Transgenders In Canada

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Transgender teens are still being treated as outcasts within school systems today. School is supposed to be one of the safest places we can be outside of being in our own homes, but this is not the case for transgender youth. There are ‘unsafe spaces’ for people who identify as transgender, spaces that cis-gender people take for granted, and high school is one of those ‘unsafe spaces’ for transgender youth. There was an unfortunate event on September 25, 2017 that occurred in Dieppe, New Brunswick which involved a transgender youth who had to be pulled from her high school due to the bullying that had been afflicted upon her. Sixteen-year-old Noemie LeBlanc claims she has been a victim of transphobia at her high school, and had to endure …show more content…

Although Canadians are stereotypically viewed as accepting people, there are still countless cases of bullying going on within Canadian schools, more specifically with members of the LGBTQ community. Most of the places within a school property are deemed as ‘unsafe spaces’ by LGBTQ students, and 79% of transgender youth felt that at least one area in their school was unsafe for them to be in (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017, p 314). The more unsupervised the space is within the school, it seems that there is more transphobic bullying taking place. Negative transphobic comments are common in Canadian society, such as when feminine males are told to “not be such a girl” or they are assumed to be gay for showing their feminine side (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017, p 324). 60% of transgender youth report lies being spread about their sexual orientation, 64% of transgender youth were verbally harassed about their sexual orientation, 75% of transgender youth were being verbally assaulted about their sexual orientation, and tragically, 37% of transgender youth had been physically assaulted due to their gender expression (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017, p 326). Furthermore, 67% of teachers report that they were aware of verbal harassment, and/ or lies about sexual orientation, and 33% of teachers were …show more content…

“[I don’t tell people I am transgender] because I am worried what most people will think or say to me—I already get teased enough and I don’t want to lost friends for being trans” (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017, p 327). There is a high level of victimization upon transgender youth within Canadian schools (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017). 55% of transgender teens felt as though they were not a “real” part of there school, compared to 25% non-LGBTQ students when confronted with the same statement (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017). These statistics are imperative because they show the level of fear that sexual- and gender-minority students face daily (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson, 2017). The experiences of all of the transgender students that contributed to the statistics in Power and Resistance imply that being anything other than cis-gendered while you are in a school setting that sexuality and gender norms are rigorously regulated makes it so much more difficult for LGBTQ students to play an active role in school life, whether it is academically or socially (Antony, Antony, & Samuelson,

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