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| Photo courtesy of Gnarls Monkey. |
There exists an ancient tenet, some may revere it as a sacred code, handed down through the ages. This maxim implores all who would seek knowledge to never read the bottom half the internet. Needless to say, trigger warnings abound...
I spent the past two days poking around the internet, looking for an idea for an article. Instead, my search turned into a mind-numbing, soul-crushing exercise in futility. I'm not quite certain what's going on in North America right now (perhaps some sort of perfect storm created when slumping economies team up xenophobia and plunge headlong into conservative politics) but almost every article I perused was accompanied by a comment section that resembled an Ed Wood film--sure it's bad at the start, but it can't get any worse, can it?
A blog I frequent ran an article about the recent Sandra Fluke "controversy." For those who aren't aware, Sandra Fluke tried to speak before congress about the recent American contraception shenanigans, but wasn't allowed. Then Rush Limbaugh, never failing to disappoint, called her a slut, because he's an ignorant misogynist (among other things).
In any event, a couple of right-wing political blogs ran their own stories, alleging that Ms. Fluke was not just a college student (as the "lamestream media" would have us believe) but a seasoned activist who enrolled at Georgetown University with the super-secret intention of fighting for contraception coverage under the school's health plan (Gasp!). But she is, in fact, still a student. College campuses are full of activists, and those are the people who get up and speak, because the politically minded are most often the ones who are aware of the issues surrounding their topics. But I digress.
The punchline of the article is that Fluke is apparently also interested in fighting for SRS (aka. GRS, bottom surgery, etc.) coverage as well. This is where things start to get really ugly. As far as I am concerned, such a surgery ought to be covered. The research (here and here, stolen from Natalie Reed) shows that SRS is an overwhelmingly effective treatment for GID (Gender Identity Disorder) and while GID is considered a legitimate disorder, treatment ought to be covered. In any case, plenty of readers did not agree:
"I am at a loss as to why anyone at all thinks that an employer should pay for what one friend of mine refers to as 'post-modernist flesh sculpture'" (link)
And let's not forget the old slippery slope argument:
"So, if sex change surgery is now considered as discrimination, what is next?!? Pedophilia? Necrophilia? Beastiality? Maybe child sacrifice is next to be considered as a discriminated religion?!? This is what happens when the inmates are allowed to run the asylum." (link)
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| Apparently it's all his fault Photo covered by GNU License |
First I was dumbfounded. Then I was angry. Then, finally, I was just depressed. There is just something extra insidious about the socially conservative mindset when it gets its hands on LGBTQ issues. A sort of "come here junior, you're all mixed up about all of this. Let me tell you how the world really works." Throwing slurs around as if those subjected to them clearly aren't deserving of basic human dignity, calling identity (gender or otherwise) fiction, a symptom of Western-culture, or blaming it on Foucault. A whole lot of people still believe that LGB people are crazy or perverse, and they've been visible for awhile longer than trans people. What possible hope is there for the future, for acceptance if children aren't given all the information they need?
The sort of appallingly socially conservative insults and dismissals I scrolled through led me to conclude that something has to be wrong with North American education.
My mind goes back to the story of a minor controversy in Northern Manitoba, Canada. This setting is this: two teachers at a school in a rural town attend a sensitivity training program at the Rainbow Resource Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The seminar covered LGBT ally-ship and the participants left with a card, confirming their ally status to anyone under the queer umbrella. Sounds nice, right? Well some of the parents of children in the school didn't think so.
The comment section of this and related articles put out by the same paper were an abysmal cesspool of bigotry and invalidation (worse by far than any of the Fluke articles). The real surprise, however, was the litany of ignorant remarks on the part of the parents interviewed. Many compared education on sexual orientation and gender identity to be equivalent to "religious exercises in school" and that therefore to be fair, petitions ought to be sent around if people want to display ally cards.
Many claim that this is the sort of issue that parents should be able to control; something taught at home. But the problem is, for many, this is just code for "not doing it," and if they are, they're probably doing it wrong. LGBT issues are not the same as religious instruction, because they reflect facts about people's lives--facts about reality, just like science and math. No one is born religious, but everyone is born with a sexual orientation and gender identity.
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| Photo courtesy of jdurham |
I understand that people are sensitive about the sorts of things their children are exposed to, but saying that kids of any age are too young to be told that queer people of any variety are human beings is asinine. All that approach will do is help children carry forward the baggage of their parents; the same baggage that compels people to complain about an Ally card on a teacher's desk, and the same baggage that allows the ignorant to dismiss LGBT as freaks, perverts, delusional or whatever choice term they choose to pull out of their bag of tricks.
Education is normalization; it exposes people to new ideas and, soon enough, new ideas become old ideas. If every school started altering their sex education programs to include LGBT issues, children would be that much more likely to accept queer people as just people. Speaking about trans issues more specifically, there are protections in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for sexual orientation, age, race, religion and sex, but nothing to protect gender identity or expression—something I believe would never stand if LGBT issues were given proper time in schools. I realize that when it comes to some, there is a degree to which you just have to live and die with their stupid ideas (thank you, Reginald Foster). However, I am not willing to sit down and shut up while my rights and the rights of others are compromised in favour of someone's mere comfort.
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