Dear Editor,
Many thanks to the Richmond School Board members for endorsing and voting in favour of the SOGI policy (6 to 1) at the board meeting held at Burnett secondary on Wednesday, June 27.
I also wish to thank the courageous students who attended, as well as Richmond’s medical health officer for clearly delineating the reasons for instituting this policy; a policy which in no way impinges on the rights of other students, but gives some added protection to gay and transgendered students whose educational outcomes are reduced due to discrimination and bullying (the rate of suicide and attempted suicide for gay boys is seven times higher than their heterosexual counterparts).
Shame on those who attended and demonstrated so vocally against this policy, in what was a clearly a exhibition of veiled homophobia and discrimination. As a senior who attended Richmond schools during the 1950s and 1960s, I do not want to see a return to the institutionalized sexual discrimination of my youth, whereby you could be imprisoned on the grounds of “sexual perversion.”
John Cameron
RICHMOND
