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Posted on 10/03/2009 2:14:26 PM PDT by narses
An Edmonton teacher fired after telling a Catholic school board she was changing her gender to a man says the case fuels an unfair stereotype nationwide that Albertans are rednecks.
"I do believe it may feed into the myth that Albertans are redneck," said Jan Buterman who this week launched an Alberta Human Rights Commission complaint about the firing from a public Catholic school board in St. Albert that came on her birthday last October. "I really don't think it's really what Alberta is," said Buterman.
She's undergoing the process of becoming a man and had been a substitute teacher at the board for six months.
She said she was removed from the substitute teaching list of the Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools board after receiving a letter from a deputy superintendent who wrote, "Since you made a personal choice to change your gender, which is contrary to Catholic teachings, we have had to remove you from the substitute teacher list."
The official said the gender change "would create confusion and complexity with students and parents as a model and witness to Catholic faith values."
Buterman -- who has two children -- said she's essentially a man trapped in a woman's body and has a gender identity disorder.
"I do actually have a real medical condition. I really didn't know this sort of thing could happen anymore," she said of being axed by the board. "It doesn't feel very good. If feels pretty horrifying."
She said laws should protect her against being discriminated over gender or medical conditions.
Buterman said the board's argument that she couldn't be a "model and witness to Catholic faith values" rings hollow because officials also knew she was a Lutheran when first hired and that didn't pose an issue.
"Are they saying if someone was Sikh or Muslim they wouldn't hire them at all?"
Buterman's case is drawing comparisons to that of Delwin Vriend's fight in the 1990s. Vriend was an instructor at Edmonton's King's University College and was fired because of his homosexuality. His attempt to file a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission failed because legislation at the time didn't protect people on grounds of their sexual orientation.
Vriend's fight wound up in the Supreme Court of Canada that essentially ruled provincial human rights laws must protect people against discrimination over their sexual orientation.
A spokesman for the St. Albert school board could not be reached for comment.
In March, Alberta debuted a $25-million rebranding campaign whose main video stressed Albertans are progressive, "open" thinkers who "embrace diversity."
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
good for them
No, she is undergoing the process of being mutilated. If she started out as a woman, she will remain a woman. You can't change reality because you decide that you don't like it.
Alberta was about the last hope for conservative, Bible-oriented (as opposed to progressive, open) Canadians. Guess they'll have to move to the rural areas now and keep quiet.
You say redneck like it is a bad thing. As for me, I'll take redneck over mentally ill any day.
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No innocent well-meaning deed goes unpunished; Catholic schools often hire Protestants, particularly Lutherans, because they assume they are Christians and accept Christian values. However, the woman is being disingenous. Even if she had been Catholic, she still wouldn't be allowed to teach in a Catholic school if she was "changing" her sex.
Red-necks? It shows that Albertans are some of the few left with any common sense.
A woman was hired not a man.
So who got fired?
Seems to me like the woman quit.
Then when the man applies they can say: STAY AWAY FROM OUR CHILDREN YOU FREAK!
I fail to see the ‘controversy’ here. A private, religious school is going to have certain lifestyle expectations. This substitute teacher made a decision that would be incompatible with said lifestyle. The school has the absolute right to end their association with this employee. The only ‘rednecks’ will be the ones screaming and railing against the school for firing the substitute teacher.
Alberta rocks, btw. Some beautiful country up there. Friendly folks, too.
She is essentially a woman, with major psychological issues.
I will take the mentally ill over the rats any day, oh wait they are the same.
> She is essentially a woman, with major psychological issues.
Let's see yer chromosomes, Honey.
X-X-Y? Okay, ya gotta a legit medical condition, yer confused, talk to yer doctor.
X-X? Sorry, yer a girl.
If someone wants to get an addadictomy, it’s not my business; unless, of course, it it brings someone I love into the same perverse persuasion.
Why does this remind me of the poof on South Park (only in reverse)
This reads like propaganda. First of all, never let the enemy define the terms, no matter what. They’ll certainly try, but no matter. How is it that “redneck” must be used. By her own admission, it’s a “myth” anyway. EVERYONE is just sick of these bastards philosophical masturbation. And let’s drag religion into the equation for good measure. Perhaps atheists detest self-mutilation as well? Hm.
A woman is undergoing surgery to mutilate her sexual organs, and the people in this article aren’t concerned about her teaching children at a Catholic school... Instead, they’re worried Albertans will be seen as “rednecks”...?
It’s Upside Down World.
And how funny is it that they’re having a campaign to show Albertans as “open thinkers who embrace diversity.”
Unless that diversity includes rednecks, I guess. Oh, no, they don’t want THOSE kind of people. ;-)
This is why it’s so difficult to distinguish between satire and reality today: Real-life news stories sound like jokes.
IT’S a CATHOLIC school - for pete’s sake - they are Constitutionally entitled to operate on the basis of upholding THEIR moral values in their own organizations - as is ANY PRIVATE SCHOOL.
Why do people who knowingly hold a different value set than some organization turn around and go to work for, and insist they have a right to work for, that organization? I have never understood that.
Constitutionally it should be understood that government, and ONLY the government, cannot “discriminate” - in jobs and stuff - because it is everyone’s government, but our privately organized associations are free to set the terms of those associations, or else they are NOT FREE, but mere extensions of the government.
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