Justice Centre takes on Quebec over teacher told to deceive parents about gender transition

A legal advocacy group is making a constitutional challenge against the Quebec Ministry of Education on behalf of a teacher who refused to lie about a child's gender transition.The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is bringing the case to Quebec’s Superior Court on behalf of a teacher who refused to lie to the parents of a 14-year-old student seeking a female-to-male gender transition, as her school administration had ordered her to do.Following directives in the education minister’s Guide and Procedures on trans and non-binary persons’ gender identity, the student’s Montreal high school created a set of procedures to make it illegal to inform parents or guardians when their child seeks a gender transition.In October 2023, school administrators told teachers to identify the student as "he/him" in class, except to parents, when they were to use the child's given name and feminine pronouns. There was no evidence or suspicion of parental abuse.The teacher told administration she would observe the student’s pronoun preferences, but objected to being forced to lie to parents about their child’s gender change, especially during an upcoming parent/teacher interview.According to the Justice Centre, that interview did not occur. Instead, the school allowed the teacher to submit a written report to the student, copied to the parents, which avoided the use of pronouns. However, the school made it clear that the teacher would have to do a parent/teacher interview in the spring if the parents requested one and if she disclosed any information about the child's gender transition, she would be fired.The teacher, assisted by the Justice Centre, filed the constitutional challenge to nullify the minister of education’s guide and procedures, saying they "contravene parental rights protected by section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in defiance of the principles of fundamental justice and without sufficient justification in a free and democratic society.” The teacher also believes the guide and procedures violate a Section 2 Charter right to freedom of conscience, as she was not prepared to lie to her student's parents."I couldn't live with myself if I did that," the teacher stated. “I won’t look them in the eye and intentionally lie about the fact that we are enabling their child to undergo a significant psychosocial intervention without their knowledge.”The teacher’s lawyer, Olivier Séguin, says this would be the first time that a court action raised freedom of conscience without also raising freedom of religion. Section 2(a) of the Charter guarantees both freedom of conscience and religion.“It's true that the prohibition on lying is common to all religions, but my client's conscientious objection is not religious in nature,” Séguin said.Although the law does not expressly mention how schools should handle cases such as this one, Séguin says the guide's authors appear to have issued a ministerial directive on the sly, through a “guidance” intended for schools, in which they make the law say things it simply does not say.Séguin does not believe the omissions are unintended incompetence."The irregularities with which the guide is riddled are both too obvious and too numerous to see anything other than a desire to mislead readers by falsely claiming to translate the letter of the law. I see it as a form of usurpation of power, a denial of democracy," Seguin said.“Secrecy towards parents, which in practice amounts to lying to them, is a serious violation of the legal contract that binds the state and its citizens.”