00:00:13.160But as it says, Josh was excluded from attending his Catholic high school because during class debates and on social media,
00:00:19.800he expressed his Christian beliefs that there are only two genders.
00:00:23.620That students cannot switch between genders and that boy should not be permitted into the girl's bathroom.
00:00:27.840Josh was suspended after trying to organize a student walkout because the school refused to address the safety concerns of a female student.
00:00:34.820I am so excited to talk to Joshua today, and he's with me right now.
00:00:40.900How are you doing? How are you doing on this Tuesday afternoon?
00:00:44.900Pretty well. Can't complain. Thanks for having me on.
00:00:47.500Yeah, yeah. No problem, man. No problem.
00:00:50.020I mean, first and foremost, when I first saw this headline, I really couldn't believe it.
00:00:54.600um you know it's like really like a catholic student getting arrested thrown in a cop car
00:00:59.360outside of a catholic school so i was hoping maybe you know because it started with a suspension in
00:01:05.0602022 so maybe you could kind of take us back and tell us like the story from the very beginning
00:01:11.140like take us to like this debate class like was it what did it happen before the debate class like
00:01:15.780you know did these transgender students see you before then tell us a little bit about the first
00:01:20.860kind of leg of this saga of when you first got suspended there at a Catholic high school.
00:01:26.040Yeah, for sure. So what would have happened, it would have all started back in October,
00:01:30.800or maybe even September, when I was addressed by female students who were concerned about
00:01:35.960the male students that were using their washrooms. These male students would use the entire identity
00:01:45.160crisis to hide uh their perverted actions but anyways they uh were using the female washrooms
00:01:51.960female students were concerned and i decided to um say something about it and uh i was actually
00:01:59.100in a law class when a debate broke out about this topic um i was getting shouted at called
00:02:04.780the racist to transphobe homophobia you name it in class in class oh yeah and uh like staff and
00:02:11.480students are involved in this but um with the heckling oh yeah absolutely staff are also
00:02:17.840heckling you calling you names oh yeah well like um so it actually it happened in two different
00:02:22.920classes one in my law class and the second in my math class all in the same day um that was kind
00:02:27.900of what sparked this entire event oh yeah math the racist class okay wow i guess this is just
00:02:35.920the beginning of the clownery, but please continue. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, I made a
00:02:42.560pretty firm stance. I, uh, stated what I believed and I backed it by basic biology and, um, my
00:02:49.580religious beliefs and just reality in general. But yeah. Yeah. Why do you think there are
00:02:54.300only two genders? I wonder, eh? Um, but, uh, yeah, I, uh, I stated what I believed. Um,
00:03:03.820I used some scripture to back it I ended up getting in a even longer and more heated debate
00:03:09.900with the math teacher but after all this happened I decided to go straight to the office and
00:03:17.260but when I got to the office to make a complaint about the male students in the female washrooms
00:03:22.600on behalf of the female students that spoke to me I was told that they were already going to
00:03:28.480need to talk to me about my uh behavior and uh yeah so I made the complaint um a female student
00:03:35.120made a complaint into week after that and then uh sorry they made it the female student made a
00:03:40.740complaint about you or about no about the washrooms about the washrooms okay she made the exact same
00:03:46.020complaint I did and uh yeah they ignored the two of us um so I decided to throw together a protest
00:03:53.200outside the uh the high school and this and was this is this the walkout yeah this would be the
00:03:58.800walkout um it was scheduled for november 25th and uh i was really i was uh suspended on november 23rd
00:04:06.760two days leading up to the walkout right so it's probably safe to say that they intentionally
00:04:12.760suspended you before the scheduled protest that you were putting on against the uh uh men being
00:04:18.860in the in the woman's bathroom now what i find so interesting about that i just want to point
00:04:23.720this out because this female student came to you like she right she didn't go to a teacher
00:04:31.600with her concern of like hey i'm concerned about uh you know males or transgender uh students being
00:04:38.080in the females washroom they didn't come to a teacher they didn't go to a principal they went
00:04:41.680to you a fellow student like hey josh i i'm up can you do something about this i find that very
00:04:47.180interesting that uh that a female student would come to you and not an actual authority figure
00:04:52.980in the school like like a grown-up um to to kind of voice their concerns in a catholic school
00:04:58.880yeah i was i was very new to the school i barely knew any students there
00:05:03.520and uh like i had only joined there in september but i can only imagine uh the reason why the
00:05:10.380students would have come to me it was because i have a history of activism in the public board
00:05:14.580um before i came to the catholic board um yeah i was i was suspended probably three times
00:05:21.660uh for the student walkouts across canada again in solidarity with the freedom convoy
00:05:27.640oh okay okay so you have been uh doing some activism before this yeah yeah so that's why
00:05:35.100that's why i did the protest it's something i'd done before i knew how to do it and uh
00:05:38.940i just decided to give it a shot because our voices weren't being heard so i decided to
00:05:43.140organized one, the Catholic board as well. And, uh, no, look where it's gotten me.
00:05:48.000Yeah. Yeah. Into multiple cop cars and some multiple headlines, uh, public. So you were
00:05:54.400in public school, the public school system before, and this was your first time in a
00:05:58.780Catholic school. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I came to the school, uh, the Catholic school
00:06:02.940this September and, uh, I was, I've been removed ever since November, basically.
00:06:08.920right right um and did the transgender topic come up in public schools uh was there big of
00:06:18.100a backlash or did that not become as hot of a topic before uh it never became as much of a
00:06:23.580topic it's probably something uh i would have touched on um but i was very busy with what was
00:06:30.060going on with the covid restrictions and all that naturally yeah so i had i had a lot going on there
00:06:36.740My principal at that school called the cops with me probably four times because of the walkouts I was organizing.
00:06:43.460And he actually, the OPP actually ended up taking my side on that one.
00:06:46.960They informed him that there is this thing called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I do have a right to demonstrate peacefully.
00:06:52.340But yeah, so I had a different response in the public than I did in the Catholic court.
00:07:00.220I mean, the fact that you, it was interesting that you had the cops standing up for you during COVID restrictions, but, uh, with this Catholic scenario, they just kind of, you know, threw you away in a, in a, in a paddy wagon, as it seems from that, this iconic, uh, this iconic photo here.
00:07:16.820Let me, let me bring it up on screen here for a second.
00:32:03.220Has any conservative politician, any politician at all, come to your aid to stand up for you and kind of try to say, look at what's happening to you and saying this is unacceptable?
00:32:16.280Yeah, I found support from the People's Party of Canada and the Ontario Party, but nothing from your mainstream parties.
00:32:25.880It's pretty disappointing to see how little response there has been from that.