When third-year student Ollie MacLeod received a flyer urging schools to ‘stop pushing transgenderism,’ their first thought was, “Is this real?”
A week later when they received a second flyer claiming that some teachers in the province want to, ‘facilitate a student’s sexual transition to the opposite sex without the knowledge or consent of parents,’ MacLeod thought, “Oh here we go again … this is crazy.”
“I kind of thought, ‘Are you kidding me? Like, really? This is what we’re doing?’” said MacLeod.
Since the last week of August, residents across New Brunswick have received multiple anti-trans flyers from an Ontario-based anti-abortion group. Until now, two versions of the flyer have been delivered.
According to CBC News, the group responsible for the flyers, Campaign Life Coalition, stated they plan on registering to be third-party advertisers for the upcoming provincial election. For New Brunswickers and students like MacLeod, who identifies as non-binary, this means more anti-trans flyers will be showing up on their doorsteps for the foreseeable future.
“The way [the flyer] is disguised, it seems almost innocent,” they said. “But then once you get really good into it, it’s like, ‘oh, this is starting to get really weird.’ It’s very sneaky.”
The flyers express support for parental consent in schools — a topic that has been the focus of Premier Blaine Higgs in the past. In June 2023, Higgs revised Policy 713, which was a baseline protection for 2SLGBTQ+ students in NB. The revision bans teachers from using a student’s preferred name and pronouns under the age of 16 without parental consent.
Related: ‘It absolutely crushed me’: Student reacts to school before, during, after Policy 713
For students like MacLeod, who was out as nonbinary during high school, having a safe and accepting school environment allowed them to express themselves and their identity. MacLeod recalled teachers that were supportive during their high school years.
“That helped me a lot and that helped me grow and make me feel more confident,” they said. “It’s not necessarily being an activist. It’s being supportive of children that they’re teaching more than more than trying to be disrespectful.”
Fourth-year criminology and human rights student Olivia Stock echoed similar sentiments, adding that not having a safe space at schools is detrimental for 2SLGBTQ+ youth with unsupportive families.
Stock referred to the flyers as ‘propoganda.’
“I think it’s pretty scary, to be honest,” she said. “It feels very anti human rights to me.”
Gail Costello, St. Thomas University’s former 2SLGBTQ+ Advisor and current co-chair of Equality NB, had similar criticisms of the flyers’ messaging. Costello was a part of the Pride in Education committee that helped write the original Policy 713 in partnership with the Department of Education. Costello received Campaign Life Coalition flyers at her house.
“They’re slanderous towards teachers. Almost everything on them is not true,” said Costello. “They don’t even use proper language. There’s no such word as transgenderism.”
With the school year about to start, Costello said the timing of the flyers was, ‘particularly cruel,’ especially in the midst of a teacher shortage in the province.
“They do everything they can to make kids welcome on the first day and excited to go back and then the teachers are hit with these flyers that are being mailed out to people all across New Brunswick,” she said.
As a former teacher and advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ youth, Costello said when the flyer appeared in her mailbox, it was ‘not shocking.’
“Everything that’s in these flyers I hear and see every single day. So it’s just so much ignorance, so much hate, so much disinformation,” she said. “It’s just disgusting.”
