Ontario Catholic Student Vocal About Gender Beliefs Files Human Rights Complaint Against School Board

Josh Alexander, a grade-11 student at St. Joseph's High School in Renfew, Ont. (Yan Parisien)

Josh Alexander, 17, has initiated a complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario saying his Catholic school unlawfully discriminated against him for his religious belief that there are only two genders.

He has been shut out of St. Joseph’s in Renfrew, Ont., for most of the school year on the grounds that his presence is “detrimental to the physical or mental well-being” of other students, particularly transgender students.

Alexander, through his lawyer James Kitchen, submitted an application to the tribunal on April 5 outlining the whole saga in detail.

Alexander was initially suspended in November after organizing a protest against biological males using the girls’ washroom. In January, he was notified he would not be allowed to attend for the rest of the year.

School’s Reasons for Exclusion

A Jan. 26 letter from Renfrew County Catholic District School Board lawyers said the decision to keep Alexander out of the school was made after Alexander said he would continue to express his beliefs.

Namely, Alexander said he would not be compelled to refer to students by pronouns or names inconsistent with their biological sex; that he expected to be allowed to freely profess his belief that there are only two genders; and to continue to express his belief that “boys must not be permitted to enter girls’ private spaces as a matter of morality, modesty, and safety.'”

Kitchen argues in the tribunal complaint that excluding Alexander from school for such reasons is religious discrimination.

The application to the tribunal outlines in detail all events related to allegations against Alexander, from a heated classroom discussion about gender identity in October through to Alexander’s arrest in February. Alexander attended school in February despite his exclusion and was arrested for trespassing.

“They excluded me for no reason other than religious discrimination,” Josh Alexander told The Epoch Times on Feb. 7, the day after his arrest. “I would argue that I was supposed to be there.”

The board has said it “deeply respects religious freedoms,” but it also must protect the rights of transgender students.

A Balancing of Rights

In an open letter to the Renfrew community on Feb. 13, the school board quoted the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which states, “A trans person should not be required to use a separate washroom or change room because others express discomfort or transphobic attitudes, such as, ’trans women are a threat to other women.'”

The commission is a body that interprets the Human Rights Code. The tribunal has a mandate to take the commission’s policies into consideration when evaluating individual cases, but it is not bound by them.

Kitchen argues that the tribunal must balance the protected rights of transgender students against the Human Rights Code’s protection against “discrimination based on creed.”

“The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that there is no hierarchy of rights, and creed deserves the same consideration, protection and respect as other human rights,” Kitchen quotes from the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s policy on creed.

Kitchen said he expects the tribunal to balance the rights on equal footing and to assess the magnitude of impacts on either side.

Impacts

“When rights appear to be in conflict, a key consideration is to determine if there is an actual intrusion of one right on the other, and the extent of the interference. If the interference is minor or trivial, the right is not likely to receive much, if any, protection,” Kitchen quotes the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s policy on competing rights.

Alexander is seeking $40,000 in damages, including those resulting from loss of education. He also seeks a declaration from the school board that its “harassment, segregation, penalization, and exclusion ... constitutes unlawful creed discrimination.”

The impacts on transgender students, the board says, are that they are made to feel “unsafe or marginalized.”

“While all our students are entitled—and encouraged—to share their beliefs—it cannot be at the expense of others. No one should be made to feel unsafe or marginalized. Bullying behaviour that creates an unsafe space for our students is not tolerated,” the board said in its letter.

Alexander and Kitchen have taken issue with the characterization of Alexander’s actions as “bullying.”

“Offence is obviously defined by the offended,” Alexander told The Epoch Times. “I expressed my religious beliefs in class and it spiraled out of control. Not everybody’s going to like that. That doesn’t make me a bully.”

Kitchen told The Epoch Times that Alexander is “not going to seek them out and call them names and make fun of them. But he does express his views.” And he is “not going to be held responsible for their subjective feelings of being offended,” Kitchen said.

Sophie Smith-Doré, co-founder of Arnprior Pride and mother of one of the transgender students at the school, told The Epoch Times in a written message in January, “Trans folks and their loved ones (like most marginalized folks) are constantly doing this emotional work and it’s exhausting. We bear the burden of trying to protect our gender-diverse kids.”

Alexander’s Creed

The complaint outlines Alexander’s beliefs, citing the Bible in many instances. One such citation is Proverbs 31:8, “Open your mouth for the mute.”

“In speaking for the girls around him who feel unheard, or are too afraid to speak for themselves because of the negative social consequences, Josh is putting [this verse] into action,” the application said.

One of Alexander’s school mates spoke with The Epoch Times in December. The female student, whom The Epoch Times has chosen not to name, said she was uncomfortable when transgender students started using the girls’ washroom.

Her first encounter in the washroom was at the beginning of this school year, and she didn’t know the student identified as female at the time.

Alexander believes “human beings are created by God as immutably male or female,” the application said, and people cannot “truly ‘change’ their gender.”

He believes it is “immoral, immodest, and contrary to Scripture for biological males to enter the sex-segregated private spaces of females, such as washrooms and change rooms.”

He feels called on by God to speak out about this, the application said, and believes he cannot ignore a calling from God.