Thousands of protesters and counter-protesters in cities across Canada have clashed over the rights of trans children and youth. The “1 Million March 4 Children” on Sept. 20 is part of a widespread and growing “parental rights” movement targeting inclusive public education.
This movement has already influenced provincial politics in Canada, including via Policy 713 in New Brunswick, where youth under 16 years of age are now required to obtain parental consent before they can change their name and pronouns at school.
In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe plans to introduce anti-trans legislation this fall. Faced with legal challenges, Moe has stated he will use the notwithstanding clause to override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and expression.
What is the so-called parental rights movement? Some mainstream analyses suggest it’s simply a group of united parents who are invested in their children’s education.
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Thousands of protesters and counter-protesters in cities across Canada have clashed over the rights of trans children and youth. The “1 Million March 4 Children” on Sept. 20 is part of a widespread and growing “parental rights” movement targeting inclusive public education.
This movement has already influenced provincial politics in Canada, including via Policy 713 in New Brunswick, where youth under 16 years of age are now required to obtain parental consent before they can change their name and pronouns at school. A man yells on the ground as police apprehend him. A protester yells expletives at police as they arrest him during a rally against sexual orientation and gender identity programs in schools in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe plans to introduce anti-trans legislation this fall. Faced with legal challenges, Moe has stated he will use the notwithstanding clause to override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and expression.
What is the so-called parental rights movement? Some mainstream analyses suggest it’s simply a group of united parents who are invested in their children’s education. Analysis of the world, from experts
But we debunk this misinformation by offering a brief history of the origins of the parental rights movement and some of its key organizers. Old idea made new
The parental rights movement is not new.
In the 1970s, conservative activists, including American musician Anita Bryant, used the rhetoric of parental rights and “protecting children” to oppose protections for lesbians and gay men against discrimination in housing, public accommodations and employment.
Speaking at a public hearing on the issue, Bryant proclaimed:
“Homosexuals cannot reproduce — so they must recruit. And to freshen their ranks, they must recruit the youth of America.”
Bryant went on to establish the Save Our Children organization, one of the groups behind the 1978 Briggs Initiative that targeted hundreds of gay teachers in California schools.
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Thousands of protesters and counter-protesters in cities across Canada have clashed over the rights of trans children and youth. The “1 Million March 4 Children” on Sept. 20 is part of a widespread and growing “parental rights” movement targeting inclusive public education.
This movement has already influenced provincial politics in Canada, including via Policy 713 in New Brunswick, where youth under 16 years of age are now required to obtain parental consent before they can change their name and pronouns at school. A man yells on the ground as police apprehend him. A protester yells expletives at police as they arrest him during a rally against sexual orientation and gender identity programs in schools in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe plans to introduce anti-trans legislation this fall. Faced with legal challenges, Moe has stated he will use the notwithstanding clause to override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and expression.
What is the so-called parental rights movement? Some mainstream analyses suggest it’s simply a group of united parents who are invested in their children’s education. Analysis of the world, from experts
But we debunk this misinformation by offering a brief history of the origins of the parental rights movement and some of its key organizers. Old idea made new
The parental rights movement is not new.
In the 1970s, conservative activists, including American musician Anita Bryant, used the rhetoric of parental rights and “protecting children” to oppose protections for lesbians and gay men against discrimination in housing, public accommodations and employment.
Speaking at a public hearing on the issue, Bryant proclaimed:
“Homosexuals cannot reproduce — so they must recruit. And to freshen their ranks, they must recruit the youth of America.”
Bryant went on to establish the Save Our Children organization, one of the groups behind the 1978 Briggs Initiative that targeted hundreds of gay teachers in California schools.
Around the same time, parental rights rhetoric was also used to stoke fear around feminist and civil rights gains, including abortion access and racial integration of schools. Who’s behind the movement now?
Today, the parental rights movement is fuelled in the United States by Moms for Liberty.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, Moms for Liberty is an anti-government and right-wing extremist organization with ties to white nationalists, including the Proud Boys.
One of the organization’s strategies is to see their members elected to school boards, where they subsequently oppose inclusive curriculum and advocate for book bans. As of July 2023, the group had more than 258 chapters in 45 states.
Groups like Action4Canada have taken up the parental rights torch in Canada. They’re calling for the end of inclusive curriculum and restricting the use of chosen names and pronouns in schools.
Far from a group of concerned parents, Action4Canada functions as a highly organized and strategic lobby group — they claim that changes to Policy 713 were a direct response to their lobbying efforts.
According to research by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, parental rights mobilizations have coincided with the rise in anti-2SLGBTQIA+ policies and platforms of major political parties in Canada, most recently the Conservative Party of Canada and provincial Conservatives in Manitoba and Ontario.
Joining forces in Canada
Organizers of the 1 Million March 4 Children are less cohesive than other parental rights groups, but just as dangerous.
