Well Past Her "Sell By" Date.
14 years ago
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Gay Education...
The Gay Straight Alliance has recently launched a campaign called Youth in Motion which is designed to educate kids in school about gender and sexual diversity. Reportedly, 250 California schools have already signed up to receive a video about a young Native American boy and his quest to wear a bikini. I think this is a fabulous way to eliminate hate and discrimination before it is deep-rooted in the younger generation. Kids are extremely impressionable, they learn life lessons, morals, and values through experiencing the world, and more often than not, from their parents. Unfortunately a lot of parents are downright disturbed by this new found diversity education. Schools, by law, are required to let parents opt-out their kids from the viewing. What are these parents so afraid of? That their kid may become accepting and cultured? Or that, god help them, their kid becomes.... GAY! My point is that ignorance breeds ignorance. People need to see the world in full spectrum and stop being so fearful of the 'other.' Schools need to make diversity education a requirement (other than psychology and sociology) and show kids that there is more than one way of living, and that, a meaningful relationship can occur and does occur between same sex couples. And that being gay is not a disease or a problem that needs to be dealt with. Sometimes I cannot believe the hatred and fearfulness in the world and the lack of open-minded adults.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The time is ripe for this type of diversity education, I agree. However, I would like to defend parents that might still seem ignorant for their reluctance to expose their kids to these types of ideas. First of all, I would be supportive of my children regardless of their sexuality, but I wouldn't choose for them to be marginalized. Regardless of how tolerant our society becomes with respect to diversity, homosexuality will always be statistically marginalized. I think parents are scared of giving their children the information not because it might MAKE them gay, but because it might validate something they already know about themselves, the reprocussions of which their parents don't see as positive.
ReplyDeleteI think you are absolutely correct in providing more education in schools about sexuality and sexual identity. Sexuality should be more openly discussed since sexuality makes up a large amount of a person's self worth and identification. Our sexuality creates fundamental core ideas of how we see ourselves and the world around us. I do think that sometimes people are afraid of new things and are not willing to change with the times because its hard as humans to accept the fact that sometimes we aren't always right.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with the comment above mine tho, I think that yes homosexuals will always be statistically marginalized, but so have many other groups in our nation’s history. If we worried about what becoming marginalize will do to people who identify as homosexual then these groups will always live in fear. Before in the 1930s and 1940s people could lose jobs if found out to be gay and would be reported in newspapers so others could know of their “crimes”. If people do not talk about this then there will always be these problems and parents will always be scared to have gay sons and daughters. By being open and honest we can help try and change the image of being gay in our communities.
I think you make a strong argument and that yes, we need to start teaching that some children will have two mommies and two daddies and that it is totally ok for that to occur. By presenting homosexuality as normal and natural then it becomes a social norm just as heterosexuality and marriage.
I do agree teaching two mommies and two daddies is the best way to educate children. I am open about my sexuality. I guess my perspective is coming from a parents side. My partner and I raised a son, all of his friends knew he had two mommies. I do not agree with the California schools video choice. The video is not portraying the family unit, a child with two mommies or daddies. A video about a young Native American boy and his quest to wear a bikini, many gay man are not in quest to were a bikini. Presenting it as natural as a heterosexual marrige would be great.
ReplyDeleteYouth in Motion is a LGBT program that offers videos to schools. So, though I don't know for certain, but I would have to guess that the video choice about the boy who wanted to wear a bikini was not meant to represent homosexuality, but rather, a transgendered youth. Which I think is a really positive thing because as taboo as sexuality is in our culture, I think gender(non-normative) is often less spoken of.
ReplyDelete