“Forcing young people to choose between being misgendered and being outed against their will is unconscionable, and so is forcing teachers to ignore their professional ethical standards and harm their students in this way.” (Egale Canada)​

The 2024 Education Amendment Act, formerly known as Bill 27, claims to address the issue of parents and caregivers wanting to be more involved in their children's education (Legislative Assembly of Alberta, 2024, p. 1912). Alberta Minister of Education, Demetrious Nicolaides, states the amendments to the bill will provide clarity, consistency, and transparency to education policies in schools across Alberta pertaining to the areas of human sexuality, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

The 2024 Education Amendment Act, in respect to gender identity, sexual orientation, and human sexuality, proposes three areas of change. We are targeting the restriction of teachers, principals, and other school staff from using new gender identity-related preferred names or pronouns until parental notification has occurred, or for students under 16 years of age, until parental notification and consent have been obtained. 

We present three overarching appeals to the bill that address our issues with Nicolaides proposed amendments. 

Firstly, for the Alberta Government to directly consult 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy groups and community members before creating legislation that directly impacts these groups. The Trans Equality Society of Alberta , or ‘TESA’, a vocal advocacy group for transgender Albertans, has made multiple statements voicing concern about Bill 27 and other proposed discriminatory legislation against transgender individuals. One statement from TESA describes that the group has traditionally been in consistent and positive collaboration with the Alberta Government, but is now, without warning, no longer being consulted. TESA states that they are disappointed with the actions of the current Alberta Government - “They are making new rules for trans Albertans, without including us in the discussions. Even though they say they support Alberta’s trans community, their actions hurt our work and the work of other groups helping trans people in the province.” (2024, para. 2). If we do not consult and include insider group members in our decision-making, how can we truly say we are advocating for them? In order to support marginalized groups, we cannot make decisions without them. 
Secondly, instead of increasing restrictions and punishments for gender-diverse students, for the Government of Alberta to expand access to gender-affirming care and mental healthcare. The Alberta Medical Association, has strongly voiced its opposition to anti-trans legislation such as Bill 27, citing concerns for the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse youth. In an official response to this legislation, the AMA has stated “If the government truly cared for transgender individuals, they would increase funding to the two existing pediatric transgender clinics so they could provide additional services, including increased mental health support to their patients and funding for additional research”. We agree with the AMA: we call for increased access to care rather than decreased rights to privacy and freedom of expression for gender-diverse students. 

Above all, for the Government of Alberta to revoke their implementation of Bill 27. An article from CTV News has outlined the response to Bill 27 from 2SLGBTQIA+ students, teachers, healthcare workers, and community advocates. The article describes that a broad majority of impacted community members oppose Bill 27, for a multitude of reasons, including the Bill’s lack of supported evidence, and its likelihood to harm the trans student community. Many Albertans have also made it clear that there is no clear reason for the implementation of Bill 27 other than discrimination towards gender-diverse students, and that the Bill is “not representative of evidence or the needs Albertans currently have” (para. 4). In support of this rally from the community, we call on the Alberta Government to revoke Bill 27 and to reimplement their original protective guidelines as outlined in their 2016 Guide to Best Practices, which  fully implements anti-discrimination practices into its guidelines, including recommendations for an anti-bullying code of conduct, mandatory support for a student-run 2SLGBTQIA+ alliance, and the implementation of 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusive learning materials. Most significantly, these guidelines for best practices support privacy and confidentiality, recommending that school faculty members should have “a student’s explicit permission before disclosing information related to the student’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression to peers, parents, guardians or other adults in their lives” (p. 6). With these guidelines already in place, we recommend that the Alberta Government should take straightforward action by, simply, not implementing Bill 27. 

We must act now! The proposed date for the implementation of Bill 27 is September 1, 2025, and youth need your help! 

If you have concerns about youth’s rights to explore their gender identity safely in schools, we suggest reading the article: This is why young children need to explore gender identity in the classroom, or exploring the advocacy by 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy organizations such as: https://egale.ca/awareness/alberta/.