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I’ve said
this before and I’ll say it again: I’m a 53-year-old straight, white, married,
Catholic male with four children – two boys, two girls, naturally -- living in
Nebraska who has gym and Weight Watchers memberships I rarely use but feel too
guilty to cancel and who stills turn up the volume and sings along whenever “Takin’ Care of Business” comes on the oldies
station in the car.
So, mine is
a dying demographic, and I accept that. There is much about your world that
frightens and confuses me; don’t even get me started.
For example,
until recently I thought the term “gender fluidity” referred to the differences
between men and women in how they pee, but apparently not. Which brings us to
the discovery that some teachers in Lincoln Public Schools are getting advice
on how to make their classrooms more inviting to students who are transgender,
gender fluid or just generally not feeling the gender with which they were
born.
Cue the conniptions among the local citizenry, in the form
of calls to local radio talk shows and often misspelled and mispunctuated
screeds on Facebook, which are all the funnier given they come in
spittle-inflected cries for the purity of that old time education: The schools are out of
control! Political correctness runs amok! Social engineering! Waste of tax
dollars! Bring Jesus back into the classroom and he’ll kick some libtard ass!
In
particular, many are taking shots at this bit of advice: Teachers should
consider not dividing students by boys and girls or, for that matter, to even
refer to them as “boys and girls,” lest that exclude some students who aren’t
sure where they fit on the “gender spectrum.” Yeah, I know – gender spectrum?
Now, Lord
knows, it’s easy to make fun of public school bureaucrats’ attempts to please
all and offend none. So, what the hell, let’s, for a moment anyway: How might
teachers refer to students if not as boys and girls? The handouts in question
suggest dividing them into groups such as “purple penguins.” Or refer to them
as “scholars.” Or say, “Hey, campers, open your textbook to page 14.” (This
last strikes me as exclusive of anyone who’s not flamboyantly gay, so maybe
not.)
As for me, I’d
probably address them as “future cogs and drones in the heartless machine that
will suck your souls dry and grind your spirits into dust until you welcome the
sweet relief of death, please turn to page 14.”
So, I suppose
I would be in for some school-sanctioned sensitivity training myself.
Anyway, the
gist of much of the criticism is that this sort of thinking curries to a
minuscule percentage of students rather than the majority.
Which it
does, of course -- and to which I say: Hooray!
Although I
usually come down hard in favor of simple, clear, no-BS communication – such as,
yes, dividing young people into “boys” and “girls” – I cannot imagine how
training teachers to be more sensitive to youngsters who are struggling with Who
They Are does harm to anyone. That they are a minuscule percentage of the
student body is precisely the point -- an argument FOR, not AGAINST such sensitivity.
The notion among
many opponents that such sensitivity somehow detracts from the overall
educational mission or is unfair to those who do not struggle with gender identity
is, of course, stuff and nonsense.
That doesn’t
mean this world still doesn’t frighten and confuse me. But I’m still free to
crank up “Takin’ Care of Business” and express my own gender fluidity by
standing to pee.
