Commentary
Last school year, the Toronto District School Board sent home a student survey that asked incredibly intrusive questions about race and sexuality that troubled a lot of parents. My young kids received the survey and it troubled me.
The point of the survey was supposedly to learn more about the composition of the student body so as to better serve their interests. But it was also a deeply activist document that strayed into inappropriate territory.
The most alarming questions were the ones that asked elementary aged children if they were familiar with trans practices like penis tucking and breast binding.
Most people would probably call the cops if a man randomly walked up to their kids and started talking to them about penis tucking. It’s simply inappropriate to ask children these questions.
There are also many parents who believe that it’s inappropriate to discuss transgender issues more generally with kids in the classroom. A Leger poll conducted in October found that only 42 percent of parents in Canada believe that gender identity should be discussed in the classroom.
This brings us to a new court ruling that completely vindicates a teacher who herself had concerns with the way transgenderism is presented in the school system but was attacked by her school board because of it.
Ontario Superior Court Justice James Ramsay recently ruled that the treatment now-retired teacher Carolyn Burjoski received for discussing transgender issues critically at a school board meeting “should not happen in a democratic society.”
During a Waterloo Region District School Board virtual meeting in January 2022, Burjoski, who was at the time a teacher of English as a second language, gave a presentation where she voiced concerns about books that were recommended by the board for a transgender awareness day.
Burjoski said the material was uncritically pushing children towards a positive view of changing genders and gender reassignment surgery.
“This book makes very serious medical interventions seem like an easy cure for emotional and psychological distress,” she said of one title.
This is without a doubt a major concern more broadly: Public institutions currently talk about gender transition as something minor, to only ever be celebrated and “affirmed,” and not as a serious, life-altering decision to be taken seriously. Burjoski’s comments are mild and would likely get the backing of a majority of Canadians.
But what happened next was a scary sign of the “woke” mania that has overtaken too many of our institutions.
Trustee Scott Piatkowski, then the chair of the board, interrupted Burjoski and expelled her from the meeting. The board meetings are regularly posted online, but the board took down the video of this meeting and made YouTube remove another copy that someone else posted.
Piatkowski also went on TV and radio stations and claimed that the teacher had “questioned the right to exist” of trans people and that she was “disrespectful” and “not promoting healthy debate.”
The first two were false and the third is just Orwellian bafflegab. It’s not up to him to determine what is or isn’t healthy debate.
Burjoski was then placed on a “stay-at-home order” and told she couldn’t communicate with colleagues. She suffered from extreme anxiety in response and was even hospitalized.
Burjoski later commenced a defamation lawsuit. Justice Ramsay’s latest ruling comes from the board attempting to have that suit thrown out.
“The chairman of the board acted with malice or at least, with a reckless disregard for the truth,” Justice Ramsay wrote. “He had made an embarrassingly erroneous and arbitrary decision to silence a legitimate expression of opinion and he was widely criticized for it.”
Justice Ramsay then ordered the board to pay Burjoski $30,000 in costs and said her defamation case should be allowed to proceed.
It’s a damning decision, both for the Waterloo school board and for anyone who tries to bully and silence others in the name of trans activism.
“The Human Rights Code does not prohibit public discussion of issues related to transgenderism or minors and transgenderism,” Justice Ramsay ruled. “It does not prohibit public discussion of anything.”
There you go. If you have concerns with how gender identity is being tackled in schools, the courts have now ruled you can speak your mind.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
