So....

That sounds like a fun honestly lol we have a book store that’s like also a bar/cafe thing. They host a lot of lgbtq+ game and movie nights, drag bingo and such. It definitely needs to be a bigger thing so people can connect

I like the idea

Yea that’s cute for sure I believe people should be able to do what they want. Have as many meetings etc long as it’s not pressed on my kids if my kids turn out to be gay that’s fine as well but it doesn’t need to be shoved down their throats before 18 IMO and im bisexual myself 🤷🏾‍♀️

I'm personally against banning it and tbh, people are mainly wanting to ban because of the trans part

( I myself am a queer mom.... And I'm posting this incog because I'm more out on peanut but I wanted a decent conversation without people tying it to me as a person )

I mean there are definitely LGBT centers, having classes to inform us how anyone learns about anything in general, so why not classes about the influences of gay culture on America? Or the history of drag? ... To give a few examples

I mean, in Canada it's just called marriage 🤣🤣🤣 .... Nobody cares which team you play for or root for 😂😂😂 ( to use an analogy)

Tbh, I have nothing against the LGBTQ stuff, I personally think that would be a great idea. I personally feel that it’s reasonable for it to be before 18, because a lot of kids don’t fully know what they want till then and who’s to say they decide to be a male, get all the male parts, but then decides at 18+ that they really don’t want to be a male?? IMPO, they go through phases without fully knowing what they want.

There’s nothing wrong with being informative about different sexualities IMO. Why is it so bad that there are LGBT conversations and literacy but heterosexual relationships are literally everywhere all the time?? As a bisexual woman who didn’t really understand these things till late high school, I would’ve liked to have someone to talk to about what I was feeling towards boys and girls at a young age.

@MaryKate as a woman who identifies more as pansexual than bisexual, personally, but feels that bisexual for the most when I was initially exploring labels ... I wish there had been more conversations when I was younger about other options! I didn't start exploring my sexuality until I went off to college, with my second boyfriend... ( I'm 39, lost my virginity at 21 or 22..... And finally accepted that being not straight was okay .... In my mid 30s .... And accepted that I wasn't straight and was okay with that.... Probably about 2019 or 2020 .... At age 35...) Growing up conservative Christian, I thought for so long that straight was the only option and the only correct option.

Heteronormative culture is so pervasive . And then bisexuality being seen as a fetish is totally erasure.... So that doesn't help either

I get that! I was so confused for a long time and just thought I was weird and different and I kept it to myself till I was a senior in high school (2015). I didn’t really know anything about it growing up but even knowing the basic terms without going into detail I think would’ve helped me.

Why are these conversations being banned? It seems like things are moving backwards & not forwards.

@Sarah🦄 the conversations are being banned to protect vulnerable young bodies from changing ( keep people from becoming trans men or trans women under the age of 18). But in actuality.... They should actually teach that gender is a social construct and that intersex is a thing After all everyone who says " the Bible only says there is man and woman" Forgets that the Bible also says " there is no man or woman but one in Christ Jesus" * yeah, totally threw the Bible back at you *

And forgets that intersex people were often forced into a gender before they were born by doctors/parents thinking they were well meaning

Honestly, yeah.... Banning every single piece of literature about gay and lesbian people at all ... Is basically trying to erase the existence of them

Forgetting that sexual minorities have always been around

It’s weird to me that there are people who think learning about gay people will make kids gay. Learning about straight people doesn’t make gay people straight lol

This is such a complex topic, and very nuanced too. One aspect of these conversations often missing are the ramifications of exposing certain content to children below a certain age(think movie ratings, for example). For example, toddlers and young kids don’t need to understand pro nouns outside the rules of standard grammar. Why? It confuses things. Yes, learning the history of different groups in America is important. We are a diverse nation and children deserve to have the full picture of what that means. But that’s vastly different than teaching children content with an explicit or implicit sexual tone. This has always been an issue with schools. We need to dig deeper on the issue IMO.

Everything you have said @Monique . You entirely hit the nail on the head, as it were. This person uses she her pronouns. Their name is _______ Keep it simple and age appropriate. And they them is a default pronoun if you don't know if someone is a male or female! " Oh what did they say ?" .... " How are they doing?" Both of these could be referring to singular or plural they.... And are both correct uses of they as a pronoun!

Instead of banning all fictional literature with lesbian gay and bi characters.... Let's talk about lgb people when we talk about sex Ed! Let's talk about gender as a social construct in middle school! Let's talk in sex Ed about all the different women's body shapes and say that all of these are women!

This way it's simply introducing that these people exist and that it's an acceptable sexuality

Gender as a social construct , not sure if that's better for 8th graders or older, maybe 9th or 10th graders

Talking about the different ways that biological women's bodies look promotes diversity in bodies because not every larger bodies female is such by choice! And society is very pervasive with sports and those in the public eye that eating disorders are still a thing

And BMI actually isn't the greatest measure of health..... Because guess what? It was created by studying...... White men Which means any woman at all is inaccurately represented by BMI..... Let alone minority women. And BMI doesn't take into account diet, or genetic bone structure, or activity level and activity type

In order to teach “gender as a social construct” everyone has to agree on the veracity of that statement. In the oldest and longest standing of truths, gender is not a mere social construct. It’s more of a psycho-social bylaw. Gender provides one basis and ample structure to the social reality of humans. The notion that gender is a malleable social construct is fairly new. Even in societies where one could site that women had different roles than traditional societies of today, it was still based around the idea of gender and gender differences(a matriarchy wouldn’t be a matriarchy without a woman at the helm). “Gender is a social construct” that we can dismantle and/or ignore all together is a rocky and unstable foundation for young people to build psychological schemas on, which they will use to navigate a highly social world. We need to find ways to keep up with the natural progression of society and gender without burning down its undeniable facets.

Well said

No

No one except me should be talking to my kids about anything sexual...homo- hetero-, it really doesn't matter...that's not a school's job or place in my book. It's as simple as that for me.