A Canadian official has said teachers must obtain parental consent for name or pronoun changes of students.
Dustin Duncan, the education minister for the province of Saskatchewan, said children under 16 may want to change their names or pronouns, but teachers must work with parents, not against them.
This means teachers who do not receive consent from parents are not allowed to use a student’s preferred pronoun or name. Instead, they must continue to use the child’s birth name.
According to reports in Canada’s Toronto Star newspaper, Duncan said the province wanted to standardise pronoun and naming policies, as they ‘varied’ from one school division to another.