The John-Henry Westen Show - Exclusive： 'Catholic' School To Punish 16-year-old Boy Wanting Girl-only Bathrooms

00:00:00.000 I myself am not Catholic but very similar belief system and I'm kind of shocked at how little

00:00:05.280 response there has been from the church. I even phoned one of the local churches the other day

00:00:09.520 and the pastor just told me he didn't want to speak to me. If I was a member of the Catholic

00:00:12.820 Church I'd be completely embarrassed by the actions of the school now that they're claiming

00:00:16.280 they're Catholic. It's kind of disappointing to see the lack of response from the local Catholic

00:00:20.120 church. We've also got a life funder we call it. It's like a GoFundMe for Josh and for his case.

00:00:26.880 What's going on now from a legal perspective? Well we are attempting to appeal the two suspensions

00:00:33.340 Josh has received. Hello everyone do you remember that heroic young man by the name of Josh Alexander?

00:00:40.940 He's the one the 16 year old who went to bat for girls in his Catholic high school not to have 0.89

00:00:48.320 biological males in their bathroom. Well the story has new developments to it. He and his lawyer are

00:00:55.980 now going to be going to the courts to fight this out because the school has actually believe it or

00:01:02.880 not given him a trespass notification. So he's going to be arrested for trespassing next time he comes in

00:01:10.040 this to go to his high school. He was suspended they lifted the suspension and lo and behold he went in

00:01:17.080 but no because he still doesn't agree to what I guess it is they want. He has continued his suspension

00:01:26.120 and now lawyers are getting involved. We're going to give you a chance to contribute to his efforts in

00:01:30.760 court with a life funder but I wanted to tell you some new developments. First of all I had an

00:01:36.600 opportunity to speak with one of the young ladies who confided in him. What are the reasons why he went

00:01:42.980 forward in the first place? Because this is very you know who is this guy? Well we were able to meet

00:01:49.580 with him in person so we know who this guy is. We had his testimony. We had him on a show before

00:01:53.860 but we weren't before able to speak to the young women who were suffering under what the school is

00:02:00.560 going through. So I wanted to read you from an interview that I had with her. Now she has to remain

00:02:05.180 anonymous. She wouldn't come on camera because obviously fear of massive reprisal. Look what's

00:02:11.300 happened to Josh Alexander. The poor boy has been suspended from school with threat of expulsion

00:02:18.080 and now he's been given a trespass notice for coming to school. We're going to hear from him

00:02:24.100 here in studio in just a few minutes. We're going to hear from his lawyer as well but I wanted to tell

00:02:29.280 you what this young lady had to say. She spoke with me from her school and has explained what went on.

00:02:37.720 Here's what she said. She had this conversation. So if you remember Josh told me that when he went

00:02:43.820 to the principal first to say hey you know I was approached by some of my classmates who are

00:02:49.460 uncomfortable with this idea that men are in there or young men are in their bathrooms and the principal

00:02:55.780 said first well no no no you got to get the girls to come in and tell us that. So he did. He got one of 0.61

00:03:02.240 these young ladies to come forward and go with him and the principal still did nothing and that's when 0.93

00:03:06.500 Josh Alexander said okay we're going to stage a walkout and protest this because this is ridiculous.

00:03:11.960 So here's how the story went from the side of the one of the young ladies that did speak with him.

00:03:18.560 She said I just told him this is her words. I just told him in passing conversation about this issue

00:03:24.940 that I was weirded out by it because it is males in my bathroom and I didn't know who else I could

00:03:32.460 talk to about it other than a few of my female friends. But then get this and this is mind-blowing.

00:03:40.360 This is what she told me about what went on inside the classroom because remember when Josh announced

00:03:49.160 that he was going to do a walkout for this the school threatened that any student who would join

00:03:56.400 Josh Alexander in protesting so that the girls in school can have their own bathroom privacy that

00:04:02.920 males wouldn't enter their bathroom. Anybody who would protest this with Josh Alexander they would be 1.00

00:04:08.640 cut off from transportation to the school. Now remember this is Renfrew County. It's the Catholic 1.00

00:04:14.960 school there called St. Joseph's believe it or not in Renfrew and they are cutting off people from

00:04:20.800 getting there with transportation, busing. That's massive in these rural communities because sometimes

00:04:25.920 they're 20, 30, 40, 50 kilometers away. So to cut off transportation is basically to cut them off

00:04:33.140 from the school altogether. So listen to this. They were threatened with being denied transportation to

00:04:39.300 the school. But in addition this young lady told me that a teacher in the classroom told them this.

