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Ontario transgender teacher sparks controversy by wearing giant prosthetic breasts in class

In a recent letter to parents, the school confirmed the video’s authenticity, but implied that it’s illegal to even suggest that the garb may be inappropriate

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A video clip of an Ontario shop teacher wearing oversized prosthetic breasts to work has drawn international attention.

Last week, images emerged out of Ontario’s Oakville Trafalgar High School showing one of its shop teachers conducting class whilst clad in enormous silicone breasts with visible nipples that extend below the teacher’s waistline.

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In a statement to Postmedia last week, Halton District School Board chair Margo Shuttleworth said the teacher portrayed in the images is an industrial arts instructor who began identifying as female last year.

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Clandestinely recorded by students, images of the instructor quickly exploded across social media, easily making it one of the world’s most visible Canadian news stories of the past month.

One 20-second video in particular has received nearly one million views. Circulated by an American podcaster, it shows the teacher demonstrating the use of a chop saw while gingerly ensuring the large breasts do not get caught in the machinery. “I don’t remember my shop teacher looking like this,” reads a caption.

The images have circulated particularly quickly among conservative media, even scoring a mention on the American conservative talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight. “Children are being used as props in the sexual fantasies of adults,” host Tucker Carlson declared.

However, the first news outlet to cover the affair was the Canadian feminist site Reduxxx.

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In a recent letter to parents, Oakville Trafalgar confirmed the video’s authenticity, but implied that it’s illegal to even suggest that the garb may be inappropriate, equating the teacher’s controversial decision to wear oversized prosthetic breasts with the right to identify as transgender.

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“Gender identity and gender expression are protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code,” it read. “We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate to our community that we are committed to establishing and maintaining a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable and welcoming learning and working environment for all students and staff.”

Statements to media by the Halton District School Board said much the same. HDSB Chair Margo Shuttleworth told Postmedia that the board is “creating a safety plan” to ensure that the teachers’ “gender rights” will be upheld.

If the case is generating international attention, it’s in part because it’s occurring as a result of Canadian self-ID laws regarding gender expression – laws that are notably not the norm in the majority of U.S. states.

Ten years ago, the Province of Ontario would only recognize someone’s gender transition if they could provide a note from a physician proving that they had undergone sexual reassignment surgery.

But a 2012 decision by the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled that this requirement was discriminatory, and ordered that the province “shall cease requiring transgendered persons to have ‘transsexual surgery’ in order to obtain a change in sex designation on their registration of birth.”

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Ever since, this has meant that an Ontarian’s legal gender is now determined exclusively by personal choice.

“The law recognizes that everyone has the right to self-identify their gender and that ‘misgendering’ is a form of discrimination,” reads an official explainer on the website of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. The Commission acknowledges that this requires some abrogation of the right to freedom of expression but that “no right is absolute.”

These laws were expanded in 2016 to apply at the federal level. Following the passage of Bill C-16, “gender expression” became a protected category under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The Halton District School Board’s standing rules on gender expression – drafted in the wake of the 2012 decision – hold that students and staff are required to immediately affirm the chosen gender identity of any students or staff.

This includes using an individual’s preferred pronouns, “including ‘they’, ‘zhe’, ‘ze’, ‘hir’ and/or any other pronoun sets” and allowing students to “to use the change room that is the most gender affirming.” The guidelines note that the accommodations are not optional, and that “gender identity and gender expression are protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

Unmentioned is the school’s protocol in instances where the rules on gender expression may conflict with rules governing other conduct.

While the school’s dress code states that Oakville Trafalgar students must be permitted to dress in a way that expresses their “self-identified gender,” they must also refrain from wearing clothing that “exposes or makes visible genitals and nipples.”

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