Pastor Jeremy Light preaching a sermon on doubt, fear and trust at the Lethbridge Evangelical Free Church on Sunday Jan. 24.
By Tyler Willment
A social media outburst on transgender issues has erupted since the Alberta ministry of education announced their new transgender guidelines.
The document they released is called Guidelines for Best Practices: Creating Learning Environments that Respect Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Gender Expressions.
The Alberta government has recently issued that all school boards come up with “Guidelines for Best Practices” when involving LGBTQ students for the end of March.
The guidelines that David Eggen, Alberta’s education minister has sent out is to help the school boards create their own guidelines to address several issues regarding LGBTQ students such as washroom use and team oriented sports.
“I think it’s great,” said Erik Mikkelsen, board member for Lethbridge Pride Fest.
The announcement has sparked many negative viewpoints and concerns on how these new guidelines will take place in the education system.
“I think the education ministry is not trying to dictate rules, but are trying to provide general guidelines,” said Brent Miller, lead pastor at College Drive Community Church.
Mikkelsen and Miller share viewpoints that there are some misconceptions to the government’s document.
Miller feels that he should comment very little on the ministry of education’s guidelines until he has read them, but sees the social media response.
“People are overreacting to the argument,” said Blair Bruder, a high school student at Lester B. Pearson High School in Calgary. “This gives the school’s the chance to create their own [guidelines], rather than being dictated rules.”
Miscommunication has fueled an emotional response.
“We tend to see in social media it is so easy to type out a response on Twitter or Facebook or whatever based on an emotional reaction. So if you are a parent and you think my little girl is going to be in a washroom with a young man who has now identified himself as a female and so you’re concerned for safety and that’s all you know. If you only have a little snapshot picture of what could be happening in a school, then yeah you will respond very emotionally,” said Miller.
Jeremy Light, local parent and pastor at the Evangelical Free Church of Lethbridge shares Miller’s viewpoint on the emotionally-charged social media response and said that people should read the guidelines and get more information before commenting on it.
Safety of the children has been one of the more defining issue that has been brought up in this argument. An example is the Protect Our Girls petition that has surfaced.
“It is okay to be scared but it is another thing to be scared and not learn about it,” said Mikkelsen.
“I think we have to keep our kids safe, but all of our kids safe not just mine,” said Light.
Bruder said that there is a significant population of LGBTQ students and some LGBTQ faculty at his high school and there has not been any issues involving transgender students and that these guidelines will make children grow up with a more open mindset.
The more information that comes out in the next few months as school boards create their guidelines may answer the questions that people have.
