Scenes from Toronto's 1 Million March for Children protest. (Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Last June, late one night after my kids had gone to bed, I stumbled across a Twitter Space for parents concerned about what their children are being taught at school. There were 60 or so participants, mostly from Ontario: Canadians from a diverse range of backgrounds who weren’t happy about kids being told that maths is racist or having access to graphic books such as Gender Queer. Many of the parents in the Space had been shut down or shamed for asking questions about lessons. Some had been labelled bigots or transphobes. That evening, the discussion was about a recent parents’ rights protest in Ottawa, which was being depicted in the news as a movement of hateful, conservative Muslims who were anti-trans and didn’t want their kids learning about LGBT issues in school.
Under the leadership of Justin Trudeau, Canadian policy has hewn quite close to the transactivist’s ideal: gender identity has become a protected characteristic under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and gender reassignment surgery is now often covered by the country’s universal healthcare system. Meanwhile, school boards and teachers’ unions have been quick to adopt some of the most extreme tenets of gender ideology — for instance, not telling parents when their children start to socially transition.Â
Now, parents are pushing back. Last month, parents marched in almost 100 cities under the banner of #1MillionMarch4Children calling for the removal of material from school curriculums that sexualises children. Trudeau had claimed the protests were being “fuelled by the American right-wing”, but the alliance includes all political stances — from Liberty Coalition Canada, a Christian conservative advocacy group, to Blueprint for Canada, a non-partisan platform advocating “classical liberal” values. Some are issue-based, such as Our Duty Canada, a support network for families struggling with the impact of gender ideology. Plenty are grassroots, springing up in villages and towns in response to specific local events.
The protests, though they have been criticised for being anti-LGBT, are actually about protecting minors from harmful content in schools. At the protest I attended — in Durham, just outside Toronto — there were marchers of all races and religions. And their motives varied. Two young moms with children going to kindergarten soon held up placards that read “Education, not indoctrination” and “Stop sexualizing our kids”. A young girl sat next to a poster that read, “No boys in my bathroom!” A father of five children under the age of 15 was there with his wife and kids to protest against Ontario’s sex education curriculum, which he felt introduces material on sexual orientation and gender identity to children too young to understand the concepts. And three Pakistani brothers — one in high school and the other two in university — gave an interview to a local media outlet about why they felt they should not be required to partake in pride activities that went against their beliefs as Muslims.
Conservative Muslims have been overrepresented at recent protests, with a noticeable number of women in hijabs or niqabs. And as a result the movement as a whole has received accusations of being motivated by Muslim extremism. Protests against gender ideology in schools took place over the summer in Ottawa and Calgary, organised by local Muslim parents groups, with reports of young Arab boys stomping on rainbow pride flags while others cheered them on. There was a flurry of progressives questioning Muslim values and attitudes that clash with their beliefs in multicultural Canada. Several hundred people were present at the march I attended, and I’d estimate that 60-70% of them were Muslims.
It would not be fair to assume that all these Muslims were marching in opposition to same-sex relationships as well as in support of parents’ rights; but the Canadian Muslim community is known to have more negative views of LGBT rights than the general population. One transgender protestor I spoke to was in Durham because the chapter in her own town — led by conservative Muslims — was advocating not only for parental rights, which she supports, but also for the eradication of all gay and transgender people. So, the accusation that the movement has an anti-LGBT strain is not entirely unfounded.
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