00:04:46.420 This is a teacher speaking to the students about not participating in Josh Alexander's walkout

00:04:51.560 for privacy in girls' bathrooms for speaking up for these young ladies. The teacher tells him and I 0.58

00:04:57.460 quote, your reputations will be ruined. You don't want to associate with those people. So I mean this is

00:05:05.080 crazy indoctrination going on right in a supposedly Catholic school. In fact, the young lady told me

00:05:11.700 that, you know, about the school supposed to be Catholic. She said, well, the teaching of the church

00:05:17.920 doesn't seem to align with what the school is doing. And when I asked, you know, the young lady about what

00:05:25.280 her message would be to young people in high schools who find themselves in similar situations where they're put

00:05:31.780 under all this pressure and their own privacies are being violated and everything else by the woke

00:05:38.100 agenda, here's what she said. She said, it's important to not feel like you don't have a voice

00:05:44.440 or your opinion doesn't matter or that you're a horrible person if you think differently from everyone else.

00:05:52.380 You know, this is really reminiscent of what happened to Pope Benedict. Pope Benedict of late

00:06:01.200 memory, who we're still, you know, in the days after his funeral was still praying for the repose

00:06:07.280 of his soul. He had a lot of hardship in dealing with this issue as well. He tried his hardest to

00:06:13.600 bring forward the teaching of the church with love and with truth. And here's what happened to him.

00:06:20.340 He was on December 22nd, 2008, and he gave an address to the Roman Curia. He capitalized actually

00:06:27.940 on the popular ecology trend, calling for a human ecology, where we would respect the creator's

00:06:34.840 natural order of relationships between men and women. The Holy Father said the church must protect

00:06:40.860 man from self-destruction, he said. And these are quotes from Pope Benedict XVI, again, back in 2008,

00:06:49.580 right around Christmas time. He said, if the church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and

00:06:56.380 woman and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics.

00:07:02.300 What is involved here is faith in the creator and a readiness to listen to the language of creation.

00:07:08.640 To disregard this, he said, would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God's

00:07:15.780 own work. Now, obviously the Pope didn't say this kind of thing to be, you know, because he had some

00:07:21.980 kind of vedeta against gays or whatever, or trans people. No. He also didn't say this because he was

00:07:27.860 sadistic and wanted, or masochistic and wanted harm to himself. But sure enough, harm comes from the

00:07:35.560 woke world when you speak the truths of Christ. And he was preaching this, though, with love, the truth in

00:07:44.540 love. And it wasn't

00:07:46.740 only love for God, but it was also love for all of mankind, his human beings, his fellow human beings, who are

00:07:53.400 hurting themselves by these destructive sexual lifestyles. But for his remarks, he was castigated in the

00:07:59.680 mainstream press. And here are some of the news headlines at the time from 2008 against Pope

00:08:05.080 Benedict for saying what he did about God's plans for human sexuality. Pink News, a homosexual news 1.00

00:08:12.440 service, said in the UK, it read, this was their headline, Pope Benedict learned nothing from his

00:08:17.880 time in the Hitler Youth. And Pope Benedict's latest outburst justifies homophobic bullying and attacks.

00:08:26.280 Absolute insanity. But the coverage in the mainstream press was hardly, you know, less extreme. The San

00:08:35.020 Francisco Chronicle headline read, Pope Benedict did Christmas, preaching bigotry disguised as

00:08:40.480 compassion. The Times of London said, Christmas was never meant to be about this. So this kind of

00:08:47.740 persecution from the woke world comes despite our trying to do the best we can for God's truth in

00:08:55.740 love and charity. This courageous young man for whom we've got a life funder running and I encourage

00:09:01.680 you to support, but with whom we'll be speaking in just a few minutes. This is the John Henry Weston

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00:10:18.600 to the program. Josh, thank you so much for joining us in person. Thank you for having me. You're

00:10:24.840 actually one of the first guests here in our studio, so welcome. And I want to tell you on behalf of all

00:10:31.240 of our fans at Life State News, thank you. You have done an incredible thing here. And you're standing

00:10:37.720 up for family. And more important than that, actually, you're standing up for faith. And I

00:10:42.000 think that's the most beautiful thing. I want you to take us through the human element. So you get

00:10:47.140 there. First of all, you hear this on Sunday night, and then you get there on Monday. How did things

00:10:52.180 progress? I decided to only show up for the afternoon. Those were the two classes I was banned from.

