Ontario school board trustee who opposes gender ideology resigns rather than be censured

Ontario school trustee Linda Stone, who has publicly opposed gender ideology programs from her position in the Durham District School Board, has resigned for the second time.

Stone has been the target of censure from other trustees and has been barred from attending meetings, the National Post reports.

Stone told the media outlet Insauga: "I will carry on."

"Just not in a board full of cowards, leftists and bullies, with compassionless trustees who are clueless about the issues."

Stone resigned in 2022 after members of the school board also wanted to have her censured for opposing transgender policy in Durham schools that included not allowing parents to know if their children were "transitioning" to another gender.

She also refused to endorse a school board Human Rights Policy that claimed  it was "not debatable" that the school and the province of Ontario are characterized by systemic racism.

It’s the second time that Stone has resigned from the board after being harassed by its members and threatened with censure for her views. After leaving in 2022, Stone was re-elected later that year. 

The Durham board publicly denounced Stone in May 2022 after the trustee took to social media to identify transgender women as biological men and to denounce the provincial school policy of automatically approving a student’s desire to change pronouns.

"If 23 students all have different pronouns and the teacher gets one wrong, would that be grounds for a complaint?" she asked in a post to X.

When she resigned for the first time, Stone made the following declaration to her colleagues:

"I have a statement to make. And I just want to say, as I have said before, that the human rights policy is one of the most important policies that trustees will see, and I agree with the policy except in certain areas," Stone said.

"But considering from what I have heard, my voice is no longer welcome or wanted, and I no longer feel safe on this committee. Therefore, I will be stepping down as chair and I will leave the meeting. And I hope that the irony of this is not lost on people. Thank you."