In a daycare center in Montreal, one day in March, a dozen five-year-old children received a special guest who had come to talk to them about gender. How do we know if we are a girl or a boy? Parents are invited. A mother records.
“Girls are girls and boys are boys because of our cells,” responds a child.
“It is true that there is a part that is said to be biological or genetic which makes you a boy or a girl, answers the speaker. After that, how do you know, personally, that you are a boy or a girl? »
A child tries to light it up. When giving birth, “the doctors know if it’s a boy or a girl. For a boy they put it in a towel in blue, for a girl the towel is pink”.
A discussion of color preferences ensues. The speaker refocuses them: “The question […]it’s personally, how do you know […] are you a boy or a girl? »
“Because we don’t have a penis!” shouts a little girl. But we’re not going to show our vulva to everyone! »
The speaker insists: “If I tell you, are you a boy or a girl, and do you really believe in it, how do you know? »
“I don’t have a penis!” cries the little girl again.
It’s not complicated. But it gets boring. Children are bored and say so clearly. The speaker is not ready to abdicate. “What makes you a girl?” It’s because you feel like a girl. […] You don’t need to prove it to me, I believe you. […] It’s a feeling that’s inside of you. And on the fly: “So […], what is the most important? »
They’re only five years old, but they’re not crazy. They understood what the speaker wants. A child replies: “That you feel it in you. » Bingo! “That’s a really nice answer,” said the speaker.
The mission is accomplished. These children believed that we were a girl or a boy because we were born that way. They probably still think so. But they come to realize that an authority figure insists they separate biology and inner feeling. They haven’t finished hearing it.
Gender theory become certainty
For several years now, our children, from the age of four and throughout their preschool, primary and secondary education, have learned that the sexes do not exist. That there are endless possibilities and choices, not only for sexual orientation and gender identity, but also for sex itself.
You may realize that here, but it’s no secret. Online, the 695-page “Themes and Learnings in Sexuality Education” document explains to teachers that “children can begin to explore their gender identity between the ages of 3 and 7. […] They wonder why their sex assigned at birth differs from the gender identity they feel in them”. See, sex is “assigned at birth.” It is not observed. It does not exist in itself.
The theory of genres gives rise to debates and conferences in university circles, but it seems that for the pedagogues of the Ministry of Education, the question has been settled. They built the course around the certainty that this theory is the right one and the only one indicated for consumption at a young age.
We thus find in the document suggestions for books “for preschool and primary school addressing in particular heterosexism, stereotypes, transidentity”. Themes, tales and illustrations present biological sex not as a fact, but as an “endlessness of possibilities”.
The mother of a student from Saint-Hyacinthe tells me that a teacher informed her students that it is possible to begin a sexual transition from the age of 14 without parental consent, although this is strongly suggested, and that this transition is reimbursed by health insurance. The mother filed a complaint. The school replied that the course fully complied with the guidelines. Which is perfectly correct: “Respect for confidentiality is of paramount importance,” writes the ministry.
There are no types, only stereotypes
Pedagogues emphasize masculine and feminine stereotypes and the flaws that emanate from them, such as heterosexism, heteronormativity and hetero privilege. Nothing, however, about the male or female “types” which, nurtured in a culture of openness, could be vectors of affirmation. In the section for 8 to 11 year olds, we read: “These stereotypes, in addition to presenting the female and male genders as binary and different realities, contribute to dividing rather than rallying boys and girls. […] Repeated exposure […] contributes to the adoption of sexist attitudes and beliefs which, in turn, undermine the establishment of harmonious relations between them. »
Another ministry document, “Detailed contents in sexuality education”, recommends in 1D secondary “to accompany the reflection [des élèves] about their gender identity and some of the harmful effects of traditional versions of masculinity and femininity”. We search in vain for the paragraph valuing “certain positive effects” of masculinity and femininity.
Does the denial of the legitimacy of an assumed feminine or masculine sexual affirmation induce “harmonious relations”? Not according to this university mother who writes to me about her 3-year-old son.e secondary school: “This teaching did not have a positive effect on him. First, he was ostracized by his teacher and classmates when he dared to question him. Then, it made him anxious about his own masculinity, and he developed a strong need for affirmation of it. »
A Montreal teacher says: “I attended one of the courses given by [externes] to one of my high school classes. Even though the topic wasn’t about gender identity (this session was about sexually transmitted diseases), […] [elles] never uttered the words “man” or “woman”, or “girl” or “boy”. These words were replaced by “person with a uterus” and “person without a uterus”. It was very strange. »
perverse effects
There is no question of calling into question the salutary effort deployed so that our future citizens develop tolerance and respect through these courses. Nor to deny the existence of gender dysphoria in a tiny minority of children and adolescents (less than 1% according to Statistics Canada). We are elsewhere: in the diffusion of a theory which affirms as true, normal and preferable the dissociation between biological sex and identity. That this discourse goes against the experience of the vast majority of humans and could have perverse effects on the development of our children is not taken into account.
A gay man, working for eight years at the Groupe de recherche en intervention sociale (GRIS), Jean-René Jeffrey, reports that he testified in schools to the fact that he dressed as a girl as a teenager, but that he gradually gave up this urge and is now happy in his male body. He was asked to stop these trainings when GRIS introduced trans speakers.
He opened up to GRIS about his deep concern: “The presence of trans speakers likely to present, or suggest, in primary and secondary schools, transition as a solution to gender dysphoria is a decision that involves a level high risk for some students, and particularly for dysphoric students. We cannot, and should not, present or suggest the transition (taking puberty blockers, taking hormones and genital reassignment) to groups of minors without risking harm to those who, among them, are dysphoric, but whose the problem would resolve itself (85% of people) nor for fragile people (the remaining 15%). »
A worker from a youth organization in Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine wrote to me that she had received a trans woman from GRIS. “My girl gang (7-8 13-year-olds) came to see us a few days after her surgery. They explained to me in all seriousness that they had to be boys. The reasons: they like fishing (it’s quite common on the coast), hunting, mountain biking, they don’t like makeup and found it too difficult to be girls. »
None followed up on this sudden urge. The teacher contacted the speaker to advise her that “her speech had a real influence on young people and that it went far beyond the simple fact of talking about her own experience as a trans woman. [La conférencière] explained to me that my speech was transphobic”.
The question of the attitude to adopt when a child, immersed in this discourse, decides to change his gender identity is clearly established in a 2021 document from the Ministry of Education “For a better consideration of sexual diversity and gender”: “Self-identification is the only way to determine a person’s gender identity. »
We read that young people can have changing behaviors regarding their identity and their orientation, but not that many go through various phases of identification, then calmly assume their gender and their original sex. Nor is there anything to encourage teachers to exercise caution — and to advise her. On the contrary, the guidelines contain this warning, under the amendments made to the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms: “The intentional or persistent refusal to respect the student’s gender identity or expression, trans or not binary may be considered a form of harassment or discrimination that may have legal consequences”.
The aforementioned Montreal teacher testifies: “In my school, there are several “trans children”. Most are young girls. Every year, for three years, there are more and more, and they are younger and younger. “He continues:” Did you know that at the CSSDM, a child can decide to change his first name for that of another sex, without notifying his parents? Teachers are required to use it, he continues. “Sometimes we’re asked to keep using the old first name when communicating with their parents, because they don’t know. »
New standards
A tipping point has therefore been crossed between the desire to accept, appreciate, even celebrate the diversity of sexual experiences, which is always necessary, and the dissemination of an ideology breaking with the past. A theory that brings to the fore the queernormativity that the difference between sex “assigned” at birth and another choice of gender identity is established and valued.
Similarly, for children with uncertain gender identity, we are in the presence of a transnormativity presenting to prepubescent children the trans experience, including medical, including without parental consent, as preferable to the extension of research. self into adulthood.
I understand that this major shift was introduced when all of Quebec was pleading for the reintroduction of sex education in schools. But part of the content of this reintroduction was adopted, I presume, in compliance with the rigorous stages, without the elected officials and, certainly, without the public and the parents having fully realized its meaning and its consequences. .
I know the Minister of Education has his hands full these days. But at a time when we are about to renew this hazardous pedagogy in the new course Citizenship of Quebec, I have only one word to say to him: pause!
Father, columnist and author, Jean-François Lisée led the PQ from 2016 to 2018. [email protected] / blog: jflisee.org