I got engaged because I wanted to be a voice for people who didn’t feel like their voices were being heard.
LYRA EVANS, thought to be the first openly transgender school trustee in Ontario if not the country.
A woman who was once homeless in Ottawa is believed to be the first openly transgender school trustee to be elected in Ontario and possibly in Canada.
Lyra Evans, 26, will become the school trustee for Zone 9 (RideauVanier/Capital) after garnering 55 per cent of the votes cast in Monday’s election.
Evans says she felt compelled to join the race after the Doug Ford government said it would revert Ontario’s sex-education curriculum to the 1998 version.
“I was outraged,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
“I was disappointed they were going to be doing this to students who, I think, should be learning the things the 2015 curriculum teaches.
“So I got engaged because I wanted to be a voice for people who didn’t feel like their voices were being heard.”
But the journey to her election victory has been far from easy.
Evans became homeless while still in high school and struggled for several years, couch-surfing or living on the streets.
Transitional housing, volunteering and advocacy work helped Evans onto another path, even as she faced discrimination by coming out first as gay and later as transgender.
A lack of education, understanding and nuanced language regarding LGBTQ issues in the school system and the community at the time contributed to the discrimination she experienced, she says.
That’s why she wants to see schools continue with the sex-ed curriculum developed in Ontario in 2015, which included more inclusive education about gender identity and relationships, consent, and warnings about online bullying and sexting.
“There was so much that I wasn’t taught and that’s one of the reasons I’m a huge advocate for LGBTQ issues being taught in schools and diverse families being taught in schools, to give people the language, to give people the capacity to be who they are without having to go through this giant discovery phase, without having to learn all the words themselves.”
Many voters on the doorstep expressed deep concern and anger over the Ford government’s decision to scrap the 2015 sex-ed curriculum and revert to the 1998 lesson plan, Evans said.
It’s a big reason she believes she was elected as a school trustee.
She hopes her lived experiences will help to offer a more progressive approach to policies regarding sexual and LGBTQ rights education in the Ottawa school system.