Factorization of polynomials

• Recent education policy changes and protests about sex education reveal increasing concern and polarization over how sex and gender identity are taught in public schools in Canada.
• They also expose the significant role now played by school boards in constructing the meaning of gender identity and gender expression.
• Changes in how words and terms are used can impact our ability to know about people’s lives and protect their rights.
• Significant shifts are taking place around how we define and understand sex and gender in education and public policy in Canada.

Sex, gender and law

• Yet sex, gender identity and gender expression are not defined in human rights legislation in Canada.
• They should be able to express their concerns and participate in open discussions about the meaning of words we share.

Changes in the definition of sex

• The Charter of the United Nations prohibits sex discrimination.
• The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights precludes discrimination based on sex.

Changes since 2018

Since 2018, the word sex is increasingly defined by the federal government as something that is “assigned at birth.” But there is no consistency across federal departments and agencies. Some continue to define sex as a biological question of male or female. Those that define sex as assigned at birth do not consistently explain how sex is assigned or by whom.

Conceptual shifts around word ‘woman’

• Similar conceptual shifts are taking place around the word woman.
• The word woman was formerly linked to sex and used to refer to female people.
• Now, government departments including the Department of Justice increasingly use the word woman to refer to all people who identify as women.

Defining gender identity

• When gender identity was added to federal human rights legislation, the Department of Justice defined gender identity as:
  “each person’s internal and individual experience of gender.
• A person’s gender identity may or may not align with the gender typically associated with their sex.”
  “A person’s internal and deeply felt sense of being a man or woman, both or neither.
• A person’s gender identity may or may not align with the gender typically associated with their sex.”

School boards define terms differently

• Researchers have identified that secular boards across Ontario define gender identity and gender expression differently from one another.
• Some school boards now define gender identity as something everyone has.

Data collection shifts away from sex towards gender

• A shift away from sex and towards gender (identity) has occurred in data collection practices at the federal government level.
• In 2018, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Department of Justice Canada recommended “ways to modernize how the Government of Canada handles information on sex and gender.” They recommended that “departments and agencies should collect or display gender information by default, unless sex information is specifically needed.” They used “sex” to refer to biological characteristics, and “gender” to refer to a social and personal identity.

Open discussions are overdue

As Canadian society shifts to accommodate the legal recognition of gender diversity, there will be tensions. Ultimately, courts will be tasked with deciding how some of those tensions are resolved, when sex, gender identity and gender expression are all protected in human rights laws. In the meantime, as a society, we need to openly and transparently grapple with some increasingly important questions:
First, how will foundational concepts such as sex, gender identity and gender expression be defined and given effect in education, law, public policy and beyond?
Second, how will tensions between experiences, interests and rights associated with sex and those associated with gender identity and/or gender expression be resolved?
Third, who is best placed to decide how these questions are answered in education, law, public policy and beyond?
Everyone who may be impacted by the answers to these questions should be included in the conversation.
Debra M Haak receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Bar Association Law for the Future Fund, and the Queen's University Faculty Association Fund for Scholarly Research.

• Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) and Ship of Theseus , a therapeutics company developing degradation-resistant homeobox (HOX) family biologics, today announced a Good Manufacturing Practice- (GMP) plasmid DNA contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) agreement.
• Ship of Theseus will leverage Charles River’s premier expertise to manufacture GMP plasmid DNA to serve as the active drug substance for its lead candidate.
• Charles River’s GMP plasmid DNA CDMO center of excellence based in Keele, United Kingdom will lead the collaboration, providing services that include plasmid DNA backbone generation, plasmid synthesis, GMP master cell bank (MCB) generation, pre-production evaluation, and GMP plasmid DNA manufacture including in-house release testing.
• We trust the team’s decades of success developing, producing, and reliably delivering plasmid DNA and look forward to bringing our therapies to patients.” – Jeremy Elser, Founding CEO, Ship of Theseus

• The financing was co-led by RV Invest and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. – with participation from existing investors Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden.
• Asgard Therapeutics' approach enables the transformation of cancer cells into immune cells to induce a broad immune response specific to the patient's own tumors.
• The approach uses direct cell reprogramming to transform tumor cells into a sub-type of dendritic cell which present tumor antigens to the immune system.
• "Asgard promises to leapfrog a core challenge in immuno-oncology – the heterogeneity of solid tumors – through the first pan-tumoral cell reprogramming approach.

• The financing was co-led by RV Invest and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. – with participation from existing investors Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden.
• Asgard Therapeutics' approach enables the transformation of cancer cells into immune cells to induce a broad immune response specific to the patient's own tumors.
• The approach uses direct cell reprogramming to transform tumor cells into a sub-type of dendritic cell which present tumor antigens to the immune system.
• "Asgard promises to leapfrog a core challenge in immuno-oncology – the heterogeneity of solid tumors – through the first pan-tumoral cell reprogramming approach.