Opponents and supporters of how gender identity is taught in schools could clash outside Sarnia's City Hall Wednesday morning.
Sarnia is one of more than 50 cities nationwide hosting a “1 Million March 4 Children” protest. It's also one of many cities that will see counter-protests take to the streets at the same time at 9 a.m.
Organizers of the march said they're advocating for children's rights against unnecessary gender ideology teachings, sexual indoctrination and exposure to explicit sexual content, and to ensure that parental consent remains paramount.
Sarnia's counter-protest was organized by Diversity Ed Founder and Executive Director Crystal Fach, who was very disturbed to hear about the protest. Fach said unfortunately, not all trans and non-binary kids come from families that are accepting of who they are.
"And so the whole mission behind this protest that they're hosting is to follow suit of the United States and follow suit of New Brunswick and try and make it so that schools are now going to out kids to their families," said Fach. "Kids have the right to their own privacy, and kids have the right to live who they are in safest way possible, and sometimes that's not involving parents right away because maybe it's an unsafe situation."
Under New Brunswick's revised policy, parental consent is required in order for a child under the age of 16 to officially change their name or pronouns at school.
Fach said protestors are trying to advocate for parental consent and taking away kids' right to exist as who they are by spreading misinformation. "This group is making it out like we're harming trans kids, that we're indoctrinating children at schools, and that's just not the case," said Fach. "What our schools are trying to do is show children inclusivity, show children that we need to be accepting of our peers, and this group is trying to take away those rights from our teachers and our families to allow their kids to go to school and be safe."
Fach added Canada is not performing surgeries on trans and gender diverse children, and that the only medical intervention the country is doing on youth and children is introducing puberty blockers.
"So the only thing that we're doing is giving trans kids the ability to have a pause, understand their identity and see where they want to go next," said Fach. "We are not introducing any harmful things to trans and non-binary kids." Fach said that it's really important that people come out and show that residents aren't going to allow hate in the Sarnia-Lambton community.
"We're going to have positive messaging, we're just going to be loud with happy messages to drown out the hateful and misinformation that's going to be there. We are not there to engage with these people."