Saturday, March 22, 2014

Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation



I was raised in a family where my parents would hide the things that were not appropriate for us to know such as things were not accepted by dominant norm or the law. I can not recall anything that would ruin their reputation such as fighting in the front of us. That parent should not fight is the dominant norm. Fighting is not good thing. When I grew up and had my own kid, sometimes I would say something, my parents would say, "The kid is still present, could you, please discuss it after kid slept or not present." I was educated in the country where homosexual or transgender are not accepted a marriage that forms the family structure. Personal, I would follow the law as well as disciplines of the company. Also, I believe that God is in charge of everything. God works all things together for the benefit of those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose. Personally, I would like to be tolerant of things that are different from what I believe. From this point, if a parent/family member who informed me they did not want anyone who is perceived or self-reported homosexual or transgender to be caring for, educating, and/or interacting with their child, I would respect the parent/family in the first position. I understand, the family might just do not want anything that they did not like to influence to their child. We have learned that, Children learn the difference and similarity among people who surround them. They form their self-identity and concept about others through daily observations. (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p. 12). I understand, the parent/family want their child develop the self-identity that they want. We need to respect the parent/family's choice. Also, why the teacher should report/present personal sexual orientation that be different from what the parent/family believed in working with the child? What was the purpose of reporting personal orientation to the parent/family? Would the teacher show favorite toward the homosexual or transgender in working with the child?
I have never heard homophobic terms such as "fag", "gay", "homo", "sissy", "tom boy", or "lesbo" as an insult by a child toward another child, nor, by an adult toward a child, so far. The word "fag", "sissy", "tom boy", and "lesbo" are new vocabulary entry to me. Among these words that I have heard was the word "gay" in my workplace. A leader teacher told me she was a gay. She and another teacher adopted a child. She did not say they are married, she said they lived together for raising a child. They had the child drop off in our infant program and tried to official enroll in the program. It was not too long that the child official enrolled in our infant program, both of them left our center and one went to another state. The teacher told me the reason she left was that she found another job that better for her.
Children form stereotypical thinking about girls and boys the same time as when they form the gender identity as early as two years old.(Youtube, 2011). How should we, as early childhood educator, support children develop the positive gender identity?
References
Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves.Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Youtube,(2011). Gender Roles-Interviews with Kids, Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VqsbvG40Ww&hd=1

5 comments:

  1. Hi Sara,
    I enjoyed reading your post. Thanks for sharing. I agree that we need to respect all people's choices and we should always be respectful.
    Amy

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  2. Sara,

    You are very fortunate that you did not have these such influences when you were growing up. Now-a-days there are a lot of things that we need to explain to our children that our parents never had to explain to us. Do you think your child is better in a society like you had growing up or the society we live in now? Thanks for sharing.
    Stephanie

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  3. Thanks for sharing your insights! I agree with you that we should respect parents' wishes of not exposing something to their children, but I think that we should also try to explain to the parents why it is so important that we include those things in our classroom. We want to ultimately avoid sheltering the children from the necessary things they should be learning. I enjoyed reading your post!

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  4. Hi Sara,
    I respect your perspective on respecting parents wishes not to have their children around transgender or homosexuals. I feel we should try to educate parents concerning their phobia. I believe most of the time when a child's uses inappropriate words they have learned it from home. We must try and change the mindset of adults.
    I enjoyed reading your post
    Deborah

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  5. Sara, I will say that my 6 year old as my mother at the age of 3 "was my cousin gay" tell you we didnt know to tell her or just define the word as funny. So I can tell you that in 2014 you can not say I have never heard homophobic terms such as "fag", "gay", "homo", "sissy", "tom boy", or "lesbo" as an insult by a child toward another child, nor, by an adult toward a child, so far.

    ReplyDelete