A petition for gender-inclusive elementary schools across Canada

To Canadian school boards and education leaders:

Every child deserves to feel safe, respected, and valued at school. Yet transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse children can face bullying, exclusion, and discrimination simply for being who they are.

Canadian research documents serious mental health inequities among transgender adolescents. These inequities are not inevitable consequences of gender diversity. Acceptance, belonging, and support matter, and schools have a responsibility to reduce preventable harm.

We cannot wait until children are in crisis to make schools safer.

Elementary schools shape more than individual experiences. They help establish the peer relationships and everyday norms that children carry into adolescence. When classmates learn early to respect differences, interrupt bullying, and stand up for one another, they may become the friends and allies who help gender-diverse youth feel supported in high school. We can build communities of care before children need them most.

We call on school boards across Canada to:

1. Create welcoming classrooms where gender diversity is recognized and respected from the earliest grades.
2. Prevent bullying and discrimination by challenging harmful gender stereotypes and responding consistently to harassment.
3. Respect children’s identities, names, pronouns, privacy, and individual safety needs.
4. Include diverse identities and families in everyday books, lessons, activities, and school life.
5. Build protective peer communities by teaching children to include, support, and stand up for one another—relationships and norms they can carry into secondary school.
6. Equip educators with training, resources, clear policies, and leadership support.
7. Put children’s wellbeing first, ensuring every child has trusted adults at school who will listen and act.

Gender-inclusive education is not about telling children who they should be. It is about ensuring no child is made to feel ashamed, unsafe, or unwelcome because of who they are.

Schools should be places of protection, not places where harm begins.

Add your name to call on Canadian school boards to build safe, affirming elementary schools—and communities of care that can help sustain children through adolescence.

Evidence informing this petition:
Kingsbury et al. (2022), CMAJ: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.212054

Russell et al. (2018), Journal of Adolescent Health: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.02.003

Timmons & Airton (2023), Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood: https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949120978526

Note: The proposed long-term benefits of early peer-community building are a reasoned prevention goal, not yet a demonstrated causal effect on adolescent suicide rates.