An­na-Lisa Paul, Rhon­dor Dowlat & Shal­iza Has­sanali

As pub­lic up­roar over sto­ry books deal­ing with sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion among pri­ma­ry school-aged chil­dren con­tin­ued to mush­room yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly de­nied there were plans to in­clude them in the school syl­labus.

How­ev­er, the as­sur­ance did lit­tle to stave off an on­line pe­ti­tion by an­gry par­ents who called for a to­tal ban of such ma­te­r­i­al on the na­tion­al book­list.

But Gads­by-Dol­ly dis­missed claims the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) in­tend­ed to in­tro­duce any of the books in­to pri­ma­ry schools, as was be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on­line.

“I want to re­mind the pop­u­la­tion that as of Sep­tem­ber 2022, all prin­ci­pals were in­struct­ed that there are to be no changes to the school book­list.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly said this di­rec­tive was in re­sponse to, “the pop­u­la­tion’s ag­i­ta­tion on the fact that there were so many changes to (text­book) edi­tions.”

With the end of the third aca­d­e­m­ic term loom­ing, she re­it­er­at­ed, “Prin­ci­pals were re­mind­ed in this term that there was to be no change to their school’s book­list and so the ques­tion that aris­es now of books be­ing in­tro­duced in Sep­tem­ber on­to the school book­list, that is sim­ply not true.”

Re­gard­ing the books, which fea­ture as­pects of the LGBTQI+ com­mu­ni­ty and which are cur­rent­ly on sale at RIK Ser­vices Ltd, the min­is­ter added, “These books that have been seen in RIK or wher­ev­er, they have noth­ing to do with the school book­list.”

Rub­bish­ing oth­er claims that changes were be­ing made to the Health and Fam­i­ly Life Ed­u­ca­tion (HFLE) cur­ricu­lum cur­rent­ly be­ing taught in schools, Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed, “There is no change in the cur­ricu­lum, there is no truth to that.”

Re­gard­ing al­leged claims that stu­dents were be­ing tak­en to health cen­tres for hor­mon­al in­jec­tions to be ad­min­is­tered, the min­is­ter added, “Again, there is no truth to that.”

She shared what she too, had been privy to.

“I have heard some­one speak­ing about teach­ers be­ing trained to tell stu­dents about dif­fer­ent gen­ders and so on...again, we have done a lot of teacher train­ing and we con­tin­ue to do so, but none of our teacher train­ing cov­ers those is­sues at all,” she said.

She added, “I am not sure where these ru­mours are com­ing from but there is no truth to them.”

Mean­while, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said they be­lieve peo­ple have the right to buy or read what­ev­er ma­te­r­i­al they choose. “Once it does not con­tra­vene the laws of the coun­try,” he said.

In re­sponse to the call for the pub­lic to boy­cott RIK Ser­vices Ltd over the books, he told Guardian Me­dia con­sumers have the right and free will to pa­tro­n­ise any busi­ness they want­ed to.

Lum Kin said he was aware that groups had ex­pressed con­cerns about the LGBTQI+ com­mu­ni­ty’s in­flu­ence.

“How­ev­er, they are cit­i­zens of T&T and they al­so have rights,” he said, adding, “We have mem­bers who have ex­pressed their con­cerns as well to the MoE. But we have to be as ob­jec­tive as pos­si­ble.”

Lum Kin, how­ev­er, said TTUTA was ready to act should it be­come nec­es­sary.

“If it comes up, we will con­sult our mem­ber­ship and see what are the con­cerns that they have.”

As far as TTUTA is aware, Lum Kin said par­ents were not be­ing forced to buy the books as they were not on the school cur­ricu­lum.

Re­gard­ing the pe­ti­tion cir­cu­lat­ing via so­cial me­dia, he said peo­ple have a choice to sign or not.

“All these are part of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es that TTUTA ad­heres to.”

The TTUTA head be­lieves this is­sue will be ad­dressed when the union and the MoE meet for their month­ly meet­ing in the com­ing days.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed RIK Ser­vices yes­ter­day, its op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Ann Marie Har­ri­nanan was said to have been en­gaged in a meet­ing, while the com­pa­ny’s gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Mo­han Baldeo, was re­port­ed­ly at a con­fer­ence.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease last evening, ti­tled “Nev­er judge a book by its cov­er,” RIK Ser­vices Ltd wrote, “Thank you for your in­ter­est and ro­bust dis­cus­sion on items that we stock.

“RIK Ser­vices Ltd. has served the in­ter­est of the pub­lic for al­most half a cen­tu­ry and is de­light­ed to con­tin­ue to do so. We stand by our com­mit­ment to book­selling to all mem­bers of the pub­lic; re­gard­less of gen­der af­fil­i­a­tion or iden­ti­ty. We do not dis­crim­i­nate. We are a book­store with one of the widest se­lec­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go that caters to the needs of our di­verse pop­u­la­tion. We ap­pre­ci­ate and re­spect all of our val­ued cus­tomers. All are wel­come to our stores.”

20,222 sign on­line pe­ti­tion

An on­line pe­ti­tion is call­ing for a ban on sev­er­al books now be­ing of­fered for sale at RIK Ser­vices Ltd. Us­ing a pho­to of one of the books, ti­tled “You are a Rain­bow Too!,” as the back­drop, it had earned some 20,222 sig­na­tures up to last night.

It was launched by LA­DYD Moses, who stat­ed, “Book will change the mind­set of chil­dren at the pri­ma­ry lev­el of their ed­u­ca­tion. Par­ents will no longer have a say, which will be against hu­man val­ues. We must get many who are of­fend­ed by this to take part in this ac­tion to ban this as they want to im­ple­ment it for the new school term in Sep­tem­ber.”

Pe­ti­tion­er Kevon Young wrote, “Groom­ing chil­dren is pae­dophil­ia. ... Just like you can’t buy al­co­hol un­til you reach 21, you can’t dri­ve with­out a per­mit...you get that at 17, you can’t vote un­til 18, you get pen­sion at 65. There is a age lim­it for a rea­son. Chil­dren, kids don’t care about sex, they just want to play but LGBT(P) knows adults are stuck in their way of think­ing when it comes to gays but if they de­sen­si­tised kids from young, the fu­ture will be gay be­cause they see it as a nor­mal part of life be­cause of groom­ing, de­sen­si­ti­sa­tion and ma­nip­u­la­tion. Let the kids be kids and grow.”

Marylin Joseph wrote, “Sodom and Go­mor­rah were de­stroyed by God for the sin of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty. (Gen 19: 1-29) It was abom­i­na­tion then. And it will re­main such un­til the end of time. God made per­fect hu­man be­ings. Male and Fe­male pe­ri­od...any­thing else is dis­pleas­ing in the eyes of the Lord.”

Reza De­onar­ine wrote, “Par­ents/Guardians have a right to pro­tect their kids and teach what they be­lieve is cor­rect.”