A caring, welcoming learning environment
Reduxx has more on the Ontario teacher with the giant tits prosthetic:
The Ontario High School at the center of controversy for having a male teaching young students while donning a large prosthetic bust has issued a full defense of the teacher in a newly-leaked email sent to parents.
I wonder what they would say if a female teacher wore a comparably massive prosthetic penis while teaching.
Following the viral news, [Oakville Trafalgar High School] has now issued an email statement to parents in which they defend Lemieux’s employment status in the name of inclusivity.
“We are aware of discussion on social media and in the media regarding Oakville Trafalgar High School. We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate to our community that we are committed to establishing and maintaining a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable and welcoming learning and working environment for all students and staff,” the email reads.
Wait.
That doesn’t work.
Allowing that guy to ponce around with fake tits the size of an armchair down his sweater rules out a safe, caring, and welcoming environment for girl students at the very least. It may make some of the male students uncomfortable too, I don’t know, but for girls it’s basically a punch in the face. It’s what you might call a hostile learning environment. I don’t think your average male office drone would be allowed to wear a blimp down his shirt at work, because it would so obviously be an insulting parody of women. Don’t insult our intelligence with blather about a welcoming learning environment.
The school defers to the Ontario Human Rights Code, suggesting that any concerns about Lemieux would be akin to discrimination.
“We strive to promote a positive learning environment in schools consistent with the values of the HDSB and to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all students, staff and the community, regardless of race, age, ability, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, cultural observance, socioeconomic circumstances or body type/size.”
That’s another issue – body type or size. How are girls with large breasts going to feel in that school? How are large girls going to feel? Large girls with large breasts?
That school needs to strive better.
‘I wonder what they would say if a female teacher wore a comparably massive prosthetic penis while teaching.’
Or even a massive prosthetic bust. I would like to see a woman teacher wear the exact same outfit to work; the difference in administrative response would be enlightening. (But some women on Ovarit have pointed out that even if a woman wanted to risk it women think too much of their profession, and their students, to play stupid games. Also apparently that thing costs something like $600.)
Oakville is a (middle-to-high-income) exurb of Toronto. I’ll note that the school website includes a dresscode (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MHzhuYUfdW_oD3LPw56BNkhd53EQolVD/view), which among other things says:
● Dress codes must prevent students from wearing clothing or accessories that display (but are not limited to) the following: images, logos or language that portray ethnic prejudice, racism, sexism, vulgarity, gang-related markings, obscenities, profanity, hate speech, and/or
pornography.
● Dress codes must prevent students from wearing clothing or accessories that denote, suggest, display or reference alcohol, drugs or related paraphernalia, or other illegal conduct or activities.
● Dress codes must prevent students from wearing clothing that exposes or makes visible
genitals and nipples.
It seems to me that this teacher’s attire violates several of these provisions, but I’m guessing that it never occurred to the Halton District School Board that they would need to include instructors in these restrictions.
As a woman with large breasts, I will say that the mere images of the teacher were bad. I have been valued in many settings for the size of my breasts (I usually wear loose fitting clothes so people – especially men – can’t tell how large they are). I do not want to be valued for the size of my breasts. And I, like most other women with large breasts, do not want to be made a figure of mockery or lasciviousness, depending on what way the man does it.
I imagine women with small breasts would also feel put down and degraded; many of the ones I know feel there is something wrong with them because their breasts are small. This would do nothing to help.
If this man genuinely thought of himself as just another woman, it is perhaps not too surprising that he feels most comfortable blending in as a woman by use of props. Thus the wig is not surprising, but the prosthetic tits he chose are not conducive to simply blending in. The size and massive erect nipples are not for blending in, but for sexualising his appearance and gaining attention. This man’s ‘womanhood’ is a pornified caricature of being a woman, a wish fulfilment performance, a kink.
The school’s acceptance of this fetishist as a genuine woman is an insult to every female staff member and especially every female student: if this obvious man becomes a woman by having gigantic porn tits, women are all about having gigantic porn tits.
I can only imagine the discomfort he causes amongst the girls attending that school, especially once the school declared its support of him. That support means they have little to no recourse for their discomfort, and all but brands any that are uncomfortable as bigots.
The article updates are interesting.
“While the [Halton District School Board] is now attempting to claim they do not know the identity of the individual in the viral media, their own staff directory had been used by Reduxx as a reference when determining the teacher’s identity and employment status.
As of this update’s writing, HDSB has ended public access to the staff directory for OTHS faculty.”
The fact that he is prioritizing his fetish over his duty to his students shows that he is not fit to teach. What other fetish is the school board willing to accommodate? How is it that “gender identity” gets a free pass? Maybe this is a massive troll of the school board, I dunno. ( I had secretly wished that Trump’s campaign had been a massive trolling of America, wherein, at the end, he would drop the boorish act and warn his fellow citizens of the dangers of mindless populism and revenge politics. That’s one way I was able to accept his alarming success. But I digress.)
