Do Not Conflate Bigotry With Actual Victimization
Equating inclusion with grooming is a slap in the face to actual victims of predatory grooming
Dear bigots,
Equating inclusive and comprehensive education with grooming and pedophilia is a slap in the face to actual victims of childhood sexual abuse and predatory grooming.
On Monday night, a delegate read a statement to our local school division’s board of trustees in an attempt to have certain books banned from our school libraries.
She shared cherry-picked quotes from various books with zero context whatsoever, in an attempt to shock the listeners. Most of her quotes came from memoirs, poetry, and other literature — not sexual education materials, which she had originally claimed were the issue.
One book the first delegate quoted from — without explaining that she was quoting from a memoir — was “Lucky” by Alice Sebold, her memoir about her own sexual assault, published in 1999.
Other quotes were from a book of poetry called Milk and Honey, by Rupi Kaur. The book was published in 2014, and is described as “a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.”
These books, however, were not what started this whole mess. This community member became “outraged” during a tour of the school library because she saw pride flags, LGBTQIA2s+ books, and (gasp) a sign on the wall saying “all are welcome here”.
This spurred Miss Bigot and her little friends to scour the library for as many salacious and controversial quotes as possible, collected them, and then read them without context as part of her delegation.
Neutrality is not possible
Not only do all public school divisions have a legal obligation to provide inclusive education and to create safe spaces for everyone in our schools, leaders in public education have a moral and ethical obligation to come out in strong opposition of hate, bigotry, discrimination, and marginalization.
They (and we) cannot attempt to remain “neutral”, or avoid facing politically-charged conversations when they have such a significant negative impact on the staff and students in our schools, and on our entire communities.
Allowing hate and bigotry their ten minutes in the spotlight has given other homophobes perceived permission to act out their hatred towards marginalized community members. Everyone has the right to feel safe and welcome in their own communities, which includes public schools.
Hate has no place in our community — or anywhere — and we must actively speak out and act against it, otherwise we are silently condoning it and allowing it to continue.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
— Desmond Tutu
I mentioned earlier that the delegate proposing to ban books from our division’s public school libraries was disingenuous with the material she presented.
Not only did she fail to explain that she was reading from literature (including a poetry and a memoir) rather than sexual education materials, she also refuses to answer those who ask her directly for the titles of the books from which she quoted.
It actually gets worse.
Misrepresenting the Criminal Code of Canada
This same delegate claimed that sexual education, literature, and poetry can all be forms of child pornography or invitations to sexual touching under the criminal code of Canada.
She claimed to read direct quotes from the criminal code of Canada, specifically sections 152 and 163.
She conveniently left out the very important and relevant phrase “for a sexual purpose” of both these codes when reading them to the board of trustees.
Sexual education is not “for a sexual purpose”, it’s for educational, health, and safety purposes.
Whilst studying (and modifying for her own purposes) the criminal code of Canada, Miss Bigot really should have been reviewing section 319, regarding hate speech.
Section 319 of the criminal code of Canada defines hate speech as that which, “by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group”.
Given the amount of hatred that has piled-on — both on Miss Bigot’s social media, and in real-life in our communities — those in our local LGBTQIA2s+ community certainly have a case against her and her little following.
If that ain’t hate speech…
This bigoted community member and her small band of small-minded supporters have publicly called people who support inclusive, comprehensive sexual education “groomers” and “pedophiles”.
In her statement to the board, she actually said that teaching children (but really youth, as the sexual education materials and all other materials in question are only available to students 12 years of age and older, and so will likely have gone through, or will be going through puberty) about masturbation is grooming behaviour.
She actually said — out loud, in public, knowing she was being heard and the meeting was being recorded — that teaching youth about masturbation in a sexual education context is grooming behaviour.
While these sheltered, ignorant individuals are clutching their pearls, wailing about “exposing children to pornography” (aka sexual health information), there are actual, real life victims of real predatory grooming and sexual exploitation.
Preying on parental fears of the real risk of abuse, misusing these terms, and fear-mongering about educational materials is absolutely disgusting and indefensible.
This minimizes and mocks the real life trauma many children have endured as a result of actual predatory grooming.
Don’t You Dare Conflate Your Bigotry With Actual Victimization
Equating comprehensive, academic sexual health literature with pornography and predatory grooming because it contains same-sex education is not only homophobic and bigoted, it’s also a slap in the face to real-life victims in our communities and everywhere.
We don’t have to agree about whether certain books are appropriate for one another’s children because individual families can make those decisions for their own kids.
What we cannot tolerate is calling people pedophiles and groomers simply because you don’t like the content of some books in the school library. This behaviour is absolutely disgusting and inexcusable.
Those who have publicly made these harmful, hurtful, hateful, and outright false statements should make public apologies to those they have hurt.
In particular, Miss Bigot and her friends owe a public apology to our local LGBTQIA2s+ community who have been harassed, called names, intimidated, and had their pride decorations vandalized because of public homophobia such as theirs.
Miss Bigot herself owes a very sincere and heartfelt public apology to all who are still trying to heal from real childhood sexual exploitation, abuse, and other actual real-life traumas.
The words “groomer” and “pedophile” should never be used lightly, and should never be used to incite outrage against comprehensive education or the LGBTQIA2s+ community.
Bigots have made our lives more dangerous. Anyone who throws fuel on that fire should and will be held accountable.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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References
Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, s 152. [Online].
Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, s 163(1)(c). [Online].
Kaur, Rupi. (2014). Milk And Honey. Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Sebold, Alice. (1999). Lucky. Simon and Schuster.
Goldfarb, E. S., & Lieberman, L. D. (2021). Three Decades of Research: The Case for Comprehensive Sex Education. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(1), 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.036