Two groups organized national marches: Family ❤️ Freedom and Hands Off Our Kids.
Family ❤️ Freedom says it’s a secular group that is inclusive of 2SLGBTQIA+ people. Hands Off Our Kids is explicitly religious and anti-2SLGBTQIA+.
Family ❤️ Freedom targets educational sexual orientation and gender identity resources that can be used to help educators make their schools and classrooms safe and inclusive for 2SLGBTQIA+ students. Hands Off Our Kids (a moniker clearly meant to evoke grooming and pedophilia) is protesting “LGBTQIA+ ideology” in schools.
By joining forces, they aimed to convince Canadians with their combined messaging that kids need to be protected from the influences of “woke ideologies.”
The notion of “protecting children” has become a big tent that attracts a wide range of right-wing extremists, religious conservatives and conspiracy theorists. Those drawn to these movements are often responding to their own perceived disenfranchisement.
They hold beliefs that minority groups are undeservedly privileged and they’re trying to “take back” what is rightfully theirs. At this moment, 2SLGBTQIA+ children and youth are being used as scapegoats for a variety of social, cultural, political and economic grievances. How to take action
2SLGBTQIA+ children and youth are being targeted by hate-motivated extremism under the guise of parental rights, and there are several concrete actions Canadians can take to combat this movement.
2SLGBTQIA+ youth’s voices and lived experiences should be amplified — especially at a time when adults are keen to speak over them. Networks of solidarity are key forces of critical social change, and youth need to see adults standing alongside them in this fight.
Actions can be simple. Individuals, or the organizations they’re involved in, can advocate for the importance of using chosen pronouns and names. This small measure will have incredibly positive impacts on the lives of 2SLGBTQIA+ people, especially children and youth.
Advocacy can also involve organizing or amplifying counteractions to the parental rights movement. In terms of the 1 Million March, counter-protesters rejected bigotry with love, organizing under phrases like “No Space For Hate” and “1 Million Voices for Inclusion.”
Parents clearly want to be involved in their children’s education. However, aligning with the parental rights movement will not increase parental involvement in school. This movement isn’t about enhancing education or protecting children — it is a conduit for right-wing extremism that will only serve to harm 2SLGBTQIA+ youth.
Those parents don’t know shit.
Yeah children should be taught to believe everything the government tells them. The ministry of truth knows best.
I’m going to raise you to be a strong and independent person but increasing my already almost total control even further.
Yeah, that’s what religious parents do.
I was raised by religious parents and they did not do this. Conservative activist doesn’t equal religious and vice versa.
Edit: I was more thinking about the type of religious that ignores all the stuff that would make society better. :)
Tangentially related to the article, a common voice in the US is “its Parents jobs to teach their kids X Y and Z!”
But they fucking aren’t. A fantastic example is sexed. Explaining sex is so awkward for parents and kids alike that most kids don’t ever get “the talk” in any meaningful capacity. They get taught whatever their parents manage to say while being embarrassed about the subject. Positions and safety they got comfortable with. If dad was the fuckboy who never wore a condom (like how you wind up with kids as an inexperienced parent in the first place), how can he be expected to teach his kid how to use one properly? He won’t. He’ll say some biased shit like “real men don’t wear condoms” and then that’s just fact in the kids eyes. Mom not being much better, not properly explaining post-sex cleanup and self-care. These are of course hypotheticals, but they’ve been real enough problems an argument was made for schools to teach it because it wasn’t getting done at home.
Kids aren’t being taught how to not be slobs when they eat, a friend dated a Mexican woman with a kid and she got mad he was “teaching her son to be white” with basic table manners - shit like elbows and phones off the table and using a fork over his hands (the kid was 7, well at the age of these things). She was so intolerant of him helping raise her son as an equal half of a whole relationship. Handing him oreos 20 minutes before bed as a “reward for brushing his teeth”
Kids screen habits have gone wild. Parents letting ipads and TVs raise their kids when they’re too busy (thisnone beginning with millenials at the earliest). This is of course a side effect of parents being so busy just to pay bills issues in the US. If you work 3 jobs how CAN you be expected to have time for a kid? “Just make it work” I guess.
Kids spend more time inside than ever, this is cool and all, but when they develop zero social skills it will hurt them in the long run. I would know, I was the indoors kid on my PS2.
None of these are new or unique to GenZ but rather the latest manifestation of these issues. Parents failures is an ongoing generational issue, for certain, but parents lining up to get upset at a school because they didn’t do their job as a parent, is the ultimate shitty parent thing to do. Sorry, not sorry.
My parents missed a lot of things and that’s what school and friends were for. Gutting these systems only hurts us all.
Elbows off the table? What is this, 1950?
You want kids to do things in polite company without being prompted. Good table manners are a foundation of that.
Elbows on the table isn’t rude, even the the most elegant of settings. It hasn’t been seen as rude in decades