00:10:56.920 So I showed up in the afternoon. I went into the school. And right at the front door, the principal

00:11:04.060 met me. And he was kind of awkward. He didn't say anything for the first few minutes. I just was

00:11:09.360 greeting students. Students were shaking my hand, and it was a bit of a welcome back. He didn't say

00:11:14.000 anything for the first couple of minutes until he finally kind of confused. He walked over and said,

00:11:20.040 could you leave? And I told him, I just respectfully asked him to speak to my lawyer if he wanted to

00:11:25.320 talk to me first. And that's kind of what would happen all day long. They just kept asking me to

00:11:30.700 leave. I'd go to my class, and they'd follow me. And the vice principal would actually write down

00:11:35.160 anything I said. And yeah, that's the entire day was spent like that. And they had just asked me to

00:11:40.180 leave the entire day. I just kept going to class. Wow, wow. So what's your thought at this point? I

00:11:45.480 mean, you've been accused of trespassing. What in the world does that mean? And what did your

00:11:52.140 lawyers make even talk about with you on it? About a couple hours after I got home from school,

00:11:56.600 my parents got this email that I now have a trespassing notice until January 31st at the

00:12:01.080 school. I think it's pretty ridiculous, but it goes to show there are true colors there. They're

00:12:05.840 afraid of the truth, so now they'll actually, I guess, arrest me if I return to school. And it's

00:12:10.720 pretty sad to think that that's what's happening in Canada, which is supposed to be a country that

00:12:14.700 respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but apparently not in this case. You have a

00:12:19.380 trespassing notice and till January 31st, but they've told you to stay away and yet you have

00:12:26.640 classes and then you're not coming to class. Are they calling you to say, hey, you're not in your

00:12:30.620 class as well? No, they haven't actually done that. I've had, there's been a couple emails from my

00:12:35.600 teachers and they've offered online education, but I mean, I think the last two years have gone to show

00:12:40.580 that that's a very inferior form of education, so I haven't taken them up on that. But we're coming to

00:12:45.780 the end of the semester now. They've suspended me twice. They've excluded me and now given me a

00:12:49.480 trespassing notice till January 31st. The semester's over by that time. And so it's a five-day

00:12:55.080 suspension I'm surfing right now, but the trespassing notice goes way beyond that. I'm not sure how that's

00:13:00.800 supposed to work, but we'll see. We at LifeSite want to support your case. I understand from your

00:13:06.960 lawyer that the next step will be for you to take this to the Human Rights Tribunal. And so we're going

00:13:13.380 to set up a LifeFunder for you. And I encourage people to support Josh because I mean, here's one

00:13:18.780 of the few examples of people actually standing up and doing the right thing. And we want to be able

00:13:23.100 to support him in that. So please go to LifeFunder.com and support Josh Alexander. So Josh, what are the

00:13:29.820 plans for your taking this up at the Human Rights Tribunal? We're looking at it obviously as a case

00:13:34.980 for religious discrimination. There seems to be a little bit of confusion over my appeal. They don't

00:13:41.040 really want to let me appeal. So yeah, we're going to take it up to the next notch because that's kind

00:13:45.000 of where this kind of case belongs. It's a classic case of religious discrimination. So I'm willing to 0.73

00:13:50.240 take it there and we can only rely on the supporters to donate. And it's going to be a difficult run

00:13:56.400 considering we're up against a pretty big law firm and the entire school board, but we're taking it

00:14:01.160 on anyways. You're a young man. How old are you right now? 16. Okay, so you're still 16 years old.

00:14:06.240 It's incredible that you have to face this for one thing, but you're doing it with real grace.

00:14:10.520 There's a pro-trans whatever group that was confronting you. They called you a terrorist.

00:14:16.460 What's your response to that? Actually, I put out a response on social media right on their platform

00:14:22.060 and they immediately deleted it. They were insinuating that I had plans to act violently

00:14:27.880 and I obviously countered that and told them I was there for peace. I was up for a respectful

00:14:34.480 discussion. And yeah, that was completely censored. I actually did a live stream with Freedom Fighters

00:14:41.340 Canada that was deleted off Facebook immediately. And yeah, so it's been any time I go to counter

00:14:48.640 anything, they kind of just censor it. So that's where we're at.

00:14:51.700 Delete it. I think there's a beauty in that. The fact is you're threatening to them, not in that

00:14:58.080 you're physically threatening to people or anything like that. You're threatening to their ideology.

00:15:02.380 It is an ideology. And they don't want to show that you are a young man who's totally peaceful

00:15:09.080 and totally sensible. And you're like their worst case scenario because here you are all about peace,

00:15:16.740 love and dialogue, which they claim to have on their side. And yet they're all about censorship,

00:15:22.380 accusing you of falsehood and banning you from everything. And then, but they have the support

00:15:29.920 of this Catholic school, which is completely outrageous.

00:15:34.320 It's interesting. Way back in November at the original walkout, the counter protesters from

00:15:38.920 those pride organizations and even the union that got bussed up, they were chanting love, not hate.

00:15:45.920 So I had the mic there and we had our whole sound system set up and we just started chanting it back

00:15:51.120 at them. And they completely like ruffled feathers. They didn't know what to do.

