Human rights and 2SLGBTQ+ education should not be optional

The TDSB’s decision reverses its previous stance on accommodations for 2SLGBTQ+ education, communicated in a memorandum to principals (2002). In response to a discriminatory Declaration of Parental and Family Rights, it affirmed human rights education prevents discrimination and that “no student can be exempted from Human Rights education.”In a TDSB Curriculum Resource Guide (2011), the board further explains that parents may not receive (i.e., religious) accommodations from the discussion of 2SLGBTQ+ issues because it violates Human Rights Policy: “Furthermore, this is consistent with the ideal that human rights education is an essential strategy for preventing human rights abuses.”Why did this position change during a moment when queer and trans children are acutely vulnerable? We read the TDSB’s softening on human rights education as a failure to protect 2SLGBTQ+ students. When school boards permit opting-out of human rights education, it sends a message that these rights are debatable. They cannot compromise their vision and mission to pressure from those whose beliefs trample on the human rights of vulnerable groups.