The Inadequate Recognition of Sexual Diversity by Canadian Schools: LGBT Advocacy and Its Impact

Creating more inclusive schools has lagged significantly behind changes that formally recognize sexual diversity in human rights and family law, across all Canadian regions. Students still experience widespread harassment based on what are considered non-conforming sexual orientation and gender identity, and sexual minority teachers often remain closeted. Several school boards, for example in Toronto and Vancouver, have developed comprehensive LGBT-inclusive equity policies, but implementation remains uneven. Most provincial education ministries have been extremely reluctant to develop policies targeting exclusion or marginalization on these grounds. The impediments to change include the pressures on young people to adopt dominant gender norms, the extent to which questions of sexuality tap into large unresolved debates over the role of schooling, the continuing capacity of religious conservatives to mobilize opposition to LGBT-inclusive measures, the availability of schooling options for morally traditional parents, the unreadiness of most teachers to address questions of sexual diversity, and the modesty of resources available to LGBT activists in Canada.