Gender Identity Theory

No to gender identity theory in Ontario schools!

PAFE is launching a new campaign to rid Ontario schools of unscientific gender identity theory!!!We're calling it "No to gender identity theory in Ontario schools," or the "No GIT" campaign, for short.

What is the NO GIT campaign?

We are encouraging concerned Ontarians to push back against gender identity theory in whatever form it enters our schools (in the curriculum, school events, assemblies, etc.), and against the board and provincial policy measures that are ultimately responsible for it.  We will be lobbying schools, school board officials and politicians to remove it from the curriculum.

What can we do?

All Grades, All Students Exemption Form

PAFE's NO GIT campaign will BEGIN at the school level with a measure for parents to push back against gender ideology in the schools.  We've developed an exemption form that allows them to exercise their natural right as parents over their children's education.

PAFE urges concerned parents to file our comprehensive EXEMPTION form with their schools to opt their children out of ALL instruction in gender identity theory.

The Ford government alleges it guarantees parents the ability to opt out of the elementary Health and Physical Education curriculum in a policy document known as PPM 162.  To ensure this, they have mandated that parents receive notice of when the classes are to begin and the content of the course. 

Because Ford's lawyers argued in a 2019 court case that teachers were free to use any resource they liked to teach sex-ed, making no attempt to restrain the use of gender ideology in the classroom, we know this opt-out is useless, and some parents are complaining about how ineffective it is.

PAFE has received many complaints from parents across the province, that their children have been exposed to sex-ed and gender identity instruction at an earlier age than is prescribed in the sex-ed curriculum, in classes other than sex- ed, or in the form of school assemblies and/or other events such as library readings--none of which are covered by the government's opt-out. We repeat--it's a sham, it's ineffective.

Some of the resources commonly taught in Ontario classrooms include the Genderbread Man and the Gender Unicorn which are used to teach about gender identity theory as well as  Gegi the Unicorn who helps children advocate for gender transition.  

And that's just for elementary school.

What about high-schoolers? The Ford government allows ZERO opt-out or notification for grades 9-12.  So if you don't like gender identity theory being taught to your high schooler, too bad--the government forces it on high school students.

PAFE's exemption form addresses all of these concerns. It demands notification and opt-out from:

• high-school sex ed, not just elementary
• all gender identity instruction whenever, wherever taught in school
• all school events that teach gender identity theory 

ACTION ITEM:

The exemption form is currently available for download by clicking here. Give a copy to your children's teacher(s) and the school principal, who may be involved in the placement of children elsewhere during the school during the exempted instruction.

To make this successful, we need everyone's help to make parents aware of the form!

What is gender identity theory instruction?

Gender identity is defined by trans activists as a person's inner sense of belonging to a particular gender.  According to the American Psychological Association, gender identity is "a person's internal sense of being male, female, or something else." It is constructed by the individual according to what a person understands their gender options to be.

Gender identity theory normalizes the ideas that there are more than two genders, that gender is not attached to biology, and that transgenderism is but one of many natural variations.  It is this theory that underlies school policies that refer to gender identity.

The 2019 Ontario public school sex-ed curriculum, known as the Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum, teaches about gender identity in grades 7-12.  Students in younger grades are not safe from exposure to these themes, either, since the Ford government admitted in the court proceedings mentioned above that topics from one grade could be taught in other grades, as long as the content wasn't tested.

Catholic elementary schools follow their own Catholic family life program, Fully Alive.  However, the Institute for Catholic Education has released resources to accompany the 2015 sex-ed curriculum, which match themes from the sex-ed curriculum to Fully Alive.  If a Catholic teacher opts to use these resources, their students will learn about gender identity in grades 6 and 8.

For the assistance of parents we have made available guides to the contentious topics in the primary HPE and secondary HPE curricula. For commentary download our brochure, Repeal Wynne and Ford's Sex-Ed.

Gender identity theory is being taught in classes outside of health class, too, of course. Moreover, students are being indoctrinated with gender identity theory through school events such as school assemblies, health fairs, and library readings. 

What are the harms of gender identity theory indoctrination?

PAFE believes gender identity theory should not be taught in schools because it is scientifically invalid:

"Indeed, gender—whether we subjectively feel male or female—is biological, not a social construct.  An extremely large and consistent body of scientific research has shown that gender is the result of prenatal hormone exposure, even in the case of intersex individuals, as opposed to adults and society imposing gendered norms on unsuspecting children from the moment they leave the womb."

"Science Shows Sex is Binary, Not a Spectrum," Dr. Debra Soh, Real Clear Politics, October 31, 2018

Scientists are expressing concerns about the practice of offering children life-altering hormone blocking drugs—"puberty blockers"—happening at clinics that treat children who say they are transgender.  Canadian pediatrician, Dr. Edward Les, has been an outspoken critic of what is known as gender affirmation therapies.  He has called the massive doses of cross-gender hormones ingested by transitioned individuals "grist for the malignancy mill," significantly boosting the risk of breast, prostate, and other cancers.

