After her school board shut Carolyn Burjoski down for criticizing hypersexualized transgender books for children, an Ontario court ruled in favour of her right to free speech. Burjoski, now retired after 20 years as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, was unceremoniously removed from a Waterloo Region District School Board virtual meeting January 17 2022 after she raised concern about the content of transgender-themed library books approved by the board. At the time, she argued medically transitioning was being sold to students as a “cool” new phenomenon by the way it was presented in the books. She said children are pushed too aggressively to make changes to their bodies. Once she was removed from the meeting, Burjoski was issued a “stay-at-home order” by the board which prohibited her from contact with any of her students or colleagues. Soon afterwards, she was hospitalized due to severe anxiety and retired from her position as a teacher, as per the National Post. It was then that she launched a defamation lawsuit. .The Waterloo schoolboard and its former chair Scott Piatkowski, who is responsible for ejecting Burjoski from the meeting, tried to get Burjoski’s lawsuit thrown out.Piatkowski, however, had previously told CTV News Burjoski’s statements were offensive and transphobic, as though she were “questioning the right [of trans people] to exist,” and therefore was left with no choice but to make an example out of her. He also said on 570 News Radio Burjoski was “disrespectful” of transgenderism and “not promoting healthy debate.” Yet, Ontario Superior Court Justice James Ramsay said in the November 23 court ruling, “What happened here should not happen in a democratic society.”“The Human Rights Code does not prohibit public discussion of issues related to transgenderism or minors and transgenderism,” he ruled. “It does not prohibit public discussion of anything.”The judge, deeming her claims to have merit and that she should be allowed to make them, said the comments against her were “defamatory” and ordered the board to pay Burjoski $30,000 for her legal fees. “They accused her of breaching the Human Rights Code, questioning the right of trans persons to exist and engaging in speech that included hate. She did not do any of those things,” Ramsay said in the final ruling. “The chairman of the board acted with malice or at least, with a reckless disregard for the truth,” he said. “He had made an embarrassingly erroneous and arbitrary decision to silence a legitimate expression of opinion and he was widely criticized for it. It is not a stretch to infer that, realizing that, he tried to justify himself with the public by assassinating the plaintiff’s character.”“I find it regrettable that the defendant who is trying to shut down debate is an arm of the government. Regard for the historical and present plight of the transgendered … does not negate section 2(b) of the charter,” he said. .Burjoski sounded the alarm on two books in particular as the school neared its “transgender awareness day,” including The Other Boy by M.G. Hennessey, which has a scene where a biological little girl met with a doctor to begin testosterone therapy to “transition” to a boy, identifying as 'Shane.' In the book, the doctor warned her she likely would never be able to have children, to which the child replied “it’s cool.” Burjoski commented books like this make taking cross-sex hormones out to be a simple and common practice and was therefore misleading. “Because it does not take into account how 'Shane' might feel later in life about being infertile,” she stated at the meeting before being removed. “This book makes very serious medical interventions seem like an easy cure for emotional and psychological distress.”Piatkowski then told the concerned teacher he was “ending the presentation.”After the ruling last week, Burjoski called it a “significant victory and vindication,” and expressed her relief. “It is a significant victory and vindication, not just for me, but for everyone who dares to voice their valid concerns publicly,” she said. ”I hope this decision sends a strong message to school boards that the weaponization of human rights codes against concerned citizens is an undemocratic abuse of the code.”
