An Ontario family has filed a formal complaint with the provincial Human Rights Tribunal after a public-school teacher tried to convince their 6-year-old daughter that “there is no such thing as girls and boys.”
A first-grade teacher in the Devonshire Community Public School, part of Ottawa-Carleton District School Board network, had created a “poisoned environment,” contend the child’s parents, Jason and Pamela Buffone, by indoctrinating primary school kids regarding gender fluidity.
As visual aides, the teacher — identified only as J.B. — showed the class videos from the YouTube channel Queer Kid Stuff.
One of the videos, titled “He, She and They?!?—Gender: Queer Kid Stuff #2,” contained statements such as “some people aren’t boys or girls,” adding that there are people who do not “feel like a ‘she’ or a ‘he,’” and therefore might not have a gender.
According to what the girl related to her mother, the teacher told the children that “there is no such thing as girls and boys” and “girls are not real and boys are not real.”
After two months, the Buffones began to register the impact the lessons were having on their daughter, who began asking them why her identity as a girl was “not real.” She even asked if she could “go to a doctor” about the fact that she was a girl.
The parents first asked for a meeting with JB to express their concerns regarding the gender material and the effect it was having on their daughter. At that meeting, JB told Mrs. Buffone that gender fluidity was part of the School Board policy, and that some children are struggling with the idea that gender is binary.
Having gotten nowhere, the Buffones next contacted the school principal, Julie Derbyshire, who explained to the parents that JB had initiated the lessons on gender to accommodate a child in the class who had expressed interest in self-expression as the opposite sex.
The parents finally asked for a meeting with the Superintendent of the School Board and the Curriculum Superintendent, who denied their request, at which point the Buffones took their daughter out of the school.
According to the complaint filed in court: “The School Board did not agree to communicate with parents when sensitive discussions took place, nor did they agree to issue any directive or take corrective action in order to ensure that children of female gender identity were positively affirmed.”
The teacher “subjected N to ongoing discrimination on the basis of gender and gender identity, by a series of lessons that denied the existence of the female gender and biological sex and undermined the value of identifying as a female,” the complaint reads, action that was knowingly permitted by the principal and school board.
Through the court, the Buffones are seeking $5,000 in general damages and a judgment that requires the school board to “not devalue, deny, or undermine in any way the female gender identity.”
They also seek mandatory notice from teachers regarding any gender-identity lessons to be imparted, “including the teaching objectives and the materials that will be or have been used for such lessons.”
“I think you’ve got to get in front of it somehow,” Pamela Buffone told the Christian Post, when asked what she would advise parents who oppose teaching gender theory to young children.
“Be knowledgeable about trans-activism and read your school’s policies,” she said. “Ask them how they’re going to teach concepts like gender fluidity and don’t expose too much of your own position first. You’ll learn a lot from how they choose to answer your questions.”