website<\/a>, was to advocate \u201cfor the elimination of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum, pronouns, gender ideology and mixed bathrooms in schools.\u201d<\/p>\nOn the other side of the street, there was a gathering of counter-protesters who feel that the actions proposed by the 1 Million March 4 Children walkout are harmful to the 2SLGBTQ+ community, and advocate for taking away the rights of trans kids.<\/p>\n
Following the events on Sept. 20, Trent Radio spoke to one of Wednesday\u2019s counter protesters, Stephanie Young, an active ally and advocate for the 2SLGBTQ+ community, and a parent to a gender-diverse Peterborough high school student.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Young has been attending the majority of counter-protests in Peterborough that are related to the queer community. Most of the protests Young has attended have been in support of Betty Baker\u2019s Drag Queen Storytime, at the Peterborough Public Library.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrag queen story time protests seem to be very specific, the protest on [Wednesday] seemed to be very broad, going after the whole education system. It is really frightening and it worries me what the ultimate agenda is,\u201d says Young.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really concerned as a parent, and just as a member of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young observed that among the signs and statements of the 1 Million March 4 Children protesters, a common saying was \u201cleave our kids alone;\u201d which, to Young, is also her goal as a counter-protester:<\/p>\n
\u201cLeave the kids alone to be who they are, and let them feel safe,\u201d says Young.<\/p>\n
Young describes the importance of having a \u201csafe space\u201d at school for kids exploring queerness: \u201ckids are freer at school than they are at home,\u201d says Young.<\/p>\n
\u201cProviding a safe space for kids is always the better choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young believes that the elimination of SOGI education is taking away that \u201csafe space\u201d from kids.<\/p>\n
Listen to Trent Radio\u2019s interview with Stephanie Young to learn about her concerns about protests trying to remove queer education from school curriculums.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sept. 20, a nation-wide walk-out named the “1 Million March 4 Children” occurred across Canada. At around 9 a.m., protesters gathered on George Street North in front of Peterborough City Hall. The goal of “1 Million March 4 Children,” according to their website, was to advocate \u201cfor the elimination of the Sexual Orientation and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":182519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,221,3265,225],"tags":[30564,27113,30758,30759,30554],"radio":[25166],"origine":[267,269,25405],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182879,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182517\/revisions\/182879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182517"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=182517"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=182517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}