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National Post

Jamie Sarkonak: Alberta is right to take graphic sex books out of elementary schools

There is currently no expectation that Alberta schools refrain from giving kids access to books containing depictions of child molestation and point-of-view oral sex. That is why on Monday, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced he'd be working over the summer to craft a new policy on age-appropriate content for schools, slated to take effect in September. Article content Article content Article content Public consultations for the new standards are open until June 6, and the ministry has indicated that the ensuing policy could come as early as 'late spring, 2025.' Article content Article content Which all means that Nicolaides will now have to spend his summer facing performative outrage from progressives suddenly concerned about free expression, and who insinuate at every turn that common-sense content curation is the same thing as fascist book banning. Kudos to him. Article content What prompted this new project was the education ministry's discovery of some clearly over-the-line materials in 57 Alberta schools. Among these was the infamous autobiographical graphic novel Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, which has been banned from the collections of at least 56 U.S. school districts. The contents are so graphic that a concerned adult in Florida was removed from a school board meeting for trying to read some pages into the record. Article content Not only does that book promote gender ideology — the idea of a gender spectrum completely detached from biological sex — it contains graphic depictions of sex and masturbation in child-friendly colours. It covers porn (the main character is an avid user), masturbation (vibrators and dildos are discussed with excitement) and kinks (the main character claims to be an autoandrophile — that is, someone who is aroused at the thought of being a male). Article content At one point, the main character is told — and I'm sorry to repeat this here, but the point that this is inappropriate for children needs to be made — 'I can't wait to have your c–k in my mouth — I'm going to give you the blow job of your life. Then I want you inside me.' She later dons a strap-on and receives oral sex in a panel that graces the viewer with multiple angles. The entire book is more than 200 pages, and isn't entirely about sex, but that's not the point. The problem is that some pages contain graphic sexual content — to the point where even the author doesn't recommend it for children. Article content And yet, Gender Queer was found on the library shelves of some Calgary schools with students in Grades K-9, according to the ministry, as well as high schools of both major cities. Garrett Koehler, spokesperson for the education department, shared a photo with me showing the book on the same shelf as Naruto, a popular manga series for children; it was taken at an elementary school.