A Canadian teenager who turned up to his Ontario school after being suspended for challenging transgender policies by asserting there are only two genders was arrested by police on Monday.
Josh Alexander, 16, was suspended from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in November 2022 after telling fellow students he believed only two genders.
Alexander, a Christian, told his classmates that those born males should not be permitted into the girls’ bathroom.
The school suspended Alexander for refusing to address transgender students by their chosen names, saying he could only return if he agreed to sit out two classes with transgender students, who found his views offensive.
“I expressed my religious beliefs in class, and it spiraled out of control,” Alexander told The Epoch Times.
“Not everybody’s going to like that. That doesn’t make me a bully. It doesn’t mean I’m harassing anybody,” he added.
“They express their beliefs and I express mine. Mine obviously don’t fit the narrative,” he said.
However, when Alexander returned to class on Monday, he was arrested.
“I have just been arrested and charged at my Catholic high school for attending class after being excluded for indicating my intent to adhere to my religious beliefs,” he tweeted.
Liberty Coalition Canada is now backing Alexander, a group of lawyers aiming to ‘seek justice, promote truth, and uphold the rule of law, is rooted in his Christian faith.’
Chief litigator James S.M. Kitchen wrote to the school principal on January 6, accusing them of discrimination by denying Alexander’s religious beliefs.
The principal responded by excluding the teenager for the rest of the term, saying, “his presence in the school or classroom would be detrimental to the physical or mental well-being of the pupils.”
Kitchen said the school also accused Alexander of bullying.
“Obviously, he doesn’t actually bully them as that term would be defined by reasonable people,” Kitchen told The Epoch Times.
“He’s not going to seek them out and call them names and make fun of them,” he added.
“But he does express his views about what these people say and about what they believe and about what they’re doing. And he expresses them online, and he expresses them in the class.”
Alexander plans to appeal his original suspension to the provincial human rights tribunal, which would bring his case before a school board panel.
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