They Think SOGI Is Over. That’s Adorable.

Part of me is tempted to let the anti-SOGI crowd believe they have won.

Let them take their victory lap. Let them congratulate themselves.

If believing SOGI has disappeared means they finally stop shouting outside schools about resources they have probably never read, perhaps educators can get back to the actual work of supporting children.

Unfortunately, facts still matter (to most of us, anyway).

The BC Conservatives claimed they “forced” the provincial government to “give up on SOGI” and “defund SOGI 123 after years of political pressure”.

The B.C. government responded that SOGI 123 had not been defunded at all.

Neither statement gives British Columbians the complete picture.

As a transgender man, coming out coach and elected school trustee, I believe power begins with clarity.

Families deserve to understand what was cut, what remains and what every student should still expect from their school.

No, the government has not “given up on SOGI”

The BC Conservatives’ claim is not supported by what has actually happened.

B.C.’s legal protections for queer and trans students remain in place. 

School districts have not been instructed to abandon SOGI-inclusive education. 

The government’s own 2026–27 service plan still directs the education minister to work with stakeholders on the SOGI anti-bullying program.

The B.C. Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in public services, including education, based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

Provincial standards also require school boards’ codes of conduct to explicitly address those protected characteristics.

While the specific SOGI 123 resources are optional, protecting students from discrimination is not.

If some politicians want to celebrate the end of a funding agreement as though they have successfully removed queer people from public education, they are welcome to enjoy their imaginary victory.

Queer students will still be in class on Monday.

You cannot cancel SOGI

Here is the first thing everyone needs to understand:

SOGI is not a program.

It stands for sexual orientation and gender identity. Everyone has both. Straight people have a sexual orientation. Cisgender people have a gender identity. 

Queer and trans people are not an optional add-on to an otherwise neutral society.

You could delete every lesson plan, pull every Pride flag from every classroom and erase the acronym from every government website. Queer and trans students would still arrive at school the next morning.

SOGI cannot be cancelled because queer people cannot be cancelled.

What governments can do is decide whether schools will have the knowledge, training and resources to support those students well… or whether every educator and school district will be left to figure it out alone.

That is why funding still matters.

What is SOGI 123?

SOGI 123 is not a mandatory class or separate curriculum.

It is an educator-support initiative created by the ARC Foundation in partnership with the B.C. Ministry of Education, the BC Teachers’ Federation, UBC, school districts and community organizations.

It includes:

• • age-appropriate teaching resources

• • guidance for school policies

• • professional development

• • educator networks and summits

• • support for district and school SOGI leads

• • practical tools for responding to bullying and discrimination
    
    

Three different things are being discussed as though they are the same:

• • SOGI describes sexual orientation and gender identity.

• • SOGI-inclusive education is the work schools do to address discrimination.

• • SOGI 123 is one collection of resources and professional supports used to help schools do that work.
    
    

SOGI is an acronym, not the source of queer existence.

SOGI 123 is a resource, not a permission slip for queer students to attend school. 

Governments can change funding agreements, but queer kids do not vanish when a budget line does.

Think of it like a library

Imagine the province helped fund a school library (which shouldn’t be hard, because they do).

The funding paid for more than books. It supported a librarian, staff training, new materials, an updated catalogue and connections between schools.

Then the province ended the funding.

The books would still be sitting on the shelves. Technically, the government could say, “The library has not been cancelled.”

But the librarian may be gone. New materials may stop arriving. Teachers may receive less support. The work may become inconsistent from one school to the next.

It would be inaccurate to say the library had disappeared.

It would be equally dishonest to pretend nothing important had been lost.

That is what has happened with SOGI 123.

What was actually cut?

The province has not ordered schools to stop using SOGI 123. The resources remain available through the ARC Foundation and the government’s ERASE website.

What has ended is provincial funding for the ARC Foundation (the organization that created SOGI 123 and provided much of the training, coordination and support behind it.)

ARC confirmed that all provincial funding ended after the 2025–26 school year. The organization has already reduced staff and says it will need support from other funders to continue operating at its previous capacity.

The end of provincial funding for ARC does not mean SOGI-inclusive work has stopped inside B.C. schools. 

The province continues to fund public education, and individual school districts decide how their operating budgets, programs and staff time are allocated. Much of the daily work is carried out locally by unionized educators, administrators, counsellors and district staff.

In Chilliwack, for example, the school district has a district SOGI lead who supports educators and helps advance this work across local schools. That role and the surrounding supports are part of decisions made within the district, and are not something that disappears automatically because ARC’s provincial funding has ended.

But it does mean that the level of training, coordination and support may differ from one district to another.

Families should ask their own school district: Who is leading this work? What funding and staff time have been committed to it? What training do educators receive? And how will the district protect these supports going forward?

