A Catholic high school student in Canada was reportedly arrested Monday after being suspended for protesting against transgender people’s use of bathrooms and saying there are only two genders – and now he’s appealing to Ontario’s human rights tribunal.
Josh Alexander, 16, said the leadership of St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario, told him that his continued attendance would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students, according to the Epoch Times.
The high school junior tweeted that Ontario police arrested and charged him after he attempted to attend class in violation of an exclusion order following his suspension earlier this school year.
“Offense is obviously defined by the offended,” Alexander told the Epoch Times. “I expressed my religious beliefs in class and it spiraled out of control. Not everybody’s going to like that. That doesn’t make me a bully. It doesn’t mean I’m harassing anybody. They express their beliefs and I express mine. Mine obviously don’t fit the narrative.”
Alexander, who described himself as a “born-again Christian” and led student action in support of last year’s trucker convoy, reportedly has not been to school since he was first suspended in November. He was hit with a suspension for allegedly organizing protests at his school against biological males in girls’ bathrooms and arguing in class that God created two unchangeable genders.
“Multiple students, including trans students, were kind of shouting me down,” the student told the Epoch Times of the classroom exchange.
Alexander said he was told by his principal that he was allowed to return to school only if he stopped using the “dead name,” or given name, of transgender students and excluded himself from classes with two transgender students who objected to his religious views about gender.
Even though it was lifted in January, Alexander’s suspension has effectively continued after the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board “excluded” him for the rest of the school year, according to his legal counsel at Liberty Coalition Canada. Alexander remains unsure whether the technically non-disciplinary action will continue into next year.
Alexander’s lawyer, James Kitchen, said the school has accused his client of “bullying” transgender students.
“Obviously, he doesn’t actually bully them as that term would be defined by … reasonable people,” Kitchen told the Epoch Times. “He’s not going to seek them out and call them names and make fun of them. But he does express his views about what these people say and about what they believe and about what they’re doing. And he expresses them online, and he expresses them in the class.”
Later this month, Alexander plans to appeal his original suspension to the provincial human rights tribunal, which would bring his case before a school board panel. The appeal has reportedly hit a technical snag regarding whether Alexander is independent of his parents.
The principal of St. Joseph’s Catholic High School told Fox News Digital he was prohibited under Canadian law from commenting on the ongoing case.
may god bless you ,he is on your side !
I oppose it as well. I believe in what the Bible says. Infact God created 2 genders and being transgender is a sin. So up yours if you think it’s right! God will deal with all of you! Bite me!
don’t argue with the brainless, it’s a lost cause. send them and the froot loop administration all on a paid free vacation to fantasy island (Guantanamo Bay)
This is completely absurd!!! This isn’t communist China or Russia!!! We have a group of people who have decided that it’s ok for them who may have been bullied or tormented in the past for their beliefs and behaviors have now become the bullies!! The cake maker and the flower shop owner and untold others have been bullied and tormented for not agreeing with the group of deviants while these deviants even go to the point of filing ridiculous lawsuits!! Just because you are comfortable in you deviant behavior doesn’t mean that you should be pushy about it with others!!! You be you and allow me to be me!!