I started high school in 1969, years after it became clear to me that I was same-sex attracted. At the co-ed Swiss boarding school I attended it was customary for students to pair off into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. However, in the year of Stonewall it was hardly surprising that there were no out gays or lesbians in the student body or among the faculty, administration or staff. Heteronormativity ruled, albeit implicitly. Though we were lectured about many things and were being chided constantly for breaking rules, nobody ever spoke to us about sex or sexuality. After two years I transferred to the Connecticut boarding school my brother attended. Between institutionalized emotional neglect on the part of the faculty and administration and an unwelcoming student body where vicious backbiting was common, I felt socially squashed. The homophobic slurs directed at boys whose sexual orientation was ambigous kept me in the closet.
It was a terrible time and place to be a gay teen. I had a strong libido but suffered a deficit of the male aggression required to seek guys out to hook up with on the down low. I was ready for sex and would have welcomed romance, but neither was readily available to me for sociocultural reasons. The only thing that would have helped me out of my predicament was a time machine to the early 80s, which is when I was finally able to come out.
For all that, I agree with Ms. Kurilova that schools do not need to celebrate gay and lesbian students' sexuality. What sexual minorities require from their schools is actual physical and emotional safety and a guarantee that they will not be discriminated against for living in accordance with their sexual orientation. Though anti-bullying programs were unknown during my student days, in principle they seems like a vehicle for meeting gay and lesbian students' need for safety. Sex ed, too, has the potential to validate sexual minorities. That does not mean teaching them how to have sex, of course. That would be undignified and unnecessary. No, what's needed from sex ed is an acknowledgement that some people are attracted romantically and sexually to members of the same sex, and that is perfectly OK.
What about that "extra push from school staff to make homosexuality a central topic of conversation"? That includes ubiquitous rainbow paraphernalia, special displays of books in the school library during pride month, workbooks and other pedagogical aids and student organizations.
No, absolutely not. You see, all of that folderol is needed only to indoctrinate youth into the tenets of gender identity ideology. Why is that? It is because Butlerian gender ideology, unlike sexual orientation, is learned not inherent. I've known enough gay men by now to have concluded that most of us experience our sexual orientation as an innate quality that blossoms naturally over time beginning in childhood or adolescence. I know from painful experience that coming out to one's self can and does happen in social isolation. In contrast, kids would never arrive at an inner understanding of the contemporary concept of gender on their own. Since gender identity is made up out of whole cloth, it needs to be implanted in youth and the attitudes and behaviors reinforced by modeling.
In closing, what rankles the most about the capture of our schools and other institutions by gender identity ideology is how undemocratic it has been. Has any school or school district ever held a debate or open community forum on the merits of gender identity ideology? Have parents and other stakeholders in the educational system ever had the opportunity to vote on the implementation of programs to train children about gender identity? For that matter, do elected and appointed officials and their staffs ever give sex realists an impartial hearing, or are we always frozen out of the political process for the sin of being "transphobes"? Why is that?
Funny story: I was talking with a friend about high protein diets, and she said that in the early 1980s when visiting her parents, her dad said "Have you heard about KD Lang?"
Expecting some homophobia (sp), she said "Yes, I know. She's gay."
Her dad said "Yes, I know. Whatever. She's a vegetarian! Her family is in the livestock business. She's being very disrespectful in saying that eating meat is wrong. "
This from a conservative rural man. KD Lang's sexuality was not worthy of comment. Her dietary stance was.
To be different in school is to be ostracized, particularly in early ages before children are minimally socialized to shut the fuck up.
It will never be eliminated because we are machines that see patterns to identify differences which may threaten us. Calling out differences in children does not block bullying and ostracism, it enhances it, and always will, because that’s how humans operate.
It’s not the car flowing smoothly that run you over it’s the one that doesn’t obey traffic rules. Humans look for differences instinctively.
Gay and Lesbian children know being different doesn’t cause them to be embraced, it causes them to be scrutinized.
