Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

This week has pulled some interesting observations together.

Firstly was going on Amazon to look for reading material for my soon to be 7-year old girl friend. Now that she is out of my purview of students, I feel unsure about her birthday presents. Fair enough, I did subject 'reading material for girls', but was not ready for the 'girliness' of princesses, fairies and jewellery design. She is that but she is so much more - she is mountain climbing, on site GPS expert, widely opinionated, wildly active, fluent in two languages and  so much more.

Then I took a look at our school library. We have broadened our base and now provide books in languages of many of the students. The bulk remain in English but there is a sample representation. However, within these there is little deviation from the nuclear, heterosexual family.  There is some representation of genders in jobs that are  not traditionally assigned like a female construction worker and a male child care giver and some racial diversity. As we continue to update our library with books of more contemporary publications, this is improving. There is a dearth of reference to any homosexual orientation.

The Virtues project we use at our school  has published a book using the multi-cultural children represented in their school including a little girl in a wheel chair (Robarts, Yan & Gao, 2008). We have taken this paper book apart and laminated the pages for easier use in our Nursery class. It became the favorite almost immediately. Virtuous language is used that these students probably cannot fully understand but they are magnetized to this book. It is a first and continuous choice both for group and private reading. My point here is if these children were offered a broader and truer representation of society they are ready and more that willing to take it in (Njoroge,  Benton, Lewis & Njoroge, 2009).

Recently we had students' art work professionally framed for our annual art show. Two of the families of male students were absolutely unaccepting of the pink frame put on their child's picture and demanded it be replaced. The comments were something like:  'I can't put that in his room! and 'He's a boy! That's pink!' These families are German and American. We were a little surprised because the framers did a stellar job of interpreting the paintings into the frame this year. On a further interesting note, when I took the problem to the Chinese campus supervisor, she laughed incredulously, shrugged her shoulders and said she would do what she could. In China there is no blue/pink gender differentiation. A little girl all decked in pink and lace could be addressed as a beautiful boy just as a child in a blue baseball outfit as a girl. I am certain this will bring out some 'crazy foreigner' comments in the factory. It all goes to show how arbitrary it all is (Maglaty, 2011).

Before I comment on the older children, I have one more observation from my 1-2 year old students. Just now I have four, McQueen car, shiny, red and black, back packs among the boys in my class. I look at the girls' packs and they are pastel, with Disney images or traditional prints. The girls are just as interested in the McQueen  bags as the boys which has considerably slowed down their shoe changing for investigation. So I cannot think that they all had the choice and chose the pastels and princesses. My point is, if the parents are choosing at this age, does this set a precedent for later choices.

A beautiful story comes from the Primary (3-6 years) class. A four-year-old male student has taken a liking to his mother's sequin bag and scarf. Coming into the cloakroom the other day, his friend said,"You are wearing a girl's clothes.' The young man said immediately and confidently, 'Yes, isn't it beautiful!'. His friend paused and said, 'Well, yes it is.'. This kind of confidence in his gender identity is a product of home working in tandem with the school (Mobile Learn, n.d.). There were other stories of freedom of dress and interests but none that carry on beyond a few months.

It seems the evidence is pretty firm that children are taking note of diversity and how their significant people respond to it from birth (Njoroge,  Benton, Lewis & Njoroge, 2009). Because children are actively and continuously making assumptions by what they are receiving, the silence on subjects of diversity can lead them to errant conclusions ( Laureate Education, Inc., n.d. ). One of my chat partners has an interesting  anecdote on this subject. She as three brothers who are older that she, the middle one, seven years older. When he was 18, he moved out of her family home under unhappy conditions. She remembers there being fights between this brother and her parents and even visits by the police. She thinks this had more than his being homosexual  to do with.

She would have been eleven at this point but does not remember having homosexuality in her consciousness until she was 14 when her classmate's brother was involved in a well publicized affair in her community and she was affected by her friends sadness and shame.

Here is the confusion. She is not clear to this day, more than 20 years later, what the situation was or is with her brother. It is not discussed or ever referred to. She remains estranged from her brother and has a somewhat judgmental view of him which is TOTALLY out of her character or her parents. This family is very accepting of whatever orientation a person has but there is a wall within their family.

As this topic was raised, the discussions began on whether this should be brought up with the children without provocation i.e. there is an untruth being propagated. With the example of schools like the Washington Beach Community Preschool (Mobile Learn, n.d.) , we will continue to work toward an increasingly inclusive view of the world.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Walden University). (n.d.). EDUC 6357. Learning from Another’s Life Story in Families and Children. Baltimore, MD.

Maglaty, J. (2011). When did girls start wearing pink. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html

Mobile Learn (Walden University). (n.d.) EDUC 6357 Start seeing Diversity: Sexual Orientation.

Baltimore, MD.

Njoroge, W., Benton, M. L., Lewis, & Njoroge, N. M. (2009). What are infants learning about race?: A look at a sample of infants from multiple racial groups. Infant Mental Health Journal, 30(5), 549-467. Available through walden Library's Academic Search Complete database.

Robarts, K. , Yan, S., Gao, X. (2008) Character. Beijing, PRC :  The Children's Virtues Development
Project.