Are You Gay? Transgendered? Lesbian? Confused?

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board's director of education, Barrie Hammond claims "We don't want to offend people", but it would appear there will be quite a few people who may indeed be offended. On behalf of their children, on their own part; being asked presumptuous, fairly intimate questions so that the Board, ostensibly, can be sensitized to the range of young people represented within its jurisdiction, and act on that knowledge.

The purpose of which is not clearly defined. Is this motivated by recent news coverage of the discomfiting situation that young people whose gender orientation or presumed orientation has caused them problems with their peers in various jurisdictions? Problems that have arisen that have been the result of insensitivity and boorish behaviour on the part of their peers, causing anguish to young men and women whose unconventional gender attraction is sneered at by those in the mainstream?

It is amazing in a sense, that even while society in general has come around to accepting that there are some people for whom what is considered normal opposite-gender attractions holds no allure. Society which once shunned, held in contempt and threatened those whose orientation was toward others of the same gender, is now comfortable in accepting that differences exist and they are legitimate, and natural for some.

Yet children, who are so often thought of as being less condemnatory in nature, and more open-minded, are often the cruelest in labelling people as inferior or strange or 'weird' because of their orientation. Part and parcel of the bullying phenomenon that exists wherever people tend to congregate, and school, at every level, is where that occurs most commonly.

Yet, even if, as is being planned by the School Board, intrusive questionnaires relating to home life, religious affiliation and sexual orientation will become routine, and it is anticipated that most people will agree to filling out the questions - although there will be no compulsion placed upon people to do so - what can the compiled results render?

Greater sensitivity to the obvious needs of those emotionally affected by being isolated through perceived differences? It does seem, in this multifarious society that we live in, with so many variations in family structures, values and priorities, that these matters are private and most people would prefer they be kept that way.

It's hard not to anticipate a lot of resistance to this initiative. It might be well-meaning, but the very nature of its intrusiveness and busy-bodying interference may spell its death-knell as a useful tool.