Malachy O’Kane said he remarked to the vice-principal, Wojtek Czermak, that he was forbidding him to express his own opinion as Czermak stood in front of a Black Lives Matter poster.
SHARBOT LAKE, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) – A Catholic teenager has been suspended from his Ontario public high school for wearing a sweatshirt reading “There are only two genders.”
Astonishingly, a teacher from that same school called the Children’s Aid Society about the family that day.
Malachy O’Kane, 16, was suspended on April 18, the second day he decided to wear his gender critical shirt to the Granite Ridge Education Centre in Sharbot Lake, a village near Kingston, Ontario. He was excluded from school for six days, beginning Friday, April 19.
Malachy was first told to remove his shirt by the school’s vice-principal, Wojtek Czermak, on April 17, after the teenager was called out of his classroom about 30 minutes after the school day began.
“[Czermak] actually had the student counselor who helps talk with all the kids in the room with him,” Malachy told LifeSiteNews. “He said, ‘You can’t wear that.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘It’s considered hate speech.’”
According to the teenager, the school, which serves children from kindergarten to Grade 12, displays ideo-political messaging, including LGBT and Black Lives Matter images, on its walls. Malachy said he remarked to the vice-principal that Czermak was forbidding him to express his own opinion as he stood in front of a BLM poster.
Malachy’s mother Kate O’Kane told LifeSiteNews that she knew that Malachy was going to get resistance when he went to school in his “There are only two genders” shirt. In fact, that resistance came from staff. Malachy told LifeSiteNews that when he arrived at school, many students high-fived him and said they agreed with him but guessed aloud that he would be suspended.
At first, the vice-principal merely remonstrated with Malachy and called the boy’s mother, who was waiting by the phone. Kate stood firmly behind her son, telling Czermak that the young man has “the freedom to express himself” and “the freedom to express his beliefs.”
“You shove the LGBTQ down these children’s throats, and if they say they disagree with you, they’re silenced,” the mother of five recalled telling the vice-principal.
“They’re removed so they can’t be loud, but you’re very loud. It’s all over the schools,” she added.
“I said, if he had shown up wearing a pride flag saying gender is non-binary, he would have been celebrated. But he wears this saying there are only two genders, quietly protesting what he believes. And he is taken out and silenced and removed.”
READ: Catholic school board upholds Josh Alexander’s suspension for opposing gender ideology
