Minor hockey coaches to undergo gender identity training

By Stella Acquisto

Last September, changes were made to Hockey Canada’s Ontario branches to make dressing rooms more inclusive by allowing players to choose a dressing room corresponding to their gender identity.

Players who identify as trans can use the dressing room corresponding to their gender identity, be addressed by their preferred name and pronoun, and have the privacy and confidentiality of their transgender status respected.

In addition to these changes, this year a new gender identity training program must be completed by team officials, coaches, trainers, assistant coaches and managers to support trans-inclusive hockey initiatives in Ontario.

This training is part of a new policy that aims to create a more trans-inclusive environment by upholding the human rights of transgender and gender-diverse players.

The changes were initiated as a result of a human-rights complaint in 2013 by Jesse Thompson, a transgender teenaged boy from Oshawa.

Thompson filed the complaint after he said the league he played for “outed” him when they wouldn’t let him change in the boys dressing room, instead making him use a separate room.

Ontario Hockey Federation executive director Phillip McKee said the new training will ensure everyone knows how to handle similar situations with more sensitivity.

“Hockey is a game that’s not exclusive to one identity or another, everyone is included in the game,” he explained.

Thirty-thousand team officials in the province will be required to take online training by October 1. If they join a team after that date, they will have a month to complete training.

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