Saskatchewan's Great Shame

Sex Education Resources in one of Canada's most Conservative Provinces

Prompted by a friend and sex educator in rural Illinois, I was curious about how easy it was to access affirming information on sex and gender through the Saskatchewan Information and Library Consortium, the library system in one of Canada's most conservative provinces. I thought I'd start off easy, and search simply for the sex education classic "Our Bodies, Ourselves." Searching through the Parkland Library (Yorkton), the results shocked me. The first title is a book on getting sober; the second is a health book for women heavy on non-traditional holistic medicine, and the third is a book on the big tech hijacking of the mind and body, a worthy topic of its own right.

The 1984 version of Our Bodies, Ourselves, with one copy in the province, was 10th on the list, and the most recent version (from 2011, still 11 years old) was 16th, with 5 copies across the province, and none in the largest urban centres of Regina and Saskatoon. Curious, I decided to search for my friend @ShannonDea1's book "Beyond the Binary," which is a very accessible introduction to moving beyond gender and sex binaries. Given that Shannon became Dean of Arts at @UofRegina in 2020, you might think you could find a copy in the province. You can - with a catch. Being an .epub, you would think it would be readable by any e-reading device. But the fine print notes that it is "Restricted to use by people with documented print impairment." I'm all for accessibility, but how is restricting an .epub to ONLY those with 'print impairment' equitable?

Okay, back to the original search for Our Bodies, Ourselves. The fourth entry was for Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Except there is ONE copy in all of Saskatchewan, in Prince Albert. BUT THERE'S MORE! If you look at the suggestions at the bottom of that search page, you'll see the transphobic "God and the Transgender Debate," written by the @andrewtwalk from the now-disgraced Southern Baptist Convention's flagship Seminary.

In Saskatoon, the largest city in Saskatchewan, you cannot take out Our Bodies, Ourselves, nor can you take out the trans-affirming Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. But you CAN take out one of two copies of a book on trans people written by a Professor of Ethics (sic) for the Southern Baptist Convention... 🤷‍♂️ Check it out for yourself. Go to saskatoonlibrary.ca or parklandlibrary.ca.

It is unconscionable that bigots get shelving in the library in the largest city in Saskatchewan, but the health and wellness of women and trans people are mere afterthoughts, not even to be found on the shelves.

This Pride Month, contact the Saskatchewan Information and Library Consortium and ask them to remove Andrew T. Walker's transphobic book from their system, and to instead purchase enough “Trans Bodies, Trans Selves” so that each and every library in the province of Saskatchewan has at least one copy.