Brought to you by Our Duty Canada- Author Anonymous
Canadian publisher, Toronto Annick Press, and author Kathy Stinson decided they needed a DEI consultant to help with a new book version after receiving a complaint about their ‘Annick Toddler Series’ title The Bare Naked Book, published in 1986. The complaint was from a transactivist Mom who was unhappy
“with the inaccuracy of the “penis” and “vagina” spread. — “Our identity does not always match our sexual organs and I wish this book reflected that. I would also like to see intersex added as 10% of the population falls into that category and wouldn’t be able to relate to having either a penis or a vulva.”
Annick Press recognized that the book had enjoyed a long run but had become a little dated and set about creating the title’s third edition.
To clarify for the reader, the Our Duty Canada Blog recently posted a link to a read aloud version of the 1986 book in question beside the new 2021 version. They noted that children’s books have become a funnel for queer and gender Ideology because one of the central tenets of Queer Theory is the power of language; how words shape people and culture. Changing cis culture with the very youngest children makes sense to transactivists. The most recent edition of The Bare Naked Book attempted to change the culture from ‘cis’ to ‘transgender’ or simply, ‘sex established at conception’ to ‘sex assigned at birth’.
1986 Version of The Bare Naked Book on YouTube
2021Verson of The Bare Naked Book on YouTube
Our Duty Canada listed over 100 titles, mostly with read aloud links, which they argued have been designed to break down safeguarding barriers through sexual connotations to convince young children that they or those around them are the opposite sex, neither sex or both sexes.
Kathy Stinson, mother of two, stepmother of two and grandmother of six, may have been initially shocked by the strong reaction to her original book, since it had been selling strongly for 35 years with multiple editions. The 2006 Twentieth Anniversary Edition described sales as “still going strong.”
Would Toronto Annick Press have responded so readily to the complaint had they realized that the term “intersex” in the complaint was outdated? For decades people with disorders of sexual development had been requesting the acceptance of the current accurate term DSD, Disorder of Sexual Development. Did they know that skelton’s 10% figure indicating the DSD population is wildly inflated?
“Differences of sex development (DSD) is a group of conditions in which there is a discrepancy between the external (outside) genitals (penis, scrotum, vulva, labia) and the internal (inside) genitals (testes, vagina, ovaries). Intersex is an older term for DSD.”
“The proportion of people with DSDs (‘intersex’ conditions) is 0.018%. Conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female, occur in 0.018% of the population]”.
By 2021, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultants had become a workplace staple, but they were new to changing toddler picture books. The editorial group decided that not only was another edition necessary, but that effectively the entire book must be rewritten including text and illustrations. Being a business, they needed to retain the original title which had reliably produced decades of sales. They wouldn’t have wanted to be accused of ‘book banning’ by simply discontinuing and disowning the 1986 version. Did they know that, like the cuckoo who evicts the eggs or young of the host species out of the nest, the original version would not survive?
Annick Press changed the new book’s age recommendation from the former ‘toddler’ to three- to five-year-olds. It’s challenging to think of another children’s picture book, which was changed in every conceivable way, but retained the same title. Even the text changed from prose to poetry. Stinson explained the unusual requirement to engage a new illustrator, Melissa Cho, saying,
“The team at Annick was more racially diverse than it had been in the 1980’s when the original version was published, and it seemed only right that the author-illustrator team should reflect a similar diversity.”
Did Melissa Cho think that she was hired on her merit?. Never mind, she understood that the rainbow sells books. Cho’s illustrations displayed every conceivable visual aspect of diversity even including non-binary or transman double mastectomy scars except, wait for it, boys and girls. Sex was forbidden. No penis, no vagina, only ‘genitals. But Cho’s cover illustration shows that she knew young children are very much interested in what’s in their pull ups even if their parents are not. CBC Books approved of the book’s total editorial changes saying,
“The book’s text and illustrations were reviewed and revised on the basis of equity, diversity, and inclusion by J. Wallace Skelton, an equity consultant, educator, writer, activist, and parent. Featuring a note from the author explaining the history of the book and the importance of this updated edition, readers will delight in this celebration of all kinds of bodies.”
Stinson evidently liked the reviews of her “new” title noting the words of Dana Rudolph in her blog post of March 24, 2021. Dana is the founder of Mombian, a blog, resource directory, and book database for lesbian moms and other LGBTQ parents. Dana was pleased to see that
“One child with a penis has a pink shirt; another with short hair has a vulva, but again, they are not gendered.”
Sex or gender in relation to the human body must be erased. In just 35 years the Canadian cultural establishment had gone from “Big and small, short and tall, young and old—Every BODY is different!” to “no one has a sex”.
By 2023 Stinson began to defend her DEI edited book. During her presentation, “Banned: On Diversity, Censorship, and
Children’s Books” at Victoria’s Festival of Authors, Aug
21, 2023, Stinson said that,
“some adults might be uncomfortable with the book because they simply believe it’s inappropriate to discuss nude bodies with children.”
“Other adults might be uncomfortable with the book because they’re still in early stages of learning what the increasingly public talk about gender identity and fluidity is all about.”
