Minister tells Gormley students have ‘ample’ gender identity support

Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill appeared on Gormley Wednesday to say students in Saskatchewan receive appropriate support inside and outside the classroom to address concerns related to gender identity.

“We believe there are ample supports for children, and we’re going to continue looking at ways we can enhance those supports for kids who may be going through difficult conversations on this particular topic,” he said.

Students have been back in the classroom for over a month while Saskatchewan’s school pronoun policy remains in the air. The new education policy requires schools to notify parents when their child wishes to change their name or pronouns used in school.

As MLAs returned two weeks early to the fall sitting this week to address the policy, they faced a large rally protesting the changes. Many said the policy is harmful for transgender and queer children.

Cockrill acknowledges these concerns.

“I have heard from some who are concerned that this outs kids or puts kids at risk, but the reality is that we have supports in schools, we have counsellors, we have mental health first aid professionals who are trained in every single school in this province. We also have numerous supports in the community, outside of the school context,” he said.

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He referred to the rapid access counselling, which was expanded to children and youth this summer.

Although the policy has created division, Cockrill said both sides have something in common — they agree parents should be involved in their children’s education.

“We believe that when it comes to changing your name or changing your pronoun, and having the school divisions recognize that, that should require parental consent up to the age of 16,” said Cockrill.

He said that some parents might not be supportive of their children and the government will work with school divisions on this particular issue.

“We acknowledge there may be situations where a child is not ready to tell their parents or doesn’t feel safe doing so at that time. We want to make the end goal in the legislation that, if the school division is going to recognize a child by a different name or pronoun, they will need parental consent. But to help a child get to that point, that’s where the supports we offer in the schools come in,” he said.

Cockrill said many schools across the province have already been operating this way. He said those divisions keep parents informed of how their children chose to identify.

“What we’re doing with this legislation is creating a uniform way to deal with this specific issues across all 27 school divisions in the province,” he said.

The Saskatchewan Party tried to implement Bill 137, the Parents Bill of Rights Act, Tuesday morning but needed a unanimous vote from everyone in the house. The NDP denied to advance the bill.

The Sask. Party has to wait until Thursday to introduce the bill and will wait another day to debate it.