Controversy is raging in British Columbia and Alberta over a resource program for teachers on how to make schools inclusive for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
While in Ontario, portions of a sex-ed curriculum that had previously been scrapped, including issues of gender diversity and consent, will be reinstated although covered in Grade 8 instead of Grade 3.
Ainsley Hawthorn is a Newfoundlander and cultural historian who, in a recently published Globe and Mail article, outlines how much notions of gender neutrality have changed in just a couple of generations.
Louis XIV and his brother Philippe I, ca. 1645
She says as recently as 100 years ago, boys and girls dressed alike with gender not even factoring. All babies wore gowns and in many cases weren’t identified as he or she, but as it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1884, age 2
Hugh John Macdonald, son of Sir John A. Macdonald.
She says the so-called “pink factor” is a marketing tool, aimed at selling more product.
An executive at LeapFrog explained that if you make baseball bats, you’ll sell twice as many to families with boys and girls if they come in pink and blue.
Styles for Boys from The Delineator Vol.45 no.4 Apr 1895