00:15:56.160 And so like they tried censoring me online. So then I did it in person and they just panicked.

00:16:00.680 They didn't know what to do.

00:16:01.620 Yeah. Well, it's great. It is true. The message of those supportive of the family and of the faith

00:16:07.700 and of freedom. That's our message. Love, not hate. And so we can chant it right back because that was

00:16:14.060 the whole point from the beginning. When the confrontations happened in the beginning, I

00:16:19.680 don't remember, but in historically we had focus on the family, uh, had a conference called love

00:16:25.740 wins out. And, and it's about true love for people with same sex attraction and people with gender

00:16:31.500 dysphoria or whatever you want to call it. It's about loving them enough to tell them that this is

00:16:35.980 harmful for you and showing the exact, the examples being this right now, countless men and women

00:16:41.440 who have de-transitioned and been so harmed by what has happened to them. And we can show the

00:16:49.220 folks, Hey, this is what happens to you. And you don't say that to be popular. You don't say that to

00:16:55.040 be, um, um, given kudos because you're not, you're given, you're accused of being terrorist. Um, you're

00:17:02.060 expelled and all sorts of things, but you do it anyway, out of love and concern for these people,

00:17:07.580 because it's true. It's about love and not hate about your Christian convictions. Because, uh, I, I

00:17:13.280 mean, it's one thing that for Catholics like myself is very shameful. The true message of the church has

00:17:19.340 always been one from where you're coming from. And yet you are voicing this as a 16 year old,

00:17:25.060 much more eloquently in your behavior than the whole leadership of this so-called Catholic school.

00:17:32.100 And what's truly scandalous, the school is called St. Joseph's. It's in Renfrew and it is

00:17:37.560 the Renfrew district, uh, Catholic district school board. And the crime is, it's St. Joseph's high

00:17:44.680 school. St. Joseph is head of the Holy Family, uh, that everybody knows, but in the, in the Catholic

00:17:50.340 church, he's regarded as the defender of virgins of purity, um, and protector of the family. It's like

00:17:56.880 a nightmare that this is happening. It's the opposite of the truth and opposite of everything that the

00:18:01.980 Catholic church stands for. But I'd like to hear it from you. Um, you, how do your Christian

00:18:06.740 convictions play into this? Well, as a Christian and just as a man in general, I feel a responsibility

00:18:12.540 to stand up to this kind of nonsense, especially when a female, a young female addresses me about 0.80

00:18:19.000 this and more than one. So I, I immediately felt a conviction to do something about that. So I did.

00:18:23.640 But, uh, looking at the Catholic church, I, I myself am not Catholic, but very similar belief

00:18:28.620 system. And, uh, I'm kind of shocked at how little response there has been from the church.

00:18:33.380 I even phoned one, uh, one of the local churches the other day and they, uh, like the pastor

00:18:38.720 just told me he didn't want to speak to me. I, I couldn't imagine a leader of a church telling

00:18:43.440 a 16 year old kid that he wouldn't speak with them, wouldn't even begin to have a discussion.

00:18:48.940 If I was a member of the Catholic church, I'd be completely embarrassed by the actions of 0.99

00:18:52.140 the school now that they're claiming they're Catholic. And, uh, it's, it's kind of disappointing

00:18:56.300 to see the lack of response from the local Catholic church.

00:18:59.380 That is unfortunately the, the times we're living in, but there are a lot of, uh, Catholics 1.00

00:19:04.640 supporting you and praying for you right now. Um, and I know at, uh, LifeSite News, we are

00:19:10.580 behind you a hundred percent. We're going to do whatever we can to not only get your story

00:19:14.380 out, to hopefully get you some funds to continue in your fight. And, um, what are your next steps?

00:19:20.120 I know you've been doing a lot of speaking already, um, as part of your organization,

00:19:24.340 save Canada. Tell us what that's about and tell us what your next plans are in terms of

00:19:27.580 speaking around.

00:19:28.060 Oh, we've got a, there's kind of our rallying symbol that's been around for about two years

00:19:33.060 now. Um, it started during the, uh, the COVID restrictions and all that. So yeah, we organized

00:19:38.960 the student walk-outs during the Freedom Convoy and we were kind of known for that, but, uh,

00:19:42.840 we're kind of just, just assembling people right now across the country. And it's been kind

00:19:48.960 of a, uh, rallying point. It's a very simple organization, but, uh, we don't, we were kind

00:19:54.700 of trying to formulate a plan from now. It's been kind of chaotic with everything that's going

00:19:59.060 on. It's been a nonstop fight for the last two years, but, uh, we're, we're trying to formulate

00:20:03.560 a little bit better and come forward with an action plan soon.

