When You Need to Define Your Gender with a Purple Gender Unicorn

When you need to define your gender with a purple gender unicorn, something is amiss. As part of an educational toolkit for Albertan schools, the purple gender unicorn aims to help students define their gender across a spectrum of gender.

TSER, the producer of this graphic, defines gender as "One’s internal sense of being male, female, neither of these, both, or another gender(s)" (source).

Should a teacher elect to use the purple gender unicorn, students will grade themselves according to this chart to find out what their own internal sense of gender is. TSER has provided an example of how to fill out the chart, shown here:

In this case, the hypothetical student was assigned at birth the sex of "male," yet this same student has the internal sense of "Female/Woman/Girl." By using this chart, students learn to define gender not by biological realities but by one's internal sense of gender.

For now, the Alberta Teachers' Association will only provide this chart as one option that a teacher can use to provide a safe and inclusive environment for students. But Edmonton blogger Theresa Ng is not so sure.

Ng noted the document contains a warning that suggests optional usage may be subject to interpretation. "Canadian courts have found that schools that fail to address homophobia and heterosexism can be in serious breach of their professional responsibilities and considered to be engaging in educational malpractice," the section reads.

"I think that when teachers read that they see this resource as being not so optional," Ng said. (source) Albertans need to take this development seriously. If you genuinely believe gender is something defined by biology and not by one's internal sense of gender, then you should be concerned. If your child enters into a period of crisis about their gender, you have already lost the ability to counsel them on the basis of shared beliefs about gender.

For Christians, the problem is more acute, since Christian doctrine clearly teaches on gender, and God hasn't revealed to us the purple gender unicorn. This push to define gender by internal sense not by biology may make homeschooling an attractive option to many. Of course, this option may become more difficult in the future since Alberta Education just shutdown an home-school association comprising 3,500 students.

Thankfully, Christians don't need to fret and worry about what the future will bring. God has, is, and will always be in control. No mortal power can prevail over him. While we need to be aware and involved in these important educational developments, we also need to embrace the reality that God is in control.