Why I'm Glad My School Wasn't Covered in Pride Flags When I Came Out

How is any of this good for kids?

In my home province of Alberta, Canada, teachers are encouraged to cover their walls with pride flags and other symbols. As a lesbian woman, I am so thankful this wasn’t the case when I was coming out of the closet as a teen.

When people try to tell me that Alberta is a socially conservative, homophobic, transphobic place, I laugh, and I almost want to say, “I wish.” We could actually use a bit of that rumored social conservatism.

Instead, we have a province that enthusiastically adopted the SOGI 1 2 3 program which teaches kids that everyone has a sexual orientation and gender identity, including children.

“SOGI” stands for “sexual orientation and gender identity” and “1 2 3” stands for the steps to implement “SOGI-inclusive education.” According to the SOGI-Inclusive Classroom Checklist, this should involve making sure that “the posters and visual representations on classroom walls reflect diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”

In other words: put up a bunch of pride flags and present ideas about sex and gender that will confuse all the children.

Of course, this is not exclusive to my province nor to schools that have this program. In Southern Ontario, an initiative called Rainbow Classrooms provides free progress pride flags (a bastardization of the original rainbow flag) for display in classrooms.

And of course, this isn’t exclusive to Canada, even though it is particularly bad here. One of the main genres of videos posted by Libs of TikTok is teachers from all over the United States covering their walls in pride flags and boasting about the discussions they have with students about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Why on earth is any of this necessary? Well, it’s often brought in under the guise of anti-bullying. The SOGI 1 2 3 website, for example, claims that 2SLGBTQ+ (the Canadian version of the rainbow acronym) students feel “unsafe.” The solution seems to be to draw as much attention to them as possible.

I came out at 16 while attending a Catholic high school in 2006. It wasn’t the easiest process, but the main concern I had to grapple with was that I didn’t want to be known as “the lesbian,” and I wanted as little fuss about it all as possible.

I can’t imagine what it would have felt like seeing pride flags plastered on walls, having teachers who would want to talk to me about my sexuality, or worse, having teachers who would want to “celebrate” it. Mortifying.

And that’s the best-case scenario. Perhaps, if I had been presented with the transgender pride flag or the progress pride flag along with nonsensical and downright delusional ideas about gender identity, I might not have come out as a lesbian at all but as some flavor of trans instead.

I was already a very gender non-conforming kid. My behavior coupled with my growing attraction to other girls could have easily had me thinking I was actually a boy, especially if presented with such ludicrous ideas in the classroom.

And the teachers would have been right there to usher me along the path. Far too many educators today see their role not simply as one of “supporting” and “affirming” trans-identified students, but as facilitators of that transition.

Far too many schools and school boards also now have policies in place not to inform parents when kids start using a different name or pronouns at school. Some even have “transition closets” for kids who want to change into something more “gender affirming” at school.

Another reason why I am glad none of this was around while I was at school is that finding myself overly celebrated for my sexuality or my declared gender identity would have likely stunted my maturity. Teenagers can be fairly self-centered, but it’s a normal part of development that one, hopefully, grows out of.

Gay Rights Was About Accepting Differences, Trans Rights is About Denying Them

This could be a lot harder to do if you are ushered into the role of a prophet of the brave new “queer” movement, demanding affirmation and wielding your oppression points as a cudgel. How is a teenager supposed to grow into a well-adjusted adult when they’ve been marked out as both special and oppressed, as both a victim and as someone who gets to control and coerce the speech of others?

I see no benefit at all to pushing these discussions in schools and adorning the walls with the symbols of this strange cult—and the anti-bullying angle doesn’t cut it. Kids are bullied for many reasons but, as far as I can see, we haven’t made any other group the special focus of a campaign as intense as the one targeting “LGBTQIA+” kids.

That’s because none of this is about acceptance, anti-bullying, or actually helping children. It’s about indoctrinating kids into the religion of queer and creating missionaries out of them.

Not one bit of this nonsense is needed for same-sex attracted teens to realize or come to terms with their sexuality.

I was lucky to have come out after many before me fought for greater acceptance of people like me. Even though pride flags didn’t litter my school, general social attitudes had shifted and made it a lot less difficult than it was for people before me.

But I worry about the young gay people who came after me, the ones who were confused with ideas about gender identity while trying to come to terms with their sexuality, or whose sexuality became too big a part of their personality.

I also worry about those still to come who might have to deal with a significant backlash created by the queer activists who are pushing so hard to transform schools into indoctrination centers and who are finally starting to push parents too far.

Will these teens have to grow up in a world where it is once again unsafe to be open about their sexuality because the pendulum swung back so hard and no one cares that the gay movement was hijacked by a bunch of ideologues? Will everyone just blame “the gays” and call it done?

I hope not, but those covering the walls of schools in pride flags seem hell-bent on making sure of it.