00:20:07.120 I know you're in the thick of it right now, but there's got to be a lot of young people

00:20:11.380 like yourself who are thinking, boy, I wish I could do something like that, or I wish I could,

00:20:16.940 what's your message to that?

00:20:18.340 It's easy. Just go out and do it. And, uh, the consequences are more a compliment. Uh, just keep,

00:20:26.120 keep pushing, keep fighting. Don't give up. Trust in God and, uh, you'll have your back.

00:20:32.260 Amen to that. Josh Alexander, it is an honor to meet you. God bless you.

00:20:38.860 James Kitchen. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Let's begin as we always do with

00:20:45.640 the sign of the cross in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy ghost. Amen.

00:20:52.560 So we have this new breaking news and it's, it's very shocking for those people who

00:20:58.560 value freedom and still value what is supposed to be Catholic education. But obviously this has been

00:21:05.580 a travesty. We learned some time ago, had Josh on the program that, you know, he was threatened with,

00:21:14.060 uh, all sorts of things. If he were to carry out this work for these young ladies in his class and

00:21:21.860 in his school to defend their right to privacy in their own bathrooms. Um, the, the school then

00:21:28.060 threatened anyone who would join in such protest with, um, suspension, expulsion, whatnot. He is

00:21:35.020 now told by the school that he's trespassing when he goes back to school. If you could, James,

00:21:41.840 give us the latest details. Over the Christmas break, just after Josh's 20 day suspension ended,

00:21:47.220 he was given conditions on how he would return. And, um, the worst of those conditions was that he would

00:21:53.720 be excluded from two of his classes. Now, the best that we could understand the reasoning behind this

00:21:58.560 was that those two particular classes were going to have two transgender students in those classes 0.99

00:22:04.600 that have been in Josh, Josh's other classes. And of course, the concern, I think from the school's

00:22:09.720 perspective or the transgender students perspective is that they really didn't like what Josh had to say.

00:22:13.440 They really didn't like the expression of his religious beliefs about, you know, switching genders

00:22:17.660 or not about how there's only two genders and about how boys shouldn't be going into girls'

00:22:21.560 bathrooms. And so, you know, under the guise of safety, the school said to him, look, you can't

00:22:27.040 be in these classes. And so Josh, so Josh hired me as his lawyer with a Christmas break. We talked,

00:22:32.840 I said, look, I think that's religious discrimination. I think it's unlawful. Um, he said, well, yeah,

00:22:37.980 I don't want to comply with that. I don't want to comply with something. It's unlawful. So what

00:22:41.480 happened is I told the school, I wrote a letter to the principal and I said, look, this, this is an

00:22:45.220 unlawful condition. It's, it's exclusion and segregation. And it's on the basis of his religious 0.64

00:22:50.460 beliefs, because the only reason you're doing this is because, um, his express religious beliefs are,

00:22:55.440 you know, the, the, the students in the school can't tolerate those. And so they're, they're

00:23:00.000 asking him to not be in that space. And that's just blatant religious discrimination. So it's

00:23:04.380 unlawful. Why don't you rescind that condition? He'll come to class and go to all four of his classes

00:23:08.540 and we'll try to sort this out. And the school's response was, was very dismissive and said, no,

00:23:13.440 we don't care if you disagree with this. This is what we say. And, you know, you have to do it.

00:23:16.440 And if you don't, that's, you know, too bad. And so I said, well, you know, he, Josh is just,

00:23:20.860 it just isn't going to comply with an awful condition. So, uh, once I told the principal

00:23:25.300 that he wrote back on Sunday night, the night before Josh was going to go back to school on

00:23:29.540 January 8th, he said, well, look, now I'm going to order an exclusion, which, which is a technical

00:23:34.400 term under the legislation that a principal can exclude a student from school. If they think that

00:23:39.080 that student's presence will be some sort of threat or danger or, you know, potential disruption

00:23:45.460 physically or mentally to the students. And which, which is really a bit of a stretch,

00:23:49.820 obviously. So what happened then is Josh said, well, I mean, you know, look, this isn't awful.

00:23:53.440 I'm going to go to school anyways. So on Monday he did, he went to school, he went to those two

00:23:57.280 classes he was not supposed to go to. Um, he got followed around somewhat by the assistant

00:24:01.760 principal. You'll probably hear from him about that. And then he went home. Uh, everything was

00:24:06.140 peaceful, right? Um, of course he's not, he's not out to actually, you know, bully these,

00:24:11.660 these transgender students, right? There's no actual bullying going on, but of course,

00:24:14.940 that's the word being thrown around because unfortunately in our new world, uh, bullying

00:24:20.280 means expressing ideas that somebody else disagrees with. And, um, that's, that's how we get to

00:24:26.060 this strange situation. So he goes home Monday night, late Monday night, I get a trespass notice

00:24:31.220 and a further suspension, uh, saying that Josh is suspended from school for the rest of the week

00:24:35.740 and barred from school property for the rest of the month of January. So that's where we're at

00:24:40.020 right now. School board has hired lawyers, big firm in Ottawa. I am in communication

00:24:43.800 with them, um, written communication. And so I'm hopeful there'll be some oral communication

00:24:48.680 between myself and counsel for the school board. And we'll see where this goes next.