Adults are socialized to ignore sexual differences for the most part, but it took decades.
Children scrutinize the tiniest unusual behaviors because they are trying to learn what matters and what doesn’t.
Adults demanding children identify differences of sexuality sets them up for scrutiny, ostracism, victimization and as Eva aptly points out, resentment from peers.
It puts a little rainbow star - like a Nazi Star of David - on such children, so abusing them is less ambiguous, because kids are wary of another child striking back.
Children who are identified with a rainbow star as weak victims is even more convenient.
Gay and lesbian children should be comprehended by adults and protected from child bullies, not identified to adults and set up for child bullies.
The standards of adult sexual socialization cannot be applied to children. It’s a terrible thing to do.
What is infuriating is that for all the talk about gender identity no one offers a clear definition of either gender or identity. Is gender biological sex or a social stereotype attached to sex or just a role performance of such stereotype ? Is identity an external physical feature objectively determined by others for the purpose of identification or is it an internal feeling, and if it’s just your mood how can it be an identity.? Seems like it’s all intended to confuse and deflect any scrutiny.
Thank you for this post! I also went to Catholic schools, for 13 years, and luckily all girl schools for high school. I was always in love with other girls and it was terrifying to be considered a freak, though I did tell some girls I thought I was a Lesbian. We had no books or support of any kind. Rare references about Lesbians were horrifying and vile, like in the few films. So any support would have been a relief. But calling it "sex" would have been disturbing. For me, I loved other girls with a passion but "sex" seemed to be something associated with hets and not what I felt. In fact, the dictionary definition referred to "sexual attraction," which I did not identify with.
But support certainly would have helped. Anything pro-Lesbian would have helped, but there wasn't anything I was aware of in the Fifties. For now, there are so many good books, films, etc. that could be made available as the het stories are. But it seems like Lesbians are increasingly erased while so much has instead become the meaningless "queer" and trans horror taking over everything.
I started high school in 1969, years after it became clear to me that I was same-sex attracted. At the co-ed Swiss boarding school I attended it was customary for students to pair off into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. However, in the year of Stonewall it was hardly surprising that there were no out gays or lesbians in the student body or among the faculty, administration or staff. Heteronormativity ruled, albeit implicitly. Though we were lectured about many things and were being chided constantly for breaking rules, nobody ever spoke to us about sex or sexuality. After two years I transferred to the Connecticut boarding school my brother attended. Between institutionalized emotional neglect on the part of the faculty and administration and an unwelcoming student body where vicious backbiting was common, I felt socially squashed. The homophobic slurs directed at boys whose sexual orientation was ambigous kept me in the closet.
It was a terrible time and place to be a gay teen. I had a strong libido but suffered a deficit of the male aggression required to seek guys out to hook up with on the down low. I was ready for sex and would have welcomed romance, but neither was readily available to me for sociocultural reasons. The only thing that would have helped me out of my predicament was a time machine to the early 80s, which is when I was finally able to come out.
For all that, I agree with Ms. Kurilova that schools do not need to celebrate gay and lesbian students' sexuality. What sexual minorities require from their schools is actual physical and emotional safety and a guarantee that they will not be discriminated against for living in accordance with their sexual orientation. Though anti-bullying programs were unknown during my student days, in principle they seems like a vehicle for meeting gay and lesbian students' need for safety. Sex ed, too, has the potential to validate sexual minorities. That does not mean teaching them how to have sex, of course. That would be undignified and unnecessary. No, what's needed from sex ed is an acknowledgement that some people are attracted romantically and sexually to members of the same sex, and that is perfectly OK.
What about that "extra push from school staff to make homosexuality a central topic of conversation"? That includes ubiquitous rainbow paraphernalia, special displays of books in the school library during pride month, workbooks and other pedagogical aids and student organizations.
