Rights group against introducing gender identity in schools

The Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS) is rejecting any potential attempt at acceptance or utilisation of the terms 'sexual orientation' and gender identity' (SOGI) in the education sector.

In a statement to the media yesterday, the JCHS said that SOGI is neither accepted in Jamaican law nor in any binding international treaty.

"The terms 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity' are based on false and flawed ideas. A person's sex is either male or female and is determined from conception. No matter what a person may feel about him or herself, sex can never be changed. It is biologically and medically impossible," said JCHS chairman, Dr Wayne West.

"To affirm that a man can become a woman, or a woman can become a man, by undergoing surgeries or taking hormones, is to aid and abet someone's confusion and delusion. Such a person needs sound counselling support to regain a correct sense of self. Furthermore, homosexual and bisexual sexual preferences are abnormal and run against design and purpose of the natural order of the universe," he added. The JCHS said it was standing with president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association Leighton Johnson, who, in an interview on a virtual talk show, said that while there is no war on gender identity in Jamaica now, there is a need to continue standing against this type of thinking.

The JCHS said that there would be chaos if such terms as SOGI are introduced into local law and policy, drawing on the experiences of other nations such as the USA, United Kingdom and Canada, which have normalised those terms. The entity opined that 'sexual orientation' is undefined and potentially unlimited in its scope, going beyond homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual and can include other criminally prohibited behaviours such as incest, paedophilia and bestiality. JCHS Legal Counsel Shirley Richards added that even the use of the word 'gender' to classify humans is extremely suspect.

"The Report of the Joint Constitutional Committee, 2001, which oversaw public discussion on, and deliberated on the amendments to Constitution namely the Charter of Rights, recognised that 'gender' refers to the grammatical classification of nouns and related words, however, the word 'sex' is the more appropriate designation for humans," she said. "The resulting section in the Charter of Rights therefore expressly provides for one classification of humans, namely, 'sex' being either male or female."

The JCHS urged government ministries, agencies and departments to bring their activities and programme titles in line with the Constitution by replacing 'gender' with sex, and thus avoiding the undesirable association with an unethical history in the false description of humans as a 'gender'.