00:24:53.000 This is unbelievable. We know Josh to be someone who is not only peaceful, but he's coming at

00:25:00.200 this from a truly Christian charitable perspective. It said nothing to do with being anti-trans or anything

00:25:07.980 like that. It had to do with protecting these young ladies in his school who approached him

00:25:13.400 asking for help to get privacy back in their bathrooms. These are young ladies who were, didn't 1.00

00:25:19.500 want, uh, in their bathrooms, males, biological males in their bathrooms. And that should have 0.95

00:25:25.620 been a totally obvious thing. So here's this young man who first went to the principal privately

00:25:31.580 himself, like how biblical can you get? And the principal says, Oh, I'm not gonna listen to you

00:25:36.560 unless some of those girls come with you. He finds a girl to go with him to the principal, 0.74

00:25:41.680 goes to the principal and still do nothing. Then he says, okay, now I'm going to do a protest.

00:25:47.740 And then this enveloped. What's your thought on how that played out? And what's your perspective

00:25:53.740 on Josh Alexander?

00:25:55.400 I think he's a very courageous young man. Um, he's principled and he's, um, he's doing what

00:26:00.860 should be happening a whole lot more often, um, amongst, amongst men and women who are much older

00:26:05.220 than he is. Um, so it's a, it's a real honor to work with them and to see this. Um, you know,

00:26:10.160 I think part of the problem with all this is, is it, is it is really difficult as a high school

00:26:13.300 student to stand up, particularly a young, a young woman, um, to speak out and stand up and say,

00:26:17.860 this is wrong. It's got to stop. We just keep going down this slippery slope towards things that

00:26:22.820 are, you know, that are not Christian and not morally right and not good for society and not good 1.00

00:26:26.860 for me and my friends. We're trying to be safe and private in our spaces. Uh, it's not good for

00:26:31.160 the, for the, for the kids themselves who are living in this weird space. I mean, talk to anybody

00:26:34.800 who's detransitioned. Um, it's, it's a really awful experience. I mean, I've, I've, I've talked to and 1.00

00:26:40.020 represented somebody who's gone through that. Um, it's horrendous. I think what he's doing is,

00:26:44.260 is really, is really good. It needs to be done. Um, but obviously in the world we live in,

00:26:48.360 it's very, very, you know, you go through a lot of sacrifice and hardship in order to do it because

00:26:52.340 the powers that be want to censor you and want to punish you for doing it because they don't want

00:26:56.160 you to speak up, right? We don't, they don't want these perspectives shared, but yeah, I think what

00:27:00.360 the school is doing is, is really unfortunate. It's interesting because it's in the name of

00:27:04.740 discrimination. It's in the name of non-discrimination and we're getting discrimination. It's in the name

00:27:08.880 of tolerance and diversity and equity that we're treating somebody as a second-class citizen. We're

00:27:13.380 excluding them, right? We're censoring them. We're telling them that they're not acceptable because

00:27:17.680 of their views and beliefs. And, um, if we could just be a little more sensible and, and, and,

00:27:23.800 and stop thinking in this, in this crazy woke way, maybe we could find a balance where we

00:27:28.560 could actually somehow accommodate both. I mean, that is the idea behind the legislation

00:27:32.840 and that's, that's behind all this is the Ontario Human Rights Code, right? The school

00:27:35.840 says we have to have boys and girls Washington's the Ontario Human Rights Code. I don't actually

00:27:40.680 think that's true, but, um, you know, let's, let's back that up and sort out how the Ontario

00:27:46.520 Human Rights Code actually protects religious beliefs and sex as, as a, as a girl as well.

00:27:50.920 And if you're not trying to prioritize one right over the other, then you can probably

00:27:55.120 find a way to accommodate everybody, right? I mean, nobody's saying trans kids can't go

00:27:59.220 to the school. At least I don't think they are. They're just saying, look, if you're here

00:28:02.320 and you have a penis, you can't go into the girls Washington. And if you're here, um, you're 1.00

00:28:06.500 going to hear religious beliefs that say, um, things you don't like, and you're going to

00:28:10.300 have to be okay and put up with that. That's actual equality. That's actually giving everybody

00:28:15.260 the right to be in a space and to protect themselves, you know, and to express their beliefs

00:28:20.380 within reason, right? We're going too far on one side saying as a boy, you can go into

00:28:25.240 a girls Washington if you want to and saying to somebody else, and if you don't like that,

00:28:28.780 you can't say anything. That's not a balance.