Losing ARC’s provincial funding weakens an important source of province-wide coordination and expertise. It does not end the work already happening locally, which makes protecting that work within every school district even more important.

The investment was working

A major UBC evaluation of SOGI 123 examined information from approximately 98,000 students across 482 schools and 55 B.C. school districts.

Researchers found that SOGI 123 reduced several forms of bullying and sexual-orientation discrimination. The benefits were experienced by LGBQ+ and heterosexual students. 

In several areas, the longer schools participated, the stronger the results became.

The research also found that training, funding and supportive leadership mattered.

That is the part we cannot afford to ignore.

A PDF does not intervene when a student is called a slur.

A website does not coach a new teacher through a difficult classroom conversation.

A policy does not implement itself.

People do that work. Training, leadership, professional networks and stable funding make it possible.

SOGI cannot be cancelled, but successful outcomes can absolutely be weakened through neglect and underinvestment.

What families should expect from their schools

As a school trustee, I understand the difference between adopting a policy and bringing it to life.

A board can approve beautiful words about safety and belonging. But if staff are not trained, leaders do not act and students cannot feel the difference, those words are only promises on paper.

Every family should expect their school to:

• • clearly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression

• • respond when students experience homophobic or transphobic bullying

• • provide age-appropriate learning that reflects the real diversity of our communities

• • treat queer, trans and questioning students with dignity

• • give educators the training needed to handle difficult situations

• • explain its policies honestly, without feeding political misinformation

• • examine whether queer and trans students actually feel safe and connected
    
    

Families can also ask:

• • Who is responsible for SOGI-inclusive education in our district?

• • What training do teachers and administrators receive?

• • What happens when a student reports discrimination?

• • How will professional support continue after the loss of ARC’s provincial funding?

• • How does the board know its policies are working?
    
    

Those are not ideological questions. 

They are governance questions about whether a public institution is meeting its responsibilities.

Safety must exist before a student comes out

As a coming out coach, I know that most people do not begin by announcing who they are.

They begin by watching.

A young person notices how adults speak about queer and trans people. 

They watch whether a teacher interrupts a hateful comment or pretends not to hear it. 

They see what happens to another student who comes out.

Long before they share their truth, they are gathering evidence about whether it will be safe to do so.

Schools cannot wait until a child comes out before becoming safe for them.

Safety must already be there.

That is why inclusive policies, trained educators and visible support are vital to student success. 

They tell students they will not have to bargain for their humanity when they are finally ready to be known.

What the province must explain

The government is technically correct that SOGI 123 still exists. But that is not enough.

The Ministry of Education should explain:

• • how much provincial funding ARC received

• • what that funding paid for

• • which services will now be reduced

• • who will maintain training, resources and educator networks

• • how smaller and rural districts will be supported

• • how this decision aligns with research showing that SOGI 123 reduces bullying
    
    

Queer and trans students are not political projects. 

They are not optional members of our schools. 

They are young people with the same right as every other child to learn without being humiliated, excluded or frightened into hiding.

The anti-SOGI movement cannot make them disappear.

A funding cut cannot remove their rights.

But if we want those rights to mean something in the daily lives of students, we must continue investing in the people who turn policy into practice.

The books are still on the shelf.

Queer students are still in the classroom.

Now the province must tell us who will keep the library running.

They could simply leave queer people alone

There is an exhausting irony at the centre of the anti-SOGI movement.

Many of the same people who demand that governments leave families alone seem completely unable to leave queer and trans families alone.

They do not have to be queer. They do not have to attend Pride. They do not have to hang a flag in their home or understand every part of another person’s identity.

They simply have to stop trying to control whether queer people are allowed to exist openly, safely and equally in public life.

That is it.

A gay student being included in a story does not take anything away from a straight student.

Calling a transgender student by their name does not erase anyone else.

Teaching children that different families exist does not prevent parents from teaching their own values at home.

No one is asking every family to be the same. 

We are asking adults to stop making children pay the price for their discomfort with difference.

Take action to keep this work going

SOGI cannot be cancelled because queer and trans students cannot be erased. But strong outcomes require more than rights written on paper. They require trained educators, current resources, provincial coordination and sustained investment.

If you want this work to continue, there are two meaningful actions you can take:

Donate directly to the ARC Foundation. 

Your contribution will help ARC continue providing SOGI 123 resources and support to educators, families and school communities.

Write to Premier David Eby and Education Minister Lisa Beare. 

Ask the province to restore stable, long-term funding for ARC Foundation and the student supports behind SOGI 123.

• Premier David Eby: Premier@gov.bc.ca
• Education Minister Lisa Beare: ECC.Minister@gov.bc.ca

Tell them plainly: keeping resources online is not enough. B.C. must invest in the people, training and networks that turn those resources into safer schools.

Queer and trans students are still here. Their rights are still here. Now we need the funding and political courage to make those rights real in every classroom.