Gender claims and demands have been in Poe territory since the outset, with no way to distinguish reality from what one hopes is parody. The claims and demands keep reaching farther and farther into the intrusive, outlandish and grotesque. If a claim or demand is not beaten back, then it becomes occupied territory, part of the new normal. Until we hear otherwise, this guy must be considered genuine and sincere. The fact that the school is taking this sick asshole as the genuine article shows that they’re worse than he is, because they’re willingly indulging his fetish/trolling. In the process to appease genderists, the school board is throwing the safeguarding of students to the wind. Their welfare, safety, and dignity should come well before the “need” for “gender expression” of this teacher. Dare I say they should come first? Crazy talk, right? He should be barred from the school; if he feels hard done by, he can sue. If the union wants to nail their reputation to his fetishism, let them. They can sue too. Keeping him away from students is the least the board should be doing. Instead, it’s open season for dodgy kinksters to get their jollies off in front of minors. Slow clap.
Adult people of sound mind shouldn’t be thinking of themselves as just another [thing they’re not] though. Adult people of sound mind shouldn’t be thinking of themselves as rabbits or airplanes or the Pacific Ocean, and adult men of sound mind shouldn’t be thinking of themselves as women. If they’re not of sound mind they probably shouldn’t be teaching.
Oh I agree with that; my point was more that even if we were thinking of giving him the benefit of the doubt as to the sincerity of his beliefs, the turbo tits contradict any such generous interpretation. His claim of womanhood is not true, and his claim is in bad faith.
Damn. You mean I’m not the Pacific Ocean? I was so enjoying it…well, not the part about having trash dumped in me, and oil spills, and so forth…but otherwise…
Holms – I knew that really, I can just never resist hammering it home for the umpty-thousandth time. I still can’t figure out how we as a society or collection of societies got to this point where we’re pretending it’s fine and healthy for adults to play Let’s Pretend all day long. Pretending begets more pretending begets more ad infinitum.
More from the Reduxx item:
Would BlogTO be as quick to defend a white teacher in blackface? Not someone who’d been careful in applying their dark skin-toned make-up, but some who’d used actual, minstrel-show black blackface, complete with oversized pale lips and curly black wig. That is the sort of thing they’re defending. Instead they’re trying to hide behind faux femminist concern over policing women’s “body shape or outfits.” It isn’t his body, it’s a costume, and one that’s a hair’s breadth away from Barbie Kardashian cartoonishness. Protesting his presence in the school isn’t “body shaming,” it’s about opposing the fetishistic dehumanization of women and girls.
There’s no way in hell the school board would allow a women of those proportions to dress in that fashion. Ditto a woman sporting a huge prosthetic boner. And what about students? Will they be allowed to don similarly offensive and demeaning prosthetics? Why are they letting this man do this? Why does the phrase “gender identity” make this okay for him to dress and behave in this way? Would he be permitted to do this if it had nothing to do with any kind of “gender identity” or “gender expression?” If not, why not? Is there some secret clause in the board’s contracts or code of standards that requires the “inclusion” of disturbed men like this? Are they that scared of him? Do they live in deadly fear of a Twitter pile-on? Are they identifying as invertebrates? They’re doing a bang-up job; spinelessness does make it easier to do the head-tilt right.
Hiding behind the Ontario Human Rights Code does not reduce their culpability and cowardice: it magnifies it. If the school board thinks their defence of this man makes them look good, they are gravely mistaken. It must take an exhausting amount of doublethink to see this teacher as someone who should be placed in a position of care or responsibility over…anyone. Their reflexive, perfomative inclusiveness is going to play very poorly to most people. Outside of social media activists, most everyone else can see this guy is unfit to teach. Those who would wish to see him removed from the school are not fascist bigots. But bad as it is, this isn’t the ratio they need to be worrying about. Ontario holds municipal elections on October 24, including school trustees. Usually the contests for these positions are not as well publicized or interesting as those for mayoral or council seats. This year might be a little different. Is the defence of this man really the hill these board members want to die on? I’m sure images of this “teacher” will make it into the campaigns of candidates running against incumbent trustees. Will nobody think of the voters?
It’s already hard enough for teenage girls to 1) be teenagers going through puberty, 2) be in highschool, 3) be accepted as equals in shop class. Now in this class the girls are faced with an *officially sanctioned* physical caricature of womanhood. And (unlike English or Math class) this is a situation in which a teacher is likely to be moving around the classroom, and frequently in close proximity to the students. I can imagine a lot of girls deciding that the benefit of learning about power tools and woodworking is not worth the discomfort of having to be constantly exposed to this parody of womanhood, and therefore deciding to leave the class.
Likely learning outcomes:
* shop class is not for girls
* women’s bodies are for objectification
* the safety and comfort of students is secondary to the safety and comfort of those in power
All of that. (I was going to say “Nailed it” but realized it would look like a pun.)