16-Year-Old Catholic Arrested After Saying There Are Only Two Genders

A 16-year-old Catholic school student was arrested by Canadian police after refusing to accept his suspension for telling classmates there are only two genders.

Josh Alexander was arrested by police in Renfrew, Ontario for returning to class at St. Joseph's Catholic High School after being told he must first renounce his belief in two genders and agree to not attend two of his classes because they are attended by two transgendered students, Canada's National Post reports.

The Post reports:

“I got suspended for comments made during a class discussion,” said Josh in an interview. “It was about male students using female washrooms, gender dysphoria and male breastfeeding. Everyone was sharing their opinions on it, any student who wanted to was participating, including the teacher.

“I said there were only two genders and you were born either a male or a female and that got me into trouble. And then I said that gender doesn't trump biology.”…

…“I walked into one of my classes. I sat down and everyone looked pretty surprised to see me there. Within two minutes the vice-principal was in the classroom asking me to leave,” Josh said.

He left the class and “almost immediately I was met with the police.” Josh was put in the back of a cruiser, driven off property and later released and charged with trespassing.

The school also alleges Alexander “dead-named” the two students, a term that refers to using the name a transgender person used before their gender transition. Alexander, who admits telling the students he disagreed with their views, denies ever using their previous name.

“Compelling Josh to utter falsehoods regarding gender contrary to his beliefs and segregating him from classes are repugnant manifestations of religious discrimination,” said James Kitchen, a lawyer from the Liberty Defense Fund which is representing Josh in a suit against the school.

“Freedom once taken for granted is lost,” Alexander tells the Post. “Freedom of religion is probably one of our most important freedoms so I'm not going to surrender it in the face of persecution.”

“It just goes to show how little freedom of expression we have in our country,” Alexander added.

Such suspensions are supposedly unconstitutional in the United States, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in its 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines decision that students cannot be suspended or punished for political speech. In that case, an Iowa high school suspended three students for wearing black armbands to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, with the Court eventually ruling that students' political speech is protected in government schools so long as it does not cause “substantial disruption.”

But Canada offers no such protection, with state-directed political retribution apparently increasing.

In a highly-publicized case, the Canadian government froze the personal bank accounts of citizens who protested COVID lockdown policies.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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