Should LGBTQ+ History be Covered in public schools?

AmericanFurryBoy

I think that it should be encouraged as a topic to learn on your own, but not one that should be apart of the curriculum. There are some studentS with parents that would vehemently disapprove of the topic, and not only that, but it is a more recent topic and not one that is fundamental to the foundation of the US, the world, and other civilizations.

TKDB

There is plenty of LGBTQ community education, already publicly available to the Public.

Below are some examples:

Gay Pride parades?

Movies and TV shows, that have LGBTQ themes written into the screen plays?

Public displays of affection, where males are holding hands, or kissing in public, and the same where females are holding hands, or kissing public as well?

And the parents of some children, have questioned their parents, in why the above public acts occur? 

Some of the LGBTQ community act's, and does what it wants to, at its own discretion, whether the rest of the public, or ready, for it, or not?

You have men, who identify as women, and vice versa.

And the most recent news in regards to the LGBTQ conversation is this:

https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/nonbinary-drivers-licenses.amp.html?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE=#aoh=15741296671763&referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/nonbinary-drivers-licenses.html

"Which Box Do You Check? Some States Are Offering a Nonbinary Option

As nonbinary teenagers push for driver’s licenses that reflect their identity, a fraught debate over the nature of gender has arrived in the nation’s statehouses."

"BOSTON — Ever since El Martinez started asking to be called by the gender-neutral pronouns “they/them” in the ninth grade, they have fielded skepticism in a variety of forms and from a multitude of sources about what it means to identify as nonbinary."

"There are faculty advisers on El’s theater crew who balk at using “they” for one person; classmates at El’s public school on the outskirts of Boston who insist El can’t be “multiple people”; and commenters on El’s social media feeds who dismiss nonbinary gender identities like androgyne (a combination of masculine and feminine), agender (the absence of gender) and gender-fluid (moving between genders) as lacking a basis in biology.

Even for El’s supportive parents, conceiving of gender as a multidimensional sprawl has not been so easy to grasp. Nor has El’s suggestion that everyone state their pronouns gained much traction.

So last summer, when the Massachusetts State Legislature became one of the first in the nation to consider a bill to add an “X” option for nonbinary genders to the “M” and “F” on the state driver’s license, El, 17, was less surprised than some at the maneuver that effectively killed it."

"Beyond the catchall “X,” Representative James J. Lyons Jr. (he/him), a Republican, had proposed that the bill should be amended to offer drivers 29 other gender options, including “pangender,” “two-spirit” and “genderqueer.” Rather than open the requisite debate on each term, leaders of the Democratic-controlled House shelved the measure.

“He articulated an anxiety that many people, even folks from the left, have: that there’s this slippery slope of identity, and ‘Where will it stop?’” said Ev Evnen (they/them), director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, which is championing a new version of the bill.

As the first sizable group of Americans to openly identify as neither only male nor only female has emerged in recent years, their requests for recognition have been met with reservations that often cross partisan lines. For their part, some nonbinary people suggest that concerns about authenticity and grammar sidestep thornier questions about the culture’s longstanding limits on how gender is supposed to be felt and expressed.

“Nonbinary gender identity can be complicated,” said Mx. Evnen, 31, who uses a gender-neutral courtesy title. “It’s also threatening to an order a lot of people have learned how to navigate.” 

"And with bills to add a nonbinary marker to driver’s licenses moving through at least six legislatures this session, the expansive conception of gender that many teenagers can trace to middle-school lunch tables is being scrutinized on a new scale.

A Learning Curve

The wave of proposed gender-neutral legislation has prompted debate over whether extending legal recognition to a category of people still unknown to many Americans could undermine support for other groups vulnerable to discrimination. It has also highlighted how disorienting it can be to lose the gendered cues, like pronouns, names, appearance and mannerisms, that shape so much of social interaction."

"Over the last few months, lawmakers have sought — not always successfully — to use the singular “they” when introducing nonbinary constituents who have appeared to testify. The elected officials have listened to tutorials on the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity (the former is who you go to bed with, the latter is who you go to bed as); to pleas for compassion from parents who have learned to refer to their children as “my kid” rather than “son” or “daughter”; and to why being called by binary pronouns feels, as Kayden Reff (they/them), 15, of Bethesda, Md., put it in testimony read by their mother, “as though ice is being poured down my back.”

