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In 2002, jurisdictions across Canada began adding two new protected grounds to their human rights laws: gender identity and/or gender expression. Gender identity protections generally apply only to transgender people, whereas gender expression protections "may apply" to all Canadians in places like K-12 schools. However, it remains legally unclear what kind of action, utterance, or pattern constitutes gender expression discrimination, and who can access related protections. In search of clarification, this article explores how the meaning of gender expression is being constructed within policy documents (N = 206) authored at the level of Ontario's English public secular school boards.

In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada's newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising--that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby's Act (passed in 2012) at the level of policy, as few boards have added these grounds in a way that enacts the spirit of that legislation. While this finding is likely unsurprising, our study also yielded findings that unsettle any facile binary of "Catholic boards/bad" and "public secular boards/good" in relation to gender diversity. We also leverage our findings to suggest a striking possibility for a vigorous and doctrinally-compatible embrace of gender expression protections in Catholic schools, if not gender identity protections. We argue that fear of gender expression protections may stem from an erroneous conflation of "gender expression" with "gender identity" when these are in fact separate grounds--a conflation that is also endemic within secular Ontario school board policy; this doubles as a conflation of gender expression with "transgender," as the latter is unfailingly linked with gender identity human rights. We make a series of recommendations for policy, and a case for Catholic schools embracing their legal duty to provide a learning environment free from gender expression discrimination without doctrinal conflict and arguably with ample doctrinal support, so that students of all gender expressions can flourish regardless of whether they are or will come to know they are transgender.

Dans cet article, nous partageons les resultats d'une analyse des documents de politiques des conseils scolaires catholiques de l'Ontario (n = 179) comprenant les plus recents fondements ayant trait aux droits de la personne du Canada : l'expression de genre et l'identite de genre. Notre principale conclusion n'est surement pas surprenante : les conseils scolaires catholiques de l'Ontario ne repondent generalement pas a la Loi Toby (adoptee en 2012) sur le plan de leurs politiques, puisque peu de conseils ont decide d'ajouter ces fondements de facon a permettre que l'esprit de cette loi soit respecte. Bien que cette constatation ne soit pas vraiment surprenante, notre etude a egalement obtenu des resultats qui remettent en question la notion du binarisme rudimentaire << conseils catholiques, mauvais >> et << conseils publics laics, bons >> en ce qui a trait a la diversite des genres. Nos resultats permettent egalement d'entrevoir la possibilite prometteuse d'une adoption enthousiaste et doctrinalement compatible a la protection de l'expression de genre dans les ecoles catholiques, voire a la protection de l'identite de genre. Nous soutenons que la reticence entourant la protection de l'expression du genre a peut-etre pour fondement la confusion des termes << expression de genre >> et << identite de genre >>, alors qu'il s'agit en fait de fondements distincts. Cette convergence est egalement endemique dans les politiques des conseils scolaires laics de l'Ontario, ce qui entraine en meme temps la convergence des termes << expression de genre >> et << transgenre >>, ce dernier etant indefectiblement lie aux droits de la personne portant sur l'identite de genre. Nous avons redige une serie de recommandations en matiere de politiques, et nous plaidons pour que les ecoles catholiques s'acquittent de leur obligation legale de fournir un environnement d'apprentissage exempt de discrimination fondee sur l'expression de genre, sans conflit doctrinal et avec un large soutien doctrinal, afin que les eleves de toutes les expressions de genre puissent s'epanouir, que cette personne soit transgenre ou non. Mots-cles : expression de genre, identite de genre, transgenre, Ontario, conseils scolaires, politiques, Loi Toby, droits de la personne In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada's newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising--that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby's Act (passed in 2012) at the level of policy, as few boards have added these grounds in a way that enacts the spirit of that legislation. While this finding is likely unsurprising, our study also yielded findings that unsettle any facile binary of 'Catholic boards/bad' and 'public secular boards/good' in relation to gender diversity. We also leverage our findings to suggest a striking possibility for a vigorous and doctrinally-compatible embrace of gender expression protections in Catholic schools, if not gender identity protections. We argue that fear of gender expression protections may stem from an erroneous conflation of 'gender expression' with 'gender identity' when these are in fact separate grounds--a conflation that is also endemic within secular Ontario school board policy; this doubles as a conflation of gender expression with 'transgender,' as the latter is unfailingly linked with gender identity human rights. We make a series of recommendations for policy, and a case for Catholic schools embracing their legal duty to provide a learning environment free from gender expression discrimination without doctrinal conflict and arguably with ample doctrinal support, so that students of all gender expressions can flourish regardless of whether they are or will come to know they are transgender. Keywords: gender expression, gender identity, transgender, Ontario, school boards, policy, Toby's Act, human rights, Introduction Ontario Catholic schools have a fraught history in relation to human rights laws regarding gender and sexuality (Callaghan, 2018; Iskander & Shabtay, 2018; Martino, 2014). In 2019, Ontario's Progressive [...]