International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

[charlie_cochrane]

The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia is today and, once again, the blog hop is on from 17th to 27th May to mark the event.



Last year I blogged about the freelance training I do and how the UK has laws in place to guard the interests of LGBTQ people. Of course (and alas) you can’t legislate for what goes on in people’s minds. It was with great sorrow I read this, about a transgender teacher who’d taken her own life.

The newspaper implicated there is one I banned from our house as of last year, as they were so negative about the Olympics. They have a history of writing spurious stories - even during WWI they were regarded as unreliable – and they have their seemingly homophobic moments.

But I’m not going to rant about them; I’m focussing on something they said in support of their stance: “echoed the parents’ concerns about whether it was right for children to have to confront complex gender problems at such a vulnerable young age”. You see, in my experience (as parent, governor, trainer, friend, etc) children are more than capable of dealing with complex issues and tend to be incredibly inclusive, as well as being “blind” to difference.

I recall a conversation years ago a friend had with her child about a girl in his class.
Mum: Did you play with Sunita today?
Him: She wasn’t at school.
Mum: She was. I saw her.
Him: Oh. She must have had her hair differently so I didn’t recognise her.
Sunita was the only black child in his class and possibly in the whole school.

In the same way, I've heard of schools celebrating difference in their children, talking about Down’s syndrome, and the pupils not at all making the connection that some of their mates were Down’s children. Because they’re not labelled, they're just Jonny or Kirsty or whatever.

So where does that “blindness” go? I'm convinced that they’re heavily influenced by the adults around them, who are the ones who see difference and have such an issue with it.

So maybe “the parents’ concerns about whether it was right for children to have to confront complex gender problems at such a vulnerable young age” are really the parents’ concerns that their children will either grow up accepting of gender variation or will ask them awkward questions to which they’ll have no sensible answer. And they’ll have to face their own attitude towards complex gender problems.

My giveaway is a donation in the name of a commenter to Albert Kennedy Trust, and any e-book from my back catalogue.

Comments

[ext-1830502.livejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Ohh I wish I had grown up with such lovely blind tolerant children - in my experience children and youths can be the most ruthless and cruel creatures when it comes to singeling out individuals based on "otherness" ... usually the grown ups are the blind ones who just don't want to believe what's going on right in front of them.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely that older children can be the most cruel/intolerant/narrow minded little beasts, and I'm convinced most of that is learned, from parents and society.

Schools over here are doing a lot of work to address intolerance and celebrate difference, not least because it comes up when the government inspects them. I'm quoting from the Ofsted document - inspectors will be looking at:
 types, rates and patterns of bullying and the effectiveness of the school’s actions to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and harassment – this includes cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to special educational need, sexual orientation, sex, race, religion and belief, gender reassignment or disability
 the effectiveness of the school’s actions to prevent and tackle discriminatory and derogatory language – this includes homophobic and racist language, and language that is derogatory about disabled people
 the views expressed by pupils, and different groups of pupils, of their experiences of others’ behaviour and attitudes towards them