“I’ve always been a liberal Democrat; it’s not like these issues are foreign to me,” said State Representative Michael Winkler (he/him), 68, of Vernon, Conn., who attended a hearing on gender-neutral identification state documents this spring. “But I’m still capable of being educated.”

Some of the antipathy toward nonbinary identities may reflect a generational divide. Over a third of Americans now in their teens and early 20s know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns, according to a recent survey by Pew Research — more than people in their later 20s and 30s, double the number of those in their 40s, and triple the number of those in their 50s and 60s. Sixty percent of the teenagers surveyed told Pew that forms asking about a person’s gender should include options other than “man” and “woman.”

“Possibly it’s an age issue,” said Jocelyn Doane (she/her), 39, a longtime advocate for progressive causes in Hawaii who struggled with whether to support the gender-neutral license bill in her state. “I want to respect their challenges, but the use of ‘their’ for a single person is making me crazy.”

Objections to the bills have also been raised by social conservatives, like State Senator J.B. Jennings (he/him) of Maryland, who made a distinction in public comments between transgender people who transition from male to female or vice versa, and those who identify as nonbinary. “They’re either going one way or the other, they’re not stuck in the middle,” he said. Mr. Jennings suggested that the license would be inaccurate if it listed a gender other than male or female. His argument was echoed by the California Family Council when that state became the first to adopt gender-neutral documents as law in 2017: “It advances a falsehood that being male or female or no gender at all is a choice each person must make, not a fact to celebrate and accept,” said Jonathan Keller, the group’s president.

But other opponents, like the Women’s Liberation Front, an advocacy group that has submitted testimony on so-called “Gender X” bills in several states, argue that bolstering the nonbinary category will harm people who face discrimination and violence precisely because they are born with female anatomy. “To deny the reality of sex means we’re not able to name, address, and fix systemic sex-based oppression and exploitation,” said Kara Dansky (she/her) of the group’s Maryland chapter.

And a state agency in Hawaii that tracks the status of women took the opposite tack, backing an alternative proposal for a limited-use ID bearing no gender marker that was introduced in addition to a bill to add the “X.”

“The state does not have a legitimate interest” in identifying residents based on their gender, the agency’s testimony asserted. That bill did not advance, said its sponsor, State Senator Karl Rhoads (he/him), probably because federal law requires air travelers to carry identification that includes a gender marker, and in the island state, “the only way to get anywhere is flying.”

‘No Right Way to Be a Girl’

Proponents of adding a gender-neutral option to state identification documents say it would remove a form of discrimination against nonbinary people by providing them with the means to carry identification that matches their identity. Many also hope it will lend legitimacy to a paradigm that stands to liberate people of all genders from deep-rooted social norms that penalize women for being assertive and men for showing emotion.

“The gender binary is a system of control that a lot of nonbinary people are invested in destroying, and this is a step toward that,” said Jamie Grace Alexander (they/them or she/her), a 21-year-old college student who helped to craft testimony on the Maryland bill for the Baltimore Transgender Alliance.

Some parents of nonbinary youths who testified at hearings acknowledged that understanding their child’s identity was a challenge at first. “Sweetie, there’s no right way to be a girl,” Sara Collina (she/her), a gender studies professor in Takoma Park, Md., recalled saying when her child first confided that they had renounced the gender they were given at birth.

But several nonbinary teenagers emphasized that they were not looking for a way to be a girl or boy that stretched conventional definitions. Their gender identity was a visceral feeling, they said, not a political choice — and one that could bring with it social ostracism."

“I wouldn’t wish to not be nonbinary,” Ms. Collina’s teenager (they/them), who did not want to be named, said. “But it is harder.”

Scholars say that nonbinary genders have existed across history and cultures. Young Americans may now be embracing them in larger numbers, they say, because the increased visibility of people who have transitioned from one binary gender to the other suggests that there are more than two positions to occupy.

