School leaders should be more clear about support for gay-straight alliances

By Letter to the Editor on July 6, 2019.

Re: “School rules shouldn’t affect GSA treatment here,” June 9

Collin Gallant’s article on local school boards and GSAs was excellent, but did not provide confirmation from either Mr. Mastel or Mr. Clark that principals of schools within their jurisdiction will actually follow through on the creation of student-initiated GSAs throughout the next four years. Mr. Mark Davidson, superintendent of the Medicine Hat Public School Division, is wholly missing from the writeup which is cause for concern. As the main representative for the MHPSD, Mr. Davidson is responsible for ensuring that the organization as a whole functions to serve the students within it. We cannot know for certain whether they will support GSAs without such a comment from him.

Medicine Hat is a large community with many individuals identifying as religious or holding to religious or spiritual beliefs. There are more than 40 churches here, yet we hear very little about those involved in outreach within the LGBTQ2IA+ community, and if the recent violence that took place at Hamilton’s Pride celebration this past weekend is any indicator of religious bias against the LGBTQ2IA+ community, it’s worth contemplating that ours may be no different. 

We’ve witnessed the vandalizing of the college’s rainbow crosswalk in 2018. We’ve watched and read about the Corona Tavern’s treatment of a transgender woman in 2016 and move to restrict of washroom use. This behaviour is reflective of adults who’ve been inundated with teachings from a young age stating that homosexuality is wrong. In no way does it define that these are individuals capable of reasoning. It’s a bad reflection of our community.

Our current school leaders are adults who appear to identify as heterosexual males and they have given no clear indication that they support LGBTQ2IA+ students and their ability to have worry-free GSAs in our schools.

Michael Plait

Medicine Hat

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