00:28:31.340 What's truly phenomenal is that this is in a school that calls itself Catholic. But before

00:28:38.260 we go there, it's truly Orwellian. As you said, the inequality is just so blatant that

00:28:46.620 the double standard is just unreal. But in addition to that, you have this situation where

00:28:52.800 we are dealing with adults. It's the adults in the room who are really guilty here. This

00:29:03.140 child who is, uh, you know, gender confused is being pushed to adopt a lifestyle that's

00:29:13.360 very harmful and God forbid a surgery that's going to harm him or her for the rest of his

00:29:19.680 life. And it's the adults who are truly responsible here. A lot of the adults in the room can see

00:29:27.620 how damaging this is. They've seen those who've detransitioned, they've seen the harm that's 0.97

00:29:34.380 already caused, and they know the harm that's happening against these young ladies in wanting 1.00

00:29:41.840 their privacy and it being stripped from them. How disgusting, how deplorable. It really does 0.97

00:29:47.580 baffle the imagination. I'd love to hear your take.

00:29:49.760 It hits the nail on the head is you have all these adults with their political ideologies and

00:29:54.380 their political agendas. And they seem all too willing to not protect more vulnerable,

00:30:00.220 younger people in society as they, as they push that. Um, I think we saw that with, with, uh, the,

00:30:05.680 the, the, the masks in school issue, um, a couple years ago. Right. And, and a lot of people comment on

00:30:11.080 the fact, this is the teachers, um, that mostly want this, or this is some of the woke parents.

00:30:15.080 What about the poor kids that got to wear this thing all day in school? Um, that's a little more

00:30:18.880 trivial. This is a little more serious, right? It's, it's these, these, these adults who have this idea

00:30:23.240 about transgenderism and they, they tacitly encourage it amongst kids, which is, which is 1.00

00:30:28.340 psychologically harmful for the kids that are going through it. And then it, and then it's harmful

00:30:31.400 for the girls who have to deal with it. I mean, we're, we're talking about the bathrooms and this

00:30:35.080 has been a huge problem in sports, right? I mean, that just makes me, it makes me sick that girls 1.00

00:30:40.000 have to be scared to go to the bathroom and they can't even enjoy joining sports now because they're

00:30:44.180 scared of getting hurt or they're just, they're not going to be competitive. And, um, it's, it's really,

00:30:49.060 it's, it's, it's awful if you care about women, um, as, as, as anybody should, but it's also just 0.65

00:30:55.200 so strange because it used to be that our society cared a lot about women and talked about how bad

00:31:00.060 our society was of caring for women, uh, patriarchal, whatever you go back 10, 15 years into the,

00:31:05.180 into the era where feminism was bigger than transgenderism. And, you know, this type of thing

00:31:09.640 would have been unthinkable, right? To treat women this way. And now all of a sudden we've moved on to

00:31:13.600 the next weird woke thing and we're throwing girls and women under the bus. And when, when an actual 0.99

00:31:18.600 feminist comes out and says, this isn't okay, uh, we start throwing the feminists under the bus, 1.00

00:31:22.800 or at least that's what the woke left does. They eat their own. It's just really bizarre. I mean,

00:31:27.400 let's, let's, let's just, let's just narrow it down and talk about, Hey, what about actually

00:31:31.880 treating women well, which is supposedly a really big deal, because if we actually believed that 0.98

00:31:37.000 we wouldn't let people with penises go into change rooms, uh, uh, bathrooms. And we, and we 1.00

00:31:43.220 wouldn't, we wouldn't let men who are, uh, undeniably, uh, physically more fit go into

00:31:48.520 women's sports and either hurt them or make them uncompetitive. That's just treating women very, 1.00

00:31:53.020 very badly. Why are we doing that? But even more bizarre than that, and I, I hate to say this,

00:31:58.800 but it's, it's the worst thing of all is that this is supposed to be a Catholic school. Now you 0.71

00:32:04.500 yourself are a Protestant, you're a member of the Liberty Coalition Canada, but you're faithful

00:32:10.680 Christian. And you know, as I do, that the teachings of all Christianity, Catholicism included,

00:32:18.480 have always been and can't change from being respectful of God's order of creation. He created

00:32:27.700 them male and female. We have no right to undo that. Um, he set up the order of marriage for one 0.99

00:32:37.420 man and one woman. He designed our sexuality to be lived out, not to harm us, but to help us to

00:32:46.200 fulfill our lives. And yet we're going against his plan for that. And here we are with this young man

00:32:54.080 who himself also a Christian, but not a Catholic, but in a Catholic school, figuring, I guess there

00:32:58.820 would be some more respect for God's order of creation. They're faced with torture from, you

00:33:05.760 know, this, this kind of veritable torture from a so-called Catholic principle in a Catholic school.

