Students Protest School's Transgender Bathroom Rules
Instagram page titled "LDHSS Students for Change" in an effort to pressure the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) to establish gender neutral bathrooms that transgender people can use instead of the male- or female-only ones that are currently available.The LDHSS Student for Change group, which currently has a little over 350 followers, wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday that it will be holding a peaceful walkout to call for the ban and to "display the message that teaching about Pride in schools isn't what students want." In addition, the group added that it doesn't "stand for hate of any groups."The group says on its Instagram page that it stands "with your fellow Muslims, Christians, Jews, Sikhs and students in pushing against agendas being forced onto us by the OCDSB."Darcy Knoll, the communications adviser at OCDSB, confirmed to Newsweek in an email on Friday that a group of students in Barrhaven, an Ottawa suburb, participated in a demonstration and counter-demonstration in front of their high school on Thursday."At the OCDSB, we actively support our legal and ethical responsibility to uphold the human rights of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
We want these students, staff, and community members to know they belong and deserve to feel safe, welcome and accepted to be who they are at school," Knoll said.Knoll added that the province of Ontario provides the legal right for transgender and gender diverse students to access and use washrooms that align with their gender identity.One of the students calling for the ban, a ninth grader who asked to be identified only by their initials A.T., told Newsweek on Friday that around 200 students from middle schools and high schools participated in the demonstrations..
