Dear Editor,
Here are a few facts that I have discovered while examining the SOGI Policy and some of the resouces (provided to all school districts by the Ministry of Education.)
• The SOGI policy is supported by several (provincial) lesson plans and curriculum resources that equip teachers to introduce topics pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity.
For example, a lesson plan for K-3, introduces the Gender Rainbow with the book, I Am Jazz. This is a true life story about Jazz Jennings, a 12-year-old transgendered youth “born with a girl’s brain in a boy’s body”. Jazz has also received puberty blockers and cross sex hormones and more recently had gender affirmation surgery.
This book can be read at any time without informing parents first, therefore jeopardizing the opportunity for parents to further the conversation at home.
Another lesson plan for K-3 uses a rainbow illustration to bridge the understanding that there are many gender identities (“girl, boy, both, neither, and some people are gender fluid and their gender changes on different days and weeks”). This lesson plan creates confusion in children.
• The SOGI policy is teaching an ideology that gender is fluid. The Richmond School District stated it themselves in a FAQ document handed out during a public information meeting:
“What does the word SOGI mean? SOGI is an acronym for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and it refers to the idea that some people will identify themselves as different than their biological gender, or differently than participants in a heterosexual relationship.”
Gender fluidity is an idea (ideology), not a fact.
Surinder Gill
RICHMOND
