An outburst of sanity occurred Ontario, Canada: The Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB) canceled performances of a play about gender identity booked in five elementary schools — withstanding the inevitable accusations of “transphobia” that followed.

The play, “Boys, Girls and Other Mythological Creatures,” was produced by the St. Catharines-based Carousel Playhouse, an organization that touts its commitment to “inclusive and diverse stories that contribute to a dialogue about how youth interact with their peers, their friends, their families, teachers, education system and society at large.” One of their listed “community partners” is Pride Niagara, which identifies itself as a “celebration of Niagara’s sexual and gender diverse community and its supporters.”

Thus it should surprise no one that the play features an eight-year-old boy who dresses as a girl and questions his gender. And given the progressive appetite for indoctrinating children, it should be even less surprising is that it was scheduled to be shown to students in the first though fourth grades.

In fact, it was shown in one Catholic grade school, and officials there came to the conclusion that the material was not age appropriate. A statement released by the district also explained the play “was not originally presented as a play about gender identity.”

NCDSB education director John Crocco echoed that sentiment, insisting the play was “not age-appropriate for a predominantly primary audience.” But he apparently felt compelled to defend the cancellations with the usual boilerplate bromides. Thus, while he explained the board’s decision to defer showing the play “was to afford time for further discussion and preparation with age-appropriate students and how the message links to curriculum expectations,” he insisted the board was “fully inclusive, accepting and supportive,” and in alignment with recent changes to the Ontario Ministry of Education’s health and physical education curriculum.

It’s a curriculum “based on the principles of inclusive education” in which “all students, parents, caregivers, and other members of the school community — regardless of ancestry, culture, ethnicity, sex, physical or intellectual ability, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or other factors — are welcomed, included, treated fairly, and respected. Diversity is valued, and all members of the school community feel safe, comfortable, and accepted” [emphasis added].

Including gender identity means the school district — taking its directives from openly-gay Premier Kathleen Wynn and her Liberal Party — has completely capitulated to the LGBT community’s transgender agenda. The one where chromosomal reality is irrelevant and self-identification is the only factor determining whether one is male or female.

Furthermore, impatience is part of that agenda. As Crocco reveals, the curriculum that speaks to “cultural values, beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc,” isn’t supposed to be imposed on students until Grade 3. Nonetheless “students in Grade 1 and 2” attended the play’s performance at Mary Ward Catholic Elementary School.

The subsequent cancellations have drawn the predictable fire from those who believe one either kowtows to the LGBT agenda or one is a bigot for refusing to do so. Carousel Playhouse artistic director Jessica Carmichael and playwright Mark Crawford posted open letters at the theater’s website, replete with the requisite board-bashing epithets. Carmichael was concerned the cancellations “may be based on misinformation, grown out of fear, intolerance, transphobia, homophobia and misogyny,” while Crawford insisted he was apprehensive “when the motivating factor for canceling performances of this play is a few adults’ own fear, prejudice, and hatred.”

Campaign Life Coalition member Clinton Somerton, a staunch opponent of the government-imposed curriculum, defended the NCDSB’s decision. “Pope Francis condemned attempts to indoctrinate children into gender ideology, expressing outrage over such sexual propaganda by saying ‘Today children — children! — are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex. … And this is terrible!’” Somerton explained, adding that the board “was wisely following the Holy Father’s guidance by protecting its students from the psycho-sexual molestation of this theatre group’s propaganda-in-a-play.”

He also had some sage advice for faint-hearted people like Crocco and others, insisting they “should not to be afraid of the bludgeon-words ‘homophobe,’ ‘transphobe’ and the like, that are too often used to intimidate decent people into silence and acquiescence to the mental and spiritual molestation of their children. On the contrary, he wrote, "NCDSB needs to be bold and outspoken in its commitment to protecting children, and in calling out these pan-sexual ideologues as child abusers.”

By contrast Carmichael, who insists the board knew what the play is about, also insisted the Liberal Party’s curriculum begins in Grade 1, and that “gender nonconformity” and “gender fluidity” are parts of it.

She further asserts Catholic schools cannot resist it. “They are publicly funded, they can’t just make their own decisions, otherwise they shouldn’t be taking public funding, because this is mandated across the board,” she declared. “It’s something they have to uphold in their schools; they can’t pick and choose how they are going to do that.”

Tanya Granic Allen, executive director of the Ontario-based parents’ rights group Parents As First Educator, wasn’t buying it. “It’s appalling for any school board, let alone a Catholic one, to use a cutesy play to force gender ideology, and whatever the latest social fad is, on kids who are nowhere near equipped to process this information,” she stated.

Unfortunately, indoctrinating children too young to think for themselves is the agenda. One that begs an essential question: How can the LGBT agenda simply be imposed on entire school systems, turning them into what Fox News columnist Todd Starnes refers to as “playgrounds for the gender and sex revolutionaries?”

“Playgrounds” is a very apropos description of an agenda where puberty blockers for boys as young as 12 and girls as young as 10 are recommended by Boston Children’s Hospital endocrinologist Norman Spack — despite extensive data collated by Dr. James Cantor revealing 60-90% of trans-kids change their minds upon entering adulthood. Administering life-altering hormones to children, knowing a substantial to vast majority will no longer need them, reeks of medical malpractice. And the reality that 41% of transgender individuals attempt suicide at some point in their lives, compared to only 4.6% of the general public, suggests a large degree of mental instability among transgender individuals.

Yet schools should be normalizing transgenderism in the minds of children?

Abiding the LGBT agenda and the authoritarian way it is imposed can only happen when parents would rather surrender their own children to a politically correct worldview than defend traditional family values.

Values for which no apology whatsoever is necessary.

“It is our collective failure to resist the sexual militants that has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point where such groups can virtually demand access to little children while fearful adults stand gaping and blinking helplessly,” Carmichael warns.

Schools should not be repositories for un-rebuttable progressive ideology, which is every bit as faith-based and proselytizing as any religion. Should it thus require the same court-mandated religious restrictions with regard to schools? When a school nurse can’t give an aspirin to a minor without parental permission — but can direct that same child to an abortion clinic without parental knowledge — perhaps it’s an idea that needs exploring.