No, absolutely not. You see, all of that folderol is needed only to indoctrinate youth into the tenets of gender identity ideology. Why is that? It is because Butlerian gender ideology, unlike sexual orientation, is learned not inherent. I've known enough gay men by now to have concluded that most of us experience our sexual orientation as an innate quality that blossoms naturally over time beginning in childhood or adolescence. I know from painful experience that coming out to one's self can and does happen in social isolation. In contrast, kids would never arrive at an inner understanding of the contemporary concept of gender on their own. Since gender identity is made up out of whole cloth, it needs to be implanted in youth and the attitudes and behaviors reinforced by modeling.
In closing, what rankles the most about the capture of our schools and other institutions by gender identity ideology is how undemocratic it has been. Has any school or school district ever held a debate or open community forum on the merits of gender identity ideology? Have parents and other stakeholders in the educational system ever had the opportunity to vote on the implementation of programs to train children about gender identity? For that matter, do elected and appointed officials and their staffs ever give sex realists an impartial hearing, or are we always frozen out of the political process for the sin of being "transphobes"? Why is that?
Funny story: I was talking with a friend about high protein diets, and she said that in the early 1980s when visiting her parents, her dad said "Have you heard about KD Lang?"
Expecting some homophobia (sp), she said "Yes, I know. She's gay."
Her dad said "Yes, I know. Whatever. She's a vegetarian! Her family is in the livestock business. She's being very disrespectful in saying that eating meat is wrong. "
This from a conservative rural man. KD Lang's sexuality was not worthy of comment. Her dietary stance was.
Nice writing.
Eva touches on the irreconcilable paradox.
To be different in school is to be ostracized, particularly in early ages before children are minimally socialized to shut the fuck up.
It will never be eliminated because we are machines that see patterns to identify differences which may threaten us. Calling out differences in children does not block bullying and ostracism, it enhances it, and always will, because that’s how humans operate.
It’s not the car flowing smoothly that run you over it’s the one that doesn’t obey traffic rules. Humans look for differences instinctively.
Gay and Lesbian children know being different doesn’t cause them to be embraced, it causes them to be scrutinized.
Adults are socialized to ignore sexual differences for the most part, but it took decades.
Children scrutinize the tiniest unusual behaviors because they are trying to learn what matters and what doesn’t.
Adults demanding children identify differences of sexuality sets them up for scrutiny, ostracism, victimization and as Eva aptly points out, resentment from peers.
It puts a little rainbow star - like a Nazi Star of David - on such children, so abusing them is less ambiguous, because kids are wary of another child striking back.
Children who are identified with a rainbow star as weak victims is even more convenient.
Gay and lesbian children should be comprehended by adults and protected from child bullies, not identified to adults and set up for child bullies.
The standards of adult sexual socialization cannot be applied to children. It’s a terrible thing to do.
What is infuriating is that for all the talk about gender identity no one offers a clear definition of either gender or identity. Is gender biological sex or a social stereotype attached to sex or just a role performance of such stereotype ? Is identity an external physical feature objectively determined by others for the purpose of identification or is it an internal feeling, and if it’s just your mood how can it be an identity.? Seems like it’s all intended to confuse and deflect any scrutiny.
Thank you for this post! I also went to Catholic schools, for 13 years, and luckily all girl schools for high school. I was always in love with other girls and it was terrifying to be considered a freak, though I did tell some girls I thought I was a Lesbian. We had no books or support of any kind. Rare references about Lesbians were horrifying and vile, like in the few films. So any support would have been a relief. But calling it "sex" would have been disturbing. For me, I loved other girls with a passion but "sex" seemed to be something associated with hets and not what I felt. In fact, the dictionary definition referred to "sexual attraction," which I did not identify with.
But support certainly would have helped. Anything pro-Lesbian would have helped, but there wasn't anything I was aware of in the Fifties. For now, there are so many good books, films, etc. that could be made available as the het stories are. But it seems like Lesbians are increasingly erased while so much has instead become the meaningless "queer" and trans horror taking over everything.