Australian pediatrician Dr. John Whitehall and Oxford University professor of evidence-based medicine Carl Heneghan have claimed that lack of solid, long-term evidence makes medical treatment of trans children "experimental." Child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Christopher Gillberg says he thinks that offering unproven gender affirmation therapies may be "possibly one of the greatest scandals in medical history."  He said the situation in Sweden was "absolutely horrendous", with hundreds of children a year given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, risking infertility, "in the face of their parents' doubts."

Dr. Whitehall is heading a group of over 200 doctors in Australia that has called for an urgent inquiry into the medical treatment of children who believed they were transgender.

A Canadian nurse has come forward to tell the story of her daughter's suspected development of "rapid onset gender dysphoria" and to question why she was given hormone blocking treatment, "even though there has been no research done to determine its safety or efficacy regarding gender dysphoria." 

Other parents are starting to come forward with op eds and lawsuits, and are telling their stories about the undermining of their parental rights and negative health consequences of taking massive hormone doses.  Canadian father "CD" is speaking out about how the BC Supreme Court put his daughter on testosterone on the sole basis of her own consent, despite the fact that she has mental health issues, resulting in permanent facial hair, a deepened voice, permanent sterility, halted bone density and putting her at greater risk for heart disease and cancer.

Of further concern is the alleged fast tracking of children into taking these therapies. A therapist who worked at the U.K.'s Tavistock Child Transgender Clinic has left the clinic after becoming alarmed at the speed at which the clinic offered treatment to children.  She is now speaking out and alerting parents to what is happening at the clinic and has filed for judicial review of the Tavistock clinic, alleging that children under 18 are not capable of giving informed consent. 

In addition to negative psychological and physical outcomes for the transgendered, gender identity theory can lead to psychological distress among students in schools.

An Ottawa-area family has filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal over gender identity theory lessons taught to their 6-year-old daughter in her Grade 1 class in her local public school.

According to a news story, the Buffone family claims their daughter was subjected to gender identity theory lessons in her classroom, where children were shown this video.

The child claims the teacher in the class then taught "there is no such thing as girls and boys," and "girls are not real and boys are not real," causing great distress to the child.  For the parent's account of the lesson, click here.

The child then "began spontaneously and repeatedly asking [her parents] why her identity as a girl was 'not real.' She asked if she could 'go to a doctor' about the fact that she was a girl."

The link between gender ideology being discussed in the classroom, the explosion of children claiming they are transgender, and the fast tracking of children into taking life-altering puberty blockers is becoming clearer every week as dissenters come forward with their stories.

Resources for Parents/Teachers to Fight Gender Identity Theory

PAFE wants to direct you to a few valuable resources that could be very useful in combating the activist push of gender ideology, and in dealing with cases of gender dysphoria, which is the clinical term for the condition where a person feels that they are in the wrong body. 

1) One excellent resource for parents is the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s “Radical Gender Theory Toolkit”, which you can download here.  

The toolkit is a concise, 20-page document compiled by six experts from the fields of education, law, social policy and parental rights advocacy.

It defines the threat of gender ideology, identifies its leading advocates, and puts this radical initiative in context as a crucial element that is part of a larger juggernaut of cultural Marxism bent on usurping all social power from the family unit.  

Read this toolkit now, whether you need a primer on gender ideology and how it is implemented in schools, or you already have a grasp of the subject. 

2) Our second recommendation is a webpage published by the American national grassroots organization Parents Defending Education.

3) If you are looking for Catholic resources we highly recommend this hour-long video from the Sophia Institute for Teachers, entitled “Pastoral Approaches to Helping Students Understand Gender”. 

This video will be of particular interest to Catholic parents and teachers who are interested in navigating the minefield of gender ideology and its adherents. 

Monica Ashour, a former teacher and co-founder of the Theology of the Body Evangelization Team (TOBET), provides many valuable insights on the pastoral approach to addressing “transgenderism.” 

Ashour explains how the “Theology of the Body”, St. John Paul II’s integrated vision of the human person, can be invoked as the perfect antidote to gender ideology, which at its heart is an angry expression of confusion and rejection of God's plan for the human body to be a gift to yourself and to others.

A third valuable resource we highly recommend is a webpage published by the American national grassroots organization Parents Defending Education.

This page provides a comprehensive collection of incident summaries involving the push of gender ideology in schools across America, along with a handy collection of articles that will equip concerned readers with the knowledge of both what gender ideology is, and practical measures you can take to effectively establish your opposition to it. 

Now that so many parents and others have been awakened to the very real threat that gender ideology poses,