Kelowna RCMP investigating after child's gender questioned at track event
Editor’s note: This article contains language that may be offensive to some readers.
RCMP is investigating an incident involving a man who allegedly disrupted a BC elementary school track and field event to confirm children’s gender, leading to public condemnation.
Heidi Starr is a mother of a nine-year-old girl who was waiting her turn to throw for a shot put event last Thursday. It was part of a district-led, regional track and field meet at Kelowna’s Apple Bowl.
Before her daughter could throw, Starr said the grandfather of a child participating in the girls’ event asked the parent organizer if this was co-ed.
Starr said the organizer said she was only given a list of names. However, the grandfather allegedly pointed out there were two boys in line and pointed to Starr’s daughter and another girl with short hair.
At that point, Starr said she stepped in to say, “My daughter is a girl. She has every right to participate here.”
She said the man replied by questioning the child’s gender and demanded to see a certificate for proof.
Starr said the man’s wife also called her and her ex-wife “groomers and genital mutilators.”
Kevin Kaardal, superintendent of Central Okanagan Public Schools, said that staff intervened and eventually moved the event across the field.
Despite organizers asking the couple to leave, Starr said they refused. The man and his wife were eventually escorted to their car, she said.
What charges could be suggested?
Kelowna Mounties confirmed the incident was reported, and it created an investigative file. It also has received several messages from “concerned citizens.”
“But, due to the Privacy Act, we cannot share further details regarding the incident or the investigation at this time.”
In a TikTok video, Vancouver Criminal Lawyer Kyla Lee addressed the incident as people wonder, “What could he be charged with?”
However, Lee said not much can be done in this circumstance.
She does continue to suggest criminal harassment is “the most obvious charge” that could be applied.
“But because it’s a one-off incident, it’s very difficult to prove criminal harassment in circumstances where there’s only one instance of harassment,” she said.
@kylaleelawyer♬ original sound – Kyla Lee
“I never yelled towards the girl”
In a statement to Castanet News, the man accused of insulting Starr’s daughter said, “I never yelled towards the girl.”
He and his wife denied Starr’s claims against them, adding he reached out to the girl’s school principal to share his perspective.
An email statement from the School Principal, Robbie Franklin, confirmed the man had reached out to the school and staff listened to “what they had to say.”
Franklin added staff thanked the man for his apology and added, “They did not condone or agree with the individual’s behaviour.”
“She knew exactly what that man was asking”
Starr said the incident was “unprecedented” and caught “every single person there off guard.”
“I could not believe this was happening … that hateful rhetoric should be nowhere near kids. I think everybody was incredibly shocked that … even when he’s being told to shush, told to walk away — he wouldn’t give up. His wife was just shouting obscenities and really, really gross name-calling.”
Starr said her daughter was in and out of tears the whole evening the day of the alleged incident and added she had never been exposed to such “vitriol and hate.”
“She was born to a lesbian family, and she has family members and former coaches and teachers and friends on every part of the gender spectrum … She knows she knew exactly what that man was asking,” Starr said.
“It was so vehemently directed right at her and was incredibly distressing.”
Starr said she is grateful for the supportive responses she’s gotten online, adding typically, people are quick the spread hateful rhetoric online.
However, she added, this incident exemplifies how people like the couple were “emboldened” enough to feel “justified to stop a Grade 4 girl shot put event, demanding gender validation.”