ONTARIO, Canada — A transphobic advertisement appearing in Canada’s National Post on Thursday is calling on the local leaders of the three national political parties to “stop teachers from confusing” children on issues of gender identity and expression.
The ad revives the “StopCorruptingChildren.com” campaign that launched last year to protest proposed revisions to the physical and health education curriculum that would include more sex education for younger children, reported Xtra!, Canada’s LGBT newspaper.
Under a picture of a young girl, the ad asks “Please don’t confuse me. I’m a girl. Don’t teach me to question if I’m a boy, transexual [sic], transgendered, interesexed, or two spirited [sic].”
The ad, placed by the Institute for Canadian Values — akin to the U.S. anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council — quotes extensively from a Toronto District School Board curriculum resource document called “Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism,” and implies that the optional lessons are mandatory.
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Queer Ontario denounced the ad, calling it “factually incorrect thinly veiled bigotry and ignorance. Incorrectly ‘advertising’ teaching resource guide material as curriculum, it does nothing more than to distort the truth of the situation and further marginalize the lives of queer and Trans persons of Ontario.”
The group has also urged its members online to file complaints with Advertising Standards Canada, the national advertising self-regulating body.
The National Post said it received many complaints about the ad, and it’s manager of advertising sales said he’s not sure how it ended up in the newspaper.
