They watched anti-trans protesters go after a school board. Here’s how they’re helping future targets fight back

At a school board meeting in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, a resident stood at the microphone, spewing misinformation about school-based sex-ed and transgender people.
The board chair asked her to stop but she refused. The trustees filed out in protest, but the woman continued her tirade, baselessly comparing the board’s gender inclusivity policy to an ad for pedophilia.
Staff at the Vernon, B.C., office pumped loud music into the meeting room. They turned out the light. Still, the woman carried on, her supporters illuminating the room with their cellphones so she could continue reading her prepared remarks.
As officials tried to get the crowd to leave, the woman’s supporters berated them with insults.
The chaotic scene, which was captured on video last December and posted online, was one of several incidents that spurred barbara findlay, a queer lawyer who has been fighting for LGBTQ+ rights for more than 30 years, into action. She said it made two things clear: School boards had become the new target for transphobia; and they needed help fighting back.
“There was no place for anybody to go and look for resources to know what to do,” said findlay, who uses only lowercase letters. “People didn’t know what their rights were.”
That is set to change. This week, findlay’s group is launching Expelling Transphobia, a comprehensive handbook aimed at arming trustees, teachers and students with concrete strategies to stand up for trans rights.
The first of its kind in Canada, the initiative is a tangible example of the counterforce that is emerging to resist anti-trans rhetoric and attacks at school boards and other local institutions. It frames the threat to the rights of trans people as a “five-alarm fire.”
“Canada’s right-wing has chosen transgender youth in schools as a site for their efforts to galvanize voters to support an agenda that will ultimately result in the loss of equality and human rights for us all,” the handbook warns.
Spearheaded by a coalition of 50 lawyers, teachers and parents, the handbook makes clear the responsibilities of educators in B.C. to safeguard the school community. It outlines the legal remedies available to individuals that are targeted, such as filing a human rights complaint or pursuing criminal hate-speech charges. While it’s intended for use in B.C., those behind the handbook say they hope it provides support to educators in other provinces, too.
As the Star has reported, the challenge facing schools is part of an anti-big government movement that appears to be gaining traction. From a small public library system in Manitoba to the municipal council of Pickering, Ont., those claiming to be fighting for freedom are also mounting disruptive campaigns. The surge is derailing daily business, consuming scarce resources and leaving local officials feeling unsafe.
The movement is rooted, in part, in the so-called “Freedom Convoy.” It includes a national Christian organization that denies the existence of trans children, and is supporting elected officials that appear to be carrying out its mission to “make Canada great again.”
Many of those speaking out at school board, library and council meetings say they are protecting children. But they often do so by propagating baseless claims about what’s being taught in schools and harmful tropes about trans people, local officials and LGBTQ+ advocates say.
The rise in “anti-gender” rhetoric has alarmed federal officials. In May, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) predicted that violence fuelled by “ideological opposition” to the acceptance of gender diversity would continue over the coming year.
However, there is an upside to the surge of hate, said Teri Westerby, a trans trustee in Chilliwack, B.C.
“Now, with the overt violence, people can see it. They can call it out. They can say, ‘This is wrong. I don’t want this,’” said Westerby, who helped design the website for Lawyers Against Transphobia, the group behind the handbook. “It shows more and more allies, what we, in the queer community, have been facing all along.”
It is also inspiring those in the LGBTQ+ community to join the front lines. Last spring, in the town of Castlegar, B.C., trans resident Birkley Valks was harassed and misgendered on social media after he volunteered to read at a drag time story hour at a public library. The threats prompted the library to cancel the event.
But instead of retreating from the spotlight, Valks said he channelled the empowering mantra — “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” — and decided to run for school board trustee.
Valks said he was inundated with messages from people offering support, including Westerby and the chair of the school board in Chilliwack, who had both been the target of harassment.
In April, he won the byelection, beating out several opponents, including a “parental rights” activist, who opposes resources aimed at encouraging gender inclusivity in schools.
“The more people we start to connect across the province, the more people we start to connect across the country, we’re feeling like we’re not in this tiny little pocket,” he said. “We’re all feeling a little bit more supported. We’re all feeling a little bit safer.”
Public library officials are also trading tips and tricks.
When Manitoba’s South Central Regional Library was besieged by an aggressive defunding and book-banning campaign last year, director Cathy Ching was caught completely off guard.
One meeting became so raucous that police were called to clear the building. The crowd taunted staff through the windows, Ching said, with some carrying signs that called for librarians to have millstones hung around their necks — an apparent reference to a biblical passage that suggests those who cause children to sin should be drowned.
“We were just like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” she said, comparing mounting an offensive against a public library to “kicking a kitten.”
The experience taught Chin that library officials who are confronted with such campaigns should speak out, and seek support from others with the resources to help.
One such organization is the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, where director Jim Turk estimates he has given more than 70 talks at libraries across the country. The centre recently partnered with the Canadian Federation of Library Associations to create a national database of book challenges, so library officials can see what others have done and figure out how to respond.
Where there is a legitimate concern about a book or its placement in the library, staff may remove or relocate it, Turk said. But he said many of those calling for book bans “simply do not want any books in the library that are LGBTQ positive … So this is about censorship, and nothing else.”
Containing the surge at public meetings is challenging. Officials desperate to restore order risk implementing measures that are seen as limiting accessibility or reducing scrutiny of the democratic process.
In response to disturbances and security concerns, some local institutions have moved meetings online, including the school board in Vernon. It is an imperfect solution, as one trustee remarked in the B.C. handbook. While going remote made them feel safer, they said, “It’s a loss for the community and for those who wish to present, particularly students.”
The handbook, however, is eyeing the long game. Retired educator and longtime LGBTQ+ advocate James Chamberlain, who helped write the resource, said he hopes the education and information it contains will defuse tensions, and help to eradicate the transphobia that he believes is underpinning much of the conflict.
“We want to be able to shut things down before the fire starts,” he said.