Teachers and staff at an Ontario Catholic school board secretly encouraged an 11-year-old girl to believe she was a boy without their parent’s knowledge and called child services on the couple when they objected to the gender transition.
As reported by National Post journalist Ari David Blaff, a school in the York Catholic District School Board helped the child live as a transgender boy without informing the parents. When the parents objected to the “gender-affirming” process, the school called the Children’s Aid Society.
Through interviews with family and an essay written by the girl identified only as “Julie” in the article, to protect the child’s identity and CAS records, the report detailed how school authorities helped Julie secretly change her gender identity at school.
The girl, Julie, began identifying as non-binary privately in 2022 after the COVID-19 lockdowns and then to her class at the beginning of 2022. According to Blaff, a teacher at an unidentified YCDSB school hid Julie’s pronoun and masculine name change from her parents during this time.
When Julie’s parents discovered she was being treated as a gender she wasn’t born as at school, they spoke with school leaders to object, and the school called the Children’s Aid Society on them, starting a series of visits from the child protective agency over the following years.
Julie later decided she was not transgender, that she was swept up in a “social fad.” She detransitioned in December of 2023, at which point it was discovered that she had multiple overlooked mental health issues, including borderline personality disorder, bulimia, and anxiety related to body image issues.
As was also said in the article, YCDSB told True North in an email that they couldn’t share information about its students “out of respect for privacy rights.”
“The YCDSB believes the partnership of home, school and parish provides the best educational experience,” A representative of YCDSB said when asked if the school’s policy was to affirm a child’s gender identity without informing parents.
A look at the YCDSB list of policies and procedures shows that teachers have a responsibility to “Promote initiatives that promote diversity of student voice and experience” and to “encourage and support students in their efforts to promote social justice, equity, inclusion and diversity in schools and classrooms.”
The school board defines diversity as age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression, religion, sex and sexual orientation. In a further section speaking about “inclusive education,” the board said diversity must be “honoured” in school curriculum, physical surroundings, and the “broader environment.”
When asked how these policies as a Catholic school align with Catholic church teaching, which calls transgender idealogy “unacceptable,” True North was told that the school board supports the teachings of the Catholic Church.
“York Catholic supports the Catholic Church’s teachings and our community members’ human rights,” a representative said. “The YCDSB has many supports available to assist the mental health and well-being of all of our students and staff.”
Aaron Kimberly, a registered nurse and lesbian woman who lived life as a transgender man for 30 years, is an advocate for pediatric gender-care reform. Kimberly was not surprised to learn that a school would transition a minor without the knowledge of parents.
“I am appalled by the exclusion of parents from clinical decision-making,” Kimberly said in an email to True North. “Social and medical transitions are complex decisions regarding a child’s well-being, often misinformed by today’s identity politics and a distorted understanding of gender identity. Schools are not qualified to make clinical decisions.”
Kimberly is opposed to pediatric gender affirmation. She said as someone who was a “butch lesbian” who transitioned due to social reasons, including homophobia, that often what appears to be gender dysphoria and transgender identity is just a result of being gay.
“Gender incongruence was once well understood as a common gay and lesbian experience – especially in childhood. That meaning has been hijacked by false, politicized narratives which have stolen that experience away from the gay and lesbian community,” Kimberly said. “As a result, gay and lesbian kids are being prematurely labelled ‘trans’ and put on a medical pathway before they’ve even had their first sexual experience.”
Kimberly pointed to data from the European “Cass Review” which found that after controlling for autism, 89% of youth seeking hormones were same-sex attracted to girls. She said the report’s findings reflect what many who work with youth gender incongruency see in their practice.
“Given that most butch lesbians like me transitioned due to the strain of homophobia, we should see these rising numbers as a sobering alarm that young lesbians are not ok,” she said.
Kimberly believes instances such as Julie’s, where a child who ends up not identifying as the gender they said they wanted to transition to is lead on a path which could result in irreversible changes, show that pediatric “gender-affirming care” requires “correction.”