Stinson’s first comment was disingenuous since version 1986 had plenty of nudity and had endured thirty-five years. The second comment conveyed the conceit that beliefs are simply a matter of stages of a ‘journey’ implying that those who believe that a child’s sex is determined at conception are primitive or dare we say ‘deplorable’? Was she unaware that ‘detransitioner’ is also a stage along the ‘gender journey’? In a later comment during the same Victoria interview, she suggested that adults who are uncomfortable with the book, not read it.
Cruelly, Stinson’s wittiest comment was aimed directly at the growing sector of grieving parents whose children’s health has been permanently compromised by a combination of puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones, and surgeries. Many have effectively lost their children who have gone “no contact” resulting from transactivist’s grooming tactics. Still others have had their children removed from their care by the courts for failure to “affirm” their child’s self identified gender. Stinson joked,
“I don’t know if any of my books have been outright banned, but they’ve definitely been challenged. Let me end with a favourite quote on the subject. “The ‘This book will turn your kid trans’ crowd really needs to start explaining why I am not, in fact, a very hungry caterpillar!”
Does Kathy Stinson believe that a book effectively telling a three-year-old that there is no such thing as a boy or a girl is not going to lead them to become confused and to question their identity? Dr. Miriam Grossman, forty-five year child and adolescent psychiatrist has written an entire book “Lost in Trans Nation’ about this and testified about the risks to children to the US congress in 2023. Does Stinson understand that children learned from a book that the very hungry caterpillar changed into a butterfly?
Who led Stinson’s radical conversion from lover of reading writing, jigsaw puzzles, and walking in the woods to gender ideology activist?
Enter DEI consultant (no gendered pronouns or capital letters please) j wallace skelton. Skelton is a trans identified married man married to trans identified man s bear bergman (no capitals please). Together they have a family of three children and founded a publishing company, Flamingo Rampant, publishing feminist, racially-diverse LGBTQ positive children’s books.
The couple are not only a team in book publishing but actively and separately support young people. Skelton boasted on X as having supported GSAs in 11 high schools (every lunch, every day afterschool, and one before school” and even initiated elementary GSAs in the 2000s. More recently she mused on X that she liked to think of the third Saskatchewan MLA education minister in a year as an MLA pen pal. CBC Regina frequently uses Skelton’s ‘expert opinion’ to invalidate opinions on parental rights.
Author of four books for children, partner Bergman was a founding member of the first ever US Gay/Straight Alliance (now Gender Sexuality Alliance) and famously wrote this article in the since closed, Huffington Post,
“I have come to Indoctrinate Your Children into My LGBTQ Agenda and I’m Not a Bit Sorry.”
In addition to being a children’s picture book author and publisher, skelton is an assistant professor of Queer Studies in Education at the University of Regina and is a Diversity Equity Inclusion consultant at J@JUXTAPOSECONSULTING.COM.
Skelton has an impressive resume for promoting anti-oppression strategies at Girl Guides of Canada, Ontario Human Rights Commission, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Rainbow Health Ontario, Canadian Centre for Race Relations, National Center for Transgender Equality and too many Ontario school boards, colleges and universities to list. Skelton’s views are quoted in Regina Faculty of Educations News.
“I’m very interested in dismantling the systems of oppression—the ways that sexism, cissexism, transphobia, and homophobia (along with colonialism, racism, ableism, and classism) shape our society and schools.”
“refusing to see heterosexuality and cissexuality as normal—heck about refusing the idea of normal. It’s about centering the views, experiences and knowledge of 2SLGBTQ people, and about queering and transing curriculum”.
“I believe that imposing the gender binary on all people is an act of colonialism and deeply harmful.”
“Trans justice. Queer liberation. Yes, those are also my interests at work, but my work interests have grown out of my personal experience and my communities. I’m a parent of three children, and I am deeply interested in supporting them and learning from them.”
Solomon Bergman, a nine-year-old grade three student in Regina, was at the Pride parade. He said he counts himself as queer because he is a part of the queer community.
“It’s a big celebration for my family. My whole household’s queer, and it’s a big celebration to be here today,” he said.
What of Annick Press? Annick Press is a prestigious independent children’s book publisher producing authors and illustrators who have won many prizes for excellence. It was founded in 1975 and has a commitment to literature for youth that reflects the world of the contemporary child. It acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Creates, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.
The Government of Canada website for data on recipients of Grants and Contributions shows that from 2006 to 2023, Annick Press received a total of $5,787,457. These amounts seem large in relation to a relatively small publisher of children’s books. They are remarkable for their consistency, and they have been growing over time. In 2020 alone they received $522,811. Canada Council grants supporting artistic practice show amounts of $100,000 going back to 2017 and smaller amounts before then.
Upon reflection, Kathy Stinson, j wallace skelton, s bear bergman, and Melissa Cho, along with publishing companies like Toronto Annick Press and Flamingo Rampant, represent a growing trend in the organized injection of DEI ‘queerness’ into picture books for young children; arguably the most vulnerable segment of the marketplace.
Whether those loading the ‘syringe’ for the parents, teachers, librarians and child care providers to administer, are doing so with a lack of understanding of the provable harms that come with seeking a ‘gender identity’, or in an active attempt to ‘queer’ the population starting with our youngest, the result is the same; business profits and children suffer.
The author wishes to remain anonymous to protect herself from potential trans activist hostility. She is an experienced primary years teacher, teacher librarian, mother and grandmother.
