Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

Homophobia and heterosexism are unfortunately permeating the world of childrens toys, media, and literature in ways we must be more aware of. In looking for positive and negative examples of sexual orientation in childrens literature and media, what I discovered was that it was difficult to find any mainstream items portraying homosexual parents in any normalizing way. Even as much forward progress toward acceptance we've made as a society, when it comes to children, we are still modeling almost exclusively hetero examples for them. This part of many children's social identity, as a child of two moms or two dads, is nearly invisible commercially. What is present in terms of modeling are examples such as these:

 

Barbie can be bought separately, but the messaging is clear here, she is supposed to marry Ken. This is what both the dolls and the Barbie cartoon consistently adhere to in the storyline and marketing. Even in trolls, an otherwise positive motivational movie, both the main trolls, and the villains are looking for love in the opposite gender. With both examples, the idea is not to sexualize the toys, as students receive messages they form an opinion about their own bodies and choices, and we must work to support both child and family without judgement (Derman-Sparks and Edwards, 2010). While these two examples are not explicitly telling children they cannot find love outside of heterosexual relationships, they are not modeling the diverse backgrounds that the kids buying the toys or watching the movies come from.

This same homophobia is present in the schools as well. We had a situation at school where one student had two moms, and they were quite active in his education. They walked him into class every morning and checked in with the teacher about his day every afternoon. One of his moms was the first to volunteer any time the classroom needed help. They made sure he was on track and advocated for his needs. When they would leave in the mornings, and when referring to these moms in conversation at the school, the teachers referred to his "rainbow mommies". This was not a term of affection. This term was an identifier, a way of othering, making them out of the "normal" parents who came to school, and also something some of the teachers found funny. I am sure this little boy would not appreciate his mothers referred to as "rainbow mommies", as evidenced by the term only being used behind their backs. This is the kind of cultural exclusion that must be overcome in a school.

Students catch on to terms used by adults quite easily, and the word gay is no exception. A former student, whom I will call Alan for the purposes of this blog, was unique in his mannerisms. He was funny, outspoken, full of charisma, and could sing beautifully although in a higher pitch voice. He also danced constantly, always dressed more fancy than his peers, and would walk with a swagger that no one else in class had. The other children did not appreciate him and would mock his mannerisms calling him gay. This shows how the stereotyping of gay men so fully permeates the dominant culture that students come up with their views based on what they see and hear around them. What I found interesting though, was the response from his classroom teacher and those on the teaching team. The video, Start seeing diversity: Sexual orientation (Laureate, 2011) instructs us to keep our beliefs outside the classroom and focus on building up the students ready to face the real world. In this situation, however, the conversation became what do we do to support him because maybe he is gay. It strikes me that the teachers and students were making the same assumptions, with neither having any insight, about an 8-year-old boy who has not shared with anyone or is not yet even aware himself yet of his preferences. Why would we as teachers focus on supporting him as potentially homosexual, thereby making the same stereotypical assumptions that we were clearly not making about any other child in class. In order to support divergent thinking, then, we must be cognizant of those assumptions and our everyday biases (Laureate, 2011). What we should have discussed was how to educate all the students on the concept that not every student who enjoys performing is homosexual, and that we work as a community include all students without judging them. That would have instead moved children toward challenging the stereotypes and at least talking them through (Harro, 2010). We continue to have hurdles to cross, work to do, and challenges to reflect on ourselves when it comes to gender, identity, and orientation.

Reference:

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

Harro, B. (2010). The cycle of socialization. In M. Adams, W. Blumenfeld, C. Castaneda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice (Figure 6.1 on p. 46, 2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Start seeing diversity: Gender [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Start seeing diversity: Sexual orientation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu