SOGI School Resources Are Back as an Election Issue

Eight years after SOGI 123 first became a political lightning rod in B.C. elections, LGBTQ2S(IA)+ rights advocate Wilbur Turner says this provincial election has been the most divided over the optional learning and policy resources.

“Because we’ve got the B.C. Conservatives and OneBC campaigning on repealing it,” Turner, who recently ran unsuccessfully to be a school trustee in the Central Okanagan district, told The Tyee.

In his work as an advocate, Turner often speaks to people who are opposed to SOGI 123, including politicians, candidates and the public.

“From what I can hear from people that are adamantly opposed to it, they actually don’t want their kids exposed to gay and trans kids in the classroom,” he said. “They don’t want it talked about, they don’t want any visibility.”

SOGI 123 is a collection of optional, age-appropriate learning resources and school board policy templates addressing bullying and inclusive schools. It was introduced in 2017. SOGI stands for “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The resources were created by the non-profit ARC Foundation in collaboration with the provincial education ministry under the then-BC Liberals, the University of British Columbia, BC Teachers’ Federation, and 56 out of 60 public school districts.

The introduction of SOGI followed the addition of gender identity as a protected class to the BC Human Rights Code in 2016.

That same year the BC Liberal government issued a directive to all public school boards and private schools to include sexual orientation and gender identity in their anti-bullying codes of conduct.

SOGI 123 isn’t part of the provincial curriculum and it isn’t sexual health education. In B.C., parents have the option to deliver sexual health education lessons to their kids directly instead of having them learn in school.

SOGI 123 is a collection of school board policy templates and educational resources that school districts and teachers can choose to use to ensure schools are inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit people, among other genders and sexualities.

For example, optional lessons include a primer on intersex biology for high school students, as part of a broader lesson on how hormones impact human development.

In Grades 2 and 3, students might learn about gender identities as part of a lesson on the various elements of self-identity. And there are age-appropriate resources for teaching students in kindergarten to Grade 4 about different family makeups, including but not limited to same-sex parents.

The roots of misinformation about SOGI 123

But that hasn’t stopped misinformation from spreading over the years. Some of that has come from outside groups, like Christian nationalist organization Action4Canada.

In February 2023 Action4Canada was banned from addressing the Mission School Board for a year after sharing “misinformation” and “hateful propaganda” at a board meeting. That same month, the RCMP took the “unusual step” of confirming that books in Chilliwack’s school libraries did not “contain child pornography” after Action4Canada founder Tanya Gaw made allegations.

Wilbur says he has traced misinformation he has heard about SOGI — such as the claim that resources teach kindergarten students to masturbate — back to flyers created and distributed by Action4Canada.

“Handed out to parents as they picked their kids up from school in Kelowna,” Turner said of the flyers. “People are believing it, unfortunately.”

The B.C. Conservative party — which includes many MLAs previously elected with the now-defunct BC Liberal/BC United party — is running on a platform of eliminating SOGI 123 altogether because of the “division” it causes.

“I think that many people are confused about what SOGI has become in our school,” interim B.C. Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson is quoted as saying on the party’s website.

The problem? Much of that confusion and division comes from the B.C. Conservatives and OneBC candidates themselves, Turner says.

Including former BC Liberal premier Christy Clark, who Turner spoke with a few weeks ago. Clark was in power when SOGI 123 was developed and released in 2017.

Last month Clark called for “unity” in the B.C. Conservative party after then-leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay stepped down.

Turner said he asked Clark why SOGI was being raised as an election issue instead of issues like housing and health care.

“She basically told me that the BC Teachers’ Federation had taken SOGI and basically turned it into something it wasn’t intended to be. She said basically it’s now sex education with some extra things added on.”

The Tyee reached out to Clark for comment, but did not hear back by publication time.

Where the NDP stands

While the provincial NDP does not mention SOGI in its online platform — which barely references public education at all — they have previously supported the program.

Until this year’s budget, that is, when the BC NDP government cut all funding for the ARC Foundation.

The non-profit, which has been keeping the SOGI resources up-to-date and providing teacher professional development on how to use them, is currently “winding down” operations.

A Tyee interview request emailed to the ARC Foundation’s board did not receive a response by publication time.

“I actually am quite disappointed with the NDP government over this issue,” said Turner, who is a member of the party.

“I believe the NDP government has abdicated the responsibility for sticking up for it.”

Where the Greens and other parties stand

The BC Green party is promising to not only support but also expand the “SOGI 123 initiative” in its election platform.

OneBC, an offshoot party of the B.C. Conservatives created when MLA Dallas Brodie was kicked out of the party for mocking residential school survivors, takes an even more “hardline” stance against SOGI than the Conservatives, says Turner.

In addition to pledging to remove SOGI 123 and all “politicized content” from schools, the party is also pushing for a “parental bill of rights” that would require informed consent from parents regarding their children’s education and “classroom transparency” for parents of “minor-age students.”

Centre BC, another B.C. Conservative offshoot party, is not opposing SOGI.

Earlier this summer, the party’s then-leader Mike Bernier, who had been the education minister when SOGI 123 was introduced in 2017, expressed support for the resources.

SOGI isn’t mentioned in Centre BC’s election platforms. But current leader Elenore Sturko, also a former BC Liberal turned BC United MLA before she joined the BC Conservatives in 2024, called out parties and politicians that are pledging to remove SOGI 123.

“There’s a marked difference between making sure that all materials are appropriate for school, and saying that we’re just going to eliminate any references to an entire Charter-protected class of people,” Sturko said, adding we are seeing a rise in homophobia and hate-motivated crimes in B.C.

Adding she believes misinformation and “bigotry” are why SOGI continues to be an election issue, Sturko criticized the NDP for not doing more to counter the misinformation and taking away ARC Foundation’s funding.

Sturko also criticized the B.C. Conservatives for not firing MLA Heather Maahs, who compared using SOGI 123 resources to “grooming” children when she was a Chilliwack school trustee in 2022.

“She is obviously championed by Lorne Doerkson,” Sturko said. “And when you endorse a candidate, you endorse their views.”

Research shows SOGI resources have had a positive impact

In 2024, the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre at UBC conducted an evaluation of SOGI 123’s impact on students in B.C. public schools.

The report found not only did the education and district policy resources reduce instances of some forms of bullying and discrimination for LGBTQ2S+ students, but also for cisgender and heterosexual students, too.

Turner noted some of the opposition to SOGI comes from the mistaken belief that certain books subject to bans from schools in both the United States and Alberta are being erroneously linked to SOGI 123.

For example, It’s Perfectly Normal, a sexual health teaching resource for ages 10 and older that is available in some school libraries in the Central Okanagan School District.

“I actually checked with the previous superintendent about it, because I was getting a lot of questions a couple of years ago,” said Turner.

“And he said that book is actually not available to students. It’s for parents who opt their kids out of sex ed at school; it’s a resource for those parents.”

In an email to The Tyee, a spokesperson for the Central Okanagan District said there are two copies of It’s Perfectly Normal in the district. But neither copy of the book is available for students to read or take out of the library on their own.

One politician previously misinformed about SOGI 123 is Centre BC leader Sturko.

She initially supported the resources when she was first elected to the BC Liberals in 2022. Then in 2024, when Sturko crossed the floor to the B.C. Conservatives, she told The Tyee, “We definitely need to take a look at SOGI.”

Today Sturko has a different take, saying she had seen some “graphic” images from books like Gender Queer, a graphic novel memoir about a nonbinary young adult, that had concerned her.

But Sturko later found out from speaking with a school district official that these books were not part of the SOGI 123 resources.

“I think that it’s totally reasonable for parents and anyone to say that the materials and resources that are being used in schools would be, number one, approved, age-appropriate and relevant to what kids are learning in schools,” said Sturko, who identifies as a lesbian.

“But if the overarching reason behind removing a resource is to eliminate representation of the LGBT community from materials in schools, then I’m against that.”