Gingerly talking gender

 

 

 

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.