“Such fluidity necessarily raises the question for all of us,” wrote Barbara Risman (she/her), a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied nonbinary youths, “why must our lives be organized by the legal and bureaucratic binary system that relegates everyone to one of two categories based originally on genitalia observed at birth?” 

"First Wave of Recognition"

Perhaps also because some critical mass has been reached, nine state motor vehicles bureaus have recently added the “X” option to driver’s licenses without involving the legislature.

Several other jurisdictions, including New York City, Oregon, New Jersey and New Mexico, have also begun to allow people to change the gender on their birth certificate to “X.” The nation’s major airlines have announced that they will allow passengers to identify as an “undisclosed” or “unspecified” gender when booking tickets.

And in a decision that has been appealed by the United States government, a federal judge in Colorado ruled that the State Department’s requirement that applicants choose either “M” or “F” on a passport application is not an acceptable basis on which to withhold a passport from Dana Zzyym (they/them), a military veteran who sued the department in 2014 after their request for a gender-neutral passport was denied. “This is not a matter of self-expression,” the government has argued. “This is a government form.”

But the current crop of gender-neutral license bills, if signed into law, would amount to the first wave of legal recognition for nonbinary identities, legal experts said. “We didn’t want this to be just an administrative change,” said Jen Jenkins (they/them), a law student at the University of Hawaii who provided research for the bill passed by Hawaii’s Legislature last month. “We want it to last.”

In some states, the bills have been introduced at the urging of parents who know that social affirmation can reduce the elevated risk of suicide and depression for gender-nonconforming children.

“The gist was, their kids didn’t feel the IDs available to them reflected who they were,” said Gerri Cannon (she/her), a state representative who sponsored ID bills in New Hampshire after receiving calls from concerned parents.

Nonbinary teens themselves have also petitioned for a third gender on state identity documents.

Ed Luiggi (they/them), 17, president of an after-school club for gender nonconforming students, skipped school to testify before the Maryland Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee in Annapolis earlier this year. “My heart was racing and I was sweating a bit,” they said. It was at the same hearing that Lisa Reff (she/her), a lawyer, read the statement that her 15-year-old, Kayden, had labored to make relatable: “I wanted it to be down-to-earth but I also wanted it to sound proper,” Kayden said in a text.

And the Massachusetts bill originated with a letter written by El Martinez to their state representatives: “I am planning to take driving lessons in the fall and I would be ecstatic to have a more neutral option,” it read. And this time around, El has sought to assure lawmakers that the “X” would encompass all nonconforming genders. “The ‘X,’” El told members of the Legislature’s transportation committee in late March, “is a symbol.” 

"In Hawaii and Colorado, gender-neutral license bills have recently reached the desks of their respective governors. Maryland’s will become law, the state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, said last week, without his signature, effective Oct. 1.

Similar measures are still under consideration in New Hampshire, New York and Connecticut. The Massachusetts bill has passed the Senate. It is now under review in the House."

"Pride 2019

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. It also brings the WorldPride celebration to New York City for the first time. Join us as we explore L.B.G.T.Q. history and culture."

"Should LGBTQ+ History be Covered in public schools?"

It's already a part of Public history, because the rest of the Public, wasn't given much of a choice, was it, or has it? 

Like some of those individual men who mentality wise Identify as a woman, and have in a sense lobbying to be able to use the ladies bathroom?

Or a female, identifying herself as a guy, and wanting to use the male bathroom?

So what happened, some restrooms were changed to a Unisex bathroom to suit their mentality, I guess? 

To be fair and equal, being fair and equal to suit the mentality of some, isn't fair or equal, its a deliberate morphing of pushing the rest of the Public, to put up with the LGBTQ, way of things, to suit them?

A public male and female bathroom?

Changing a Driver's License to reflect their identifying needs?

Or in some places, being told by some, to not use the terms:
He or She?

I guess, in a sense, to not have an LGBTQ individual, maybe feel uncomfortable around the human terms, of He or She, or Male or Female?

The historical chapters of the LGBTQ community, through its various public actions, are already a part of the overall Public curriculum. 

MayCaesar

That really should be up to the school and to the teacher. There is no one single answer on how history must be taught, and every teacher and school have their own historical outlook and priorities.

Personally, I, for example, believe that much more attention should be given to the civilisations that ultimately shaped the modern world, that is: Phoenicia, Ancient Greece, Roman Republic and Empire, general Middle Eastern region of ~1000-1400 AD, Medieval Europe, the British Empire and the US - and much less to warring civilisations like the Mongol Empire or the Soviet Union, which barely had contributed to the world and destroyed much more than built. Granted, it is important to learn on others' mistakes, but it is even more important to learn on others' successes.

In this regard, I would say that the LGBT topic deserves only a brief summary in a high school history book. LGBT rights are important, but they in themselves were merely the consequence of the evolution of people's general views on human rights, and it is those general views that are most important, rather than their specific manifestations.

Children should be taught general trends, and specifics should only be used to illustrate those trends. Say, a history of Hong Kong in itself does not say anything, but it can be used in the context of the discussion about colonialism. The teacher could explore the following question, for example: why did some colonies (Hong Kong, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Macau, Australia, Iceland) became so unbelievably rich, while other colonies (most African and Latin-American colonies, India, Philippines, Cuba) ended up in such rough spots? The discussion about how the British policies in Hong Kong focused much more on trade and production than on establishing social dominance over the natives, while the British policies in India were much more gathering-focused and left the liberated colony in about the same state as it was before the invasion, could teach the kids something about what makes an economy successful.

Similarly, a story about the mathematician Turing, whose unlimited potential was destroyed by awful sexual minority policies, but triggered an uproar across the world that strongly contributed to the civil rights movement getting interested in representing the LGBT people - could illustrate how massive world-changing movements are born and why. However, studying the LGBT history in detail seems incredibly wasteful in the general context.

Dee

No it shouldn’t , why would one even bother bringing gender issues into the classroom? No doubt in the future if will become a subject as the PC brigade shout and wail about discrimination etc ,etc and people keep quiet in case they’re shouted down by the P C mob who look for and find fault with everyone who doesn’t agree with their ideas of equality and fairness 

John_C_87

What history?

sdevarya

@Dee

So are you against acceptance? Honestly, we should have this subject in school as it highlights some of the key events taking place regarding the LGBTQ+ community. Also what 'issue'? I feel that we have made it an issue by ignoring it and not having to have accepted it in the first place. Also, NewYork Times is not the source you should be looking at @TKDB ...
Why can't we stop the discrimination now itself rather than waiting for the future? If we keep waiting for the future to solve issues, we may never find a solution!
Please don't give me the reasoning of "But they have already so much to study about...", etc, as they aren't learning enough about the real world. We need that intellect going in the children's heads right now and not Pop Culture.

Dee

@sdevarya

**** So are you against acceptance? 

Where did I state that?

***Honestly, we should have this subject in school as it highlights some of the key events taking place regarding the LGBTQ+ community.

Really? Of historical interest ? Do tell.....

Why would you foolishly assume my views are based on a newspaper I’ve never even read as in the New York Times.? I don’t know if you realise there’s a whole world outside the U S a simple fact that seems to elude a fair proportion of Americans who assume everyone is American 

 ****Also what 'issue'? 

Lgbtoqrsrye issues of course 

Plaffelvohfen

Wasn't aware there was such a thing as LGBTQ History... There is a history of Human Rights though, which includes LGBTQ rights by definition, I fail to see the need for a specific "LGBTQ" history classes...

piloteer

@Plaffelvohfen

There certainly is an LGBTQ history. Even during the civil rights movement and women's rights movement, the LGBTQ community had to hide their identity because nobody wanted to be associated with people who were considered perverts. The stonewall riots is considered to be the fulcrum of what has become the modern gay rights movement. The civil rights movement, the woman's rights movement, and the sexual revolution weren't addressing the oppression felt by the gay community.          

Plaffelvohfen

@piloteer

What I meant was that LGBTQ history is a just subset of Human Rights history... If something should be taught in school it's Human Rights history, which would by necessity cover LGBTQ...  

RickeyD

@OwