(Quebec) The Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights (CDPDJ) wants Quebec schools to continue teaching concepts related to sexual diversity, such as gender identity or gender expression, so that the new Culture and Quebec Citizenship course reflects the realities of the citizens who make up society and informs them of their fundamental rights.
The president of the CDPDJ, Mr.e Philippe Tessier, presented the organization’s most recent annual report in Quebec on Thursday. Its mandate is to promote the rights provided for by the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, adopted in 1975 at the Salon Bleu, and to make recommendations to the government of Quebec concerning issues related to the charter.
Last December, in the context of the implementation of the Quebec Culture and Citizenship program, which replaces the Ethics and Religious Culture course, the CDPDJ wrote to the Ministry of Education to encourage it to include the realities of sexual diversity – gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, etc. – “within the wording of the program, in order to ensure that they are adequately taken into account in the curriculum”.
“The content of the program should therefore make use of it continuously across cycles and levels,” the ministry was told.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Me Tessier recalled that the content taught to children, whether they are at primary or secondary level, must be adapted to their age and learning level. The president of the commission also specified that the course must be part of a continuum of concepts taught which allow, among other things, children and adolescents to understand their rights protected by the charter.
For a “healthy” debate
However, the teaching of notions linked to gender identity gives rise to debates. Last week, protests across the country by One Million March for Children, a group made up of conservative Muslim activists, people from the religious right and supporters of the “freedom march”, opposed the move. they call “gender ideology” and their teaching at school.
For the CDPDJ, the current debate which led the Legault government to announce the creation of a committee of “wise men” by December, led by the Minister of Families Suzanne Roy, must be done with the objective of educating and to inform Quebecers about their rights.
“In the context of this social debate, we understand that it is a subject that is sensitive [et] that there may be different questions, but it is important that the ongoing debate on gender identity […] continues in compliance with the rights guaranteed by the Charter. This appears to us to be a sine qua non condition [pour avoir] a healthy debate,” said the vice-president of the commission, Myrlande Pierre.
In 2016, the National Assembly unanimously adopted the Law aimed at strengthening the fight against transphobia and improving in particular the situation of transgender minors. This law modified the Charter of human rights and freedoms in order to “provide explicit protection against discrimination based on gender identity”. In a press scrum earlier this week, Minister Roy assured that the government’s objective “is not to take away anyone’s rights.”
According to the president of the CDPDJ, Philippe Tessier, “the drift is indeed if we come to deny the rights, the existence or the presence” of trans or non-binary people in society.