Canadian Shop Teacher Wears Massive Prosthetic Breasts
Trafalgar High School teacher Kayla Lemieux’s presentation has resulted in speculation that she may be trolling, trying to get fired, or making some sort of point. But the Oakville, Ontario shop teacher has remained silent on her motivation for wearing such a large prosthetic chest even as death threats from the right target the school.
by Evan Urquhart
The story of a transgender teacher in an Ontario, Canada is being widely covered in the right wing press, and not for the first time. Kayla Lemieux, a trans woman who teaches shop for Trafalgar High School in Oakville, Ontario, is notorious for wearing a very large prosthetic chest, with prominent nipples that are often visible through her shirts.
It may be difficult to fully understand why this has become such an issue for the school, as well as a cause célèbre on the right, without actually seeing a picture. Here’s one from a New York Post story that ran today:
Pictures such as this one are themselves controversial, and form the basis of many of the news stories today. The student photographers have been threatened with suspension for taking and disseminating pictures of Lemieux, according to reports in the New York Post and other outlets, primarily ones on the right. School officials have explained their policies require “students to obtain the permission of any subject at any time (including other students, staff, or any person) before capturing, using, and transmitting images or video.”
Early stories about Lemieux simply confirmed the existence of such a teacher after leaked video surfaced of her teaching a class. The Halton District School Board, which oversees Trafalgar High School and other local schools, subsequently moved to review the dress code for potential remedies, eventually issuing a statement that it would be impossible to ban Lemieux’s prosthetic without violating labor laws (which barred changing regulations such as the dress code outside of the union negotiation process), adding that they believed it would violate Canadian human rights law as well. This has reportedly upset local parents and enraged the wider online right wing, who have made Lemieux an example of the danger of accepting transgender people. Many portray Lemieux as a sexual predator who is being allowed to target young people, and suggest that this abuse is an inevitable result of respecting transgender identities.
Anger over Lemieux’s presentation then resulted in bomb threats targeting the school and death threats targeting individual members of the board.
Lemieux has never publicly explained her choice of presentation, and speculation over why she would have made such an incendiary choice has run wild. In addition to the theory that she’s a sexual predator, some have speculated she might be trying to get fired, others believe she’s trolling and/or making a point about trans acceptance having gone too far. There is no evidence we’re aware of to back up any of these theories, although in light of her unusual choices it is understandable that many would seek to explain why.
At heart, this is a story of extreme human oddity, one that poses a double bind for those who believe in trans acceptance. While Lemieux’s unique presentation does seem consciously chosen in a way that could, perhaps, be reasonably toned down, the right wing has found many transgender people’s presentations equally offensive. Transphobes often consider traits that trans people have no control over to be inherently sexual, and therefore inappropriate. Traits like facial hair or Adam’s apples are often presented as unnacceptable and a sign of sexual deviance in a person wearing feminine attire, but women with such traits (including cis women) cannot be expected to undergo expensive, painful procedures to change them just for the sake of others’ comfort. And, while many women with such traits lack the financial means to change them even if they wish, some trans people embrace a non cis-normative presentation out of pride and a desire to be their most authentic selves.
Lemiuex’s case is an extreme outlier in a world where a man wearing nailpolish can be treated as unacceptably outré. As such it’s a poor match for policies which aim to protect the vast majority of trans people from discrimination based on prejudice and misunderstanding. The best course for those outside of Oakville is probably to ignore Lemieux, allowing local people and their elected representatives to figure out the best approach to this unusual case. The right wing wishes to make Lemieux a stand-in for all trans women, and all trans people, and this is unfair and wrong. The mainstream media in the US has largely ignored this case, and that’s the right approach. The breasts of a shop teacher in Ontario, however large, are no business of ours.