An Ontario, Canada teacher has been punished by her school district after raising questions about the appropriateness of a book on transgenderism.
Carolyn Burjoski has now been placed on leave after her comments during a meeting of the Waterloo Region District School Board were shut down and she was accused of violating the province’s human rights code.
“I am not a transphobic person. It’s crazy that just because you ask a question, the first thing people do is call you that,” she told the National Post. “We do need to have a conversation about the intersection of biology and gender. We’re not having those conversations in our culture because, look what happened to me.”
She had tried to address books available to students from kindergarten through sixth grade that make it appear “cool” for gender dysphoric children to medically transition.
Burjoski says she was not allowed to continue with her comments and that the video of the meeting has since been removed from YouTube.
Now, she has not been allowed to return to school and banned from contacting students or colleagues pending a formal investigation, according to a video posted to Twitter.
“This was particularly upsetting to me because I love my students, and I have not seen them since December,” she said. “When my students excitedly returned to school on Tuesday — the first day of in-class learning after yet another lockdown — their teacher was not there, and they did not know why. I have been silenced and punished.”
My response to the events that transpired this week regarding my presentation to the school board. You can read more about the story here:https://t.co/VdLwhejXGZ#WRDSB #wrdsbmtg pic.twitter.com/Y5cX3684zX
— Carolyn Burjoski (@carolynburjoski) January 21, 2022
“I feel bullied, slandered and abused,” she continued, as reported by The Christian Post. “The school board has removed the video of the meeting from their YouTube channel, so people are not able to hear what I actually said.”
“Most of the video is me reading excerpts from two books available to any young child who is able to read,” she explained of the meeting. “My few comments expressed concern about age-inappropriate sexual content. I did not and do not question the rights of trans persons to exist in any way. I fully support the human rights of transgender people.”
“The message is clear: no dissent is allowed,” she told the National Post of her suspension.
As the Post notes, it is considered to be highly controversial to raise questions about the advisability of medical transitions for transgender children, as well as to question the appropriateness of materials that pertain to sexuality and gender transitions in public schools.
While one of the world’s premier transgender surgeons — who is both transgender and performs medical transition surgeries — is among those raising dissident concerns that patients, including children, are sometimes pushed too aggressively into irreversible procedures.
In the United States, a book found in public high school libraries has been the subject of much debate over its graphic depictions of sex acts, including between children and adults.
Pro-transgender activists often argue that such content is necessary for LGBT children to feel supported, pointing to data like suicide rates among this demographic, while critics, like Burjoski, are subject to high-profile slander and bullying, such as author J.K. Rowling or comedian Dave Chapelle.
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