A former Ontario teacher says she has settled a defamation lawsuit against her previous school board after the board chair called her “transphobic” when she tried to raise concerns about the content of some books in school libraries.
Burjoski launched the lawsuit over an accusation by Piatkowski that her remarks during a presentation at a January 2022 meeting were “transphobic.” Piatkowski also cut Burjoski’s presentation time short, saying her remarks were in violation of the Human Rights Code.
Additionally, Piatkowski said in a Jan. 18, 2022, media interview that comments Burjoski made during the presentation were “transphobic” and “were questioning the right to exist of trans people.”
The board and Piatkowski attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed using the anti-SLAPP law. The legislation, whose acronym stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” is meant to void lawsuits used to silence people speaking out on issues of public interest.
Burjoski won that case, but the board appealed.
‘Medical Scandal’
Burjoski also posted a video in which she says she can finally say what she wanted to say during the presentation that was cut short at the school board meeting four years ago.Burjoski said her concerns began nearly 10 years ago when she saw a book in the school library of the elementary school where she taught.
She said the book “introduced very young children to the idea that they can be born in the wrong body,” saying that her experience working with children caused her to be troubled.
In her post, she wrote: “Children think literally. They do not yet understand how their bodies work. When trusted adults suggest that a child’s body can be wrong, some children will inevitably wonder: Is my body wrong too.”
Burjoski said she was trying to read a passage from that book at the school board meeting when she was stopped before she could finish her presentation.
“This is what I had wanted to say: Children cannot consent to these medical interventions. They harm reproductive health. And children are too young to understand how that harm will affect their future,” she wrote.
In addition, Burjoski said a video leaked from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which advocates for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-altering surgeries, showed that the organization acknowledged that children cannot consent to the procedures.
“So called ‘gender affirming care’ has proven risks and harms but unproven benefits. It is not life-saving. It is permanently life-altering,” Burjoski said.
She says in the video that she and other teachers were being trained to avoid terms like “boys, girls, men, women,” and being instructed to use a child’s preferred name at school without informing parents.
Collapse of Safeguards
Burjoski said the situation was a “system-wide collapse of child protection safeguards” across multiple government institutions that fail to respond when parents raise concerns.She said the root problem is an ideology that “intentionally obscures the truth, dignity, and promise inherent in each human being’s physical body,” adding that “a system like this cannot be repaired from within.”
Judicial Review Lawsuit
In a separate case, Burjoski has also filed a judicial review lawsuit against the board and former chair over their decision to halt her presentation.An Ontario court ruled on Nov. 29, 2023, that the school board was within its rights to stop her presentation, with the three-judge panel saying the board needed to keep order and that a high degree of deference should be given to school boards.
