
With regard to social transition as such, it is described in the report as an active intervention with significant effects on the child's psychological functioning. A recent study suggests that it provides no mental health benefit, and according to another study, the relationship with family and peers is more significant than gender affirmation as an indicator of good mental health.
How, under these conditions, can school administrators claim to be acting in the best interests of the child by taking the risk of immediately validating him or her in his or her social transition, with no other guarantee than the young person's self-identification, and without even talking to his or her parents? Intervening in a child's development in an area where school staff are not qualified puts them at risk of worsening their mental health problems. This is serious professional misconduct.
We appreciate the importance of supporting young people in their search for identity and protecting them from discrimination, especially the most vulnerable youth, including those who identify with the LGBTQ+ community. But this certainly cannot be done by ratifying an activist approach, without further scrutiny, and by trampling on parents' rights.
We ask you, Mr. Minister, to issue clear directives urging school principals not to withhold information as essential as a change of name, pronoun or sex designation from a young person's parents. We also expect that the teaching materials that will be used as part of the Sexuality Education program of the new Quebec Culture and Citizenship course will be accessible to parents. In the context of a course that raises sensitive, controversial social issues that touch on people's privacy, such as religion, identity or children's sex education, exemplary transparency on the part of the Ministry of Education is required.
Nadia El-Mabrouk, For the Rights of Children in Quebec (QEDP)
Jocelyne Robert, Sexologist and writer
Pascale Bourgeois, PhD student and lecturer, Department of Education and Pedagogy, UQAM
François Dugré, PDEQ
Clémence Trilling, PDEQ
Ruth Lamontagne, Elementary School Teacher
Véronique Fournié and about twenty other parents signed
Note: Parents of children in gender distress and health professionals signed the letter to the Minister, but preferred not to disclose their names publicly for fear of reprisals
We are concerned about the tendency of schools to withhold essential information about their children from parents as part of gender identity supports.
In New Brunswick, Premier Blaine Higgs has just announced that he will amend his province's 713 policy to ensure that parents of minors are notified of requests to change their child's name, pronoun or sex designation at school. According to a recent Leger survey conducted across Canada, the vast majority of those surveyed believe that schools should inform parents of such changes affecting their children, as well as of the teaching materials used in sensitive subjects such as sexuality education. This seems to go without saying.
However, in a document intended for the education network in Quebec, "Measures of openness and support towards trans and non-binary youth," schools are advised to "put in place a process to facilitate the change of the chosen first name and the mention of the sex of the young person in internal documents." without the obligation to inform the parents.
Such recommendations have no legislative basis. Under the Act respecting Access to documents held by public bodies and the Protection of personal information, parents have access to their child's file until the age of 18. In order to hide the information from parents, schools use a subterfuge of changing the way they address the young person at school, but without explicitly stating this in the child's file. This is unacceptable. While there are legal exceptions to the disclosure of information to parents, these relate to very specific situations relating to the child's medical records. But it is then the responsibility of hospital and health care services, not the school, to inform parents or not. Under no circumstances are school officials allowed to substitute for health professionals.
Social transition (change of name, pronoun and sex designation) is not a neutral therapeutic act. The approach is part of affirmative therapies of the genre, validating the fact that a child could be "born in the wrong body" and advocating lifelong medicalization to change the body. This can include taking growth blockers at puberty, hormones of the opposite sex, and even surgeries to remove healthy organs. A Commission of Inquiry into Gender Identity Treatment Services in Young People in the UK highlights the short- and long-term consequences of puberty blockers, as well as the increased risks of cardiovascular events, osteoporosis and cancers linked to hormone therapy, not to mention the risks of infertility. Due to a lack of evidence, the expert panel of 102 clinician specialists was unable to recommend such an approach. The report also notes that a large proportion of young people treated for gender-based distress suffer from mental health disorders that could explain their distress, but whose particularities are obscured by the term "trans". The BBC journalist Hannah Barnes, who investigated the Tavistock gender clinic, reports alarming figures in her book "Time to think": 97.5% of children wishing to change their gender suffer from various psychopathologies, 35% of whom are on the autism spectrum.
With regard to social transition as such, it is described in the report as an active intervention with significant effects on the child's psychological functioning. A recent study suggests that it provides no mental health benefit, and according to another study, the relationship with family and peers is more significant than gender affirmation as an indicator of good mental health.
How, under these conditions, can school administrators claim to be acting in the best interests of the child by taking the risk of immediately validating him or her in his or her social transition, with no other guarantee than the young person's self-identification, and without even talking to his or her parents? Intervening in a child's development in an area where school staff are not qualified puts them at risk of worsening their mental health problems. This is serious professional misconduct.
We appreciate the importance of supporting young people in their search for identity and protecting them from discrimination, especially the most vulnerable youth, including those who identify with the LGBTQ+ community. But this certainly cannot be done by ratifying an activist approach, without further scrutiny, and by trampling on parents' rights.
We ask you, Mr. Minister, to issue clear directives urging school principals not to withhold information as essential as a change of name, pronoun or sex designation from a young person's parents. We also expect that the teaching materials that will be used as part of the Sexuality Education program of the new Quebec Culture and Citizenship course will be accessible to parents. In the context of a course that raises sensitive, controversial social issues that touch on people's privacy, such as religion, identity or children's sex education, exemplary transparency on the part of the Ministry of Education is required.
Nadia El-Mabrouk, For the Rights of Children in Quebec (QEDP)
Jocelyne Robert, Sexologist and writer
Pascale Bourgeois, PhD student and lecturer, Department of Education and Pedagogy, UQAM
François Dugré, PDEQ
Clémence Trilling, PDEQ
Ruth Lamontagne, Elementary School Teacher
Véronique Fournié and about twenty other parents signed
Note: Parents of children in gender distress and health professionals signed the letter to the Minister, but preferred not to disclose their names publicly for fear of reprisals
