Examining the point of Pride

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/06/2023 (1166 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In recent weeks leading up to Pride Week and month, school divisions throughout North America, including Winnipeg, have been subject to a level of nastiness, contempt, and vitriol beyond comparison. In Manitoba, school divisions have been attacked by certain groups and individuals who do not wish to have books or events which celebrate different configurations of families included at public schools.

They repeatedly equate books with same-gendered parents as “pornographic.”

Some families in Manitoba have a mom and dad. Some have an auntie. Some have two moms. Some kids are raised by grandparents. Some, and too many of our young ones, live with other families.

But all children are welcome, celebrated, and loved in our public schools. Or they should be. All staff should feel that they belong.

This is the very point of Pride celebrations in schools.

This is the very reason we have books in libraries that include a variety of family configurations.

But the rhetoric of some angry people in our communities suggests that schools are teaching the step-by-step process involved in sexual intercourse to learners in the early years. Others suggest that eight-year-olds celebrating an inclusive school means that children will become homosexuals.

Worse still are the conspiracy theories that are whipped up to suggest transgendered kids are somehow involved in a global grooming movement. It’s preposterous.

Other divisions in Canada have had public meetings sabotaged by angry mobs suggesting that kids who are questioning their gender are demented. One division had its Pride flag wrenched off of its outside wall with an anonymous note left in the dust. Books in the same school depicting diverse families were stolen off the shelves. The anonymous note argued that children “should be gay on their own time.”

A local trustee was recently sanctioned for hateful comments. The Alberta election witnessed blatant homophobia from various candidates.

We all know that there is a hateful angst that is being stirred up from afar and within our own communities.

There are political actors who gleefully rub their hands together when they see divides created in our communities.

There are religious groups who fundamentally see homosexuality as evil — a position counter to the golden rules professed in various religious texts.

And there is a significant toll on the Earth, our most vulnerable, and our relationships when hate and distrust are created. When we perceive that there is an “us” and a “them.”

We saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic, where neighbours turned on each other. We see it when we turn our backs on the most vulnerable in our society and let them struggle on the streets. We see the hate in the blatant racism and homophobia that oozes off the pages of social media, often represented by an anonymous egg. We see a disdain for those who seek out emergency rooms for refuge. For those who turn to methamphetamine to dull the pain.

And now we see grown-ups, veiled in “I’m-not-a-bigot-but” comments attack the very essence of what public education is about: including everyone. Grown-ups who become so angry that the spit and poisonous barbs shoot out like rusty nails.

But what if we took a breath and then collectively decided to confront this hate. To not let racism, homophobia, or loathing of the other slip through casual conversation, our workplaces, or our dinner tables.

What if we met this hate head-on with the intensity it deserves?

The stakes are high. Kids’ lives are at stake. Adults need to protect kids from hate. Kids need to feel that they belong and that they are loved in schools.

Public schools are designed to create the very societies we want. Kinder and gentler ones. But there needs to be a collective response to hate and otherness. Beginning at the grassroots and supported by elected officials.

The other option is silence. A culpable reaction with historical ramifications.

Matt Henderson is a Winnipeg educator.