00:33:11.440 It is unbelievable. And the number of Catholics who are outraged at this is, is really quite something 0.97

00:33:18.720 we we've had many, many calls into the school already. I'm sure those are going to continue.

00:33:23.320 We've also got a fundraiser set up for him, a life funder, we call it. It's like a GoFundMe

00:33:29.980 for Josh and for his case. What's going on now from a legal perspective?

00:33:37.180 Well, we are attempting to appeal the two suspensions Josh has received. And the plan from,

00:33:43.780 in addition to that, the plan on our end is if this continues, if Josh isn't permitted to actually go

00:33:48.620 back to school, to all of his classes, um, there's going to have to be human rights complaint

00:33:53.120 because, um, you know, legally I think, I think the biggest thing that's going on here is, is the

00:33:57.800 blatant religious discrimination. And I think that needs to be exposed. You know, there's this double 0.94

00:34:02.600 standard, um, this protection of some rights, but trampling of others, it needs to be exposed.

00:34:08.200 Um, that's what this is all about. Obviously he does have a right to some degree of free speech.

00:34:13.080 Like most of what he said has been on social media and class debates. And if you want to talk about

00:34:17.180 students having, having, having free speech, those would be like the two central places they would

00:34:20.960 have it. Right. There is some limitation. Obviously students can't just constantly be outside with a

00:34:25.580 bullhorn, you know, otherwise it disrupts school. But if there's a class debate on these issues, as

00:34:30.300 there's going to be, there probably shouldn't be this hot topic issues, you need to let every student

00:34:34.820 express their, their belief. If it's peaceful, right. I don't care how, how offensive somebody

00:34:39.040 else finds it. Right. I mean, are you going to, are you going to take somebody who doesn't believe

00:34:42.480 in God at the Catholic school at that time? He says, I don't believe in God anymore. Are you

00:34:46.440 going to, are you going to shut him up and censor him? Are you going to let him speak his beliefs

00:34:49.720 in a class debate? That's where this came from, right? They didn't like what Josh had to say

00:34:54.120 on, on, on this peaceful protest he had that was, that was not disrupting school. Uh, and they didn't

00:34:59.300 like what he said in, in, in the social media, didn't like what he said in class debates, but he has a

00:35:03.140 right as a student, a free speech, right. But more importantly, a religious right as a religious

00:35:07.760 person expressing religious beliefs, uh, to say that. And, uh, if you're going to punish him,

00:35:12.760 it's just, it's discrimination and amongst other things. So, uh, if that continues, that's the plan

00:35:17.800 legally is to bring the human rights complaint. We'll see, this is going to largely depend on how

00:35:21.400 the, how the school reacts. I mean, if they just double down and say, we don't care where this is,

00:35:25.420 this is the path we've chosen, then, you know, we have to take legal action. If we can sort

00:35:29.380 something out, Josh can go back to school, then maybe we, you know, we do that and we just appeal

00:35:33.980 the suspensions. It really just depends on how the school wants to, the school board wants to

00:35:38.980 continue to respond. Amazing, James. Well, I want to thank you and Liberty Coalition Canada for taking

00:35:44.100 on this case. I'd really like to see other people follow, uh, in Josh's footsteps and, and, uh,

00:35:49.780 respectfully, but boldly speak up, uh, whether it's your workplace, your church, your school,

00:35:54.840 your circle of influence. Um, if you actually believe this is wrong, I mean, now is your time

00:35:59.620 to stand up. If Josh can do it, uh, you can do it and it needs to be done because as long as you

00:36:04.140 self-censor, we're just going to keep sliding down that path where censorship is more common

00:36:09.760 and more easy to achieve. And eventually it'll come a day when you won't even be able to speak

00:36:13.920 up, even if you decided you wanted to, because you would now have the courage. Um, so do it now

00:36:18.120 while you still can. Amen to that. James Kitchen of Liberty Coalition Canada. Thanks for being with us.

00:36:23.440 Thank you.

00:36:24.840 Hi everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,

00:36:30.600 be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News. Check

00:36:35.520 the links in the description to read more and connect with us on social media so that you can stay up to

00:36:40.280 date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news. Thanks for watching and may God bless you.

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The John-Henry Westen Show - January 18, 2023

Exclusive： 'Catholic' School To Punish 16-year-old Boy Wanting Girl-only Bathrooms

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