By Gudrun Schultz
TORONTO, Ontario, September 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Toronto District School Board is introducing a survey asking high school students to self-identify their sexual orientation, the Canadian Press reported last week.
Ontario students will be asked to provide voluntary information on a variety of questions—for students in grades nine to twelve, those questions will include whether they identify as straight, gay, “lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, queer or two-spirited (an aboriginal term).”
Experts in the field of children’s mental health have suggested the trend in schools toward determining child sexual orientation is dangerously misplaced. George A. Rekers, Ph. D., research director for child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, stated that children are particularly vulnerable to confusion in the development of their sexual identity.
He criticized the breakdown of sex role distinctions in socialization of children as a direct source of gender confusion for children, in an article on child Gender Identity Disorder.
The survey was produced after concerns were raised over possibilities of racial inequality under Ontario’s new Safe Schools Act, with the suggestion that some schools expelled black students more frequently than white students.
The original content was expanded to more than 55 questions covering a wide variety of areas of student interests, in order to provide a census of the province’s student body. Sexual orientation was considered a legitimate area of interest by the Board.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Group Advocates Acceptance of Homosexuality in Day Care for Pre-Schoolers
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/apr/04041208.html
Toronto School Children Forced to Endure Homosexual Sensitivity Training
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/04111711.html
TORONTO SCHOOL BOARD IMPLEMENTING AGGRESSIVE HOMOSEXUAL INDOCTRINATION
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/jul/00071804.html
See Dr. Rekers’ article on Gender Identity Disorder in children:
https://www.leaderu.com/jhs/rekers.html