Many schools across Ontario have raised rainbow flags in celebration of Pride Month, an annual opportunity to offer much-needed visibility to LGBTQ2S+ students. At those schools, flag raisings represent progress. The practice often developed through debates, conversations, and concerted efforts for recognition among LGBTQ2S+ students, their peers, and school board trustees. As a result, these flag raisings are packed with symbolism: they send a message about how inclusive a school — and by extension, a city and province — can be.
Which is why it’s especially damning, year after year, to see certain school boards forgo the conversation about LGBTQ2S+ youth representation entirely. The standout this year: the York Region Catholic District School Board, which has opted to ignore its queer and trans students.
Earlier this year, in lieu of substantive conversations around Pride flags, the YCDSB entertained a motion to ban any flag from flying at its schools (with the exception of national, provincial, and Catholic symbols). While Trustee Frank Alexander’s motion, tabled in January, did not specifically mention Pride flags, skeptics read it as a thinly veiled effort to silence the growing calls to make YCDSB schools more inclusive for LGBTQ2S+ students.
That’s because it came on the heels of an explosive March 2023 trustee board meeting to debate the merits of flying a Pride flag at board headquarters. The meeting was so divisive that police were called and security had to usher out angry parents. That May, trustees ultimately voted against flying the flag in a 6-4 vote.
Alexander’s motion to ban certain flags has since been sent to committee for further research and legal consideration. (The motion would also seek to remove all other Pride-related symbols from school properties.) But in seeking this additional consideration, good-faith conversations about LGBTQ2S+ inclusivity in YCDSB schools has effectively stalled at the trustee — that is, the decision-making — level.
In April, York Region lawyer and former Catholic school teacher Paolo de Buono called on YCDSB trustees to reconsider the 2023 vote and fly Pride flags at both YCDSB board headquarters and all YCDSB schools. “Approximately a year ago today, York Catholic students, delegates, and student trustees, they spoke clearly to you about the positive benefit for students, especially 2SLGBTQIA+ students, if York Catholic were to fly the Pride Flag,” De Buono told trustees. “Now is the time to act.”
It was an earnest call to align YCDSB schools with other Catholic boards that will fly Pride flags once again this year. Toronto Catholic schools, for instance, will raise rainbow flags across the city for the third consecutive year.
But de Buono’s request has gone unanswered.
For LGBTQ2S+ students, schools are often the first space they can witness a positive, inclusive environment that supports their sexual orientations and gender identities. Pride flags communicate belonging — that you are not alone, that you are accepted. They are small but mighty symbols of trust and community.
At a time when the rights of queer and trans kids are increasingly threatened by provincial leaders outside of Ontario, when Canada’s national security intelligence agency has issued notices of caution to Pride goers this June in fear of anti-LGBTQ2S+ retaliation, it can be difficult to find safety, security, and community in our institutions. We know that flag raisings cannot eradicate fears nor the real risks of homophobia and transphobia. But they can be a starting point, a lead-in to an ongoing conversation.
When school boards fail to act on these small measures, the message is clear: LGBTQ2S+ student safety and belonging is not a priority. This June, YCDSB trustees — and their counterparts at every other school board in Ontario that has failed to raise a Pride flag — will be forced to reckon with the consequences of their actions. If youth safety and care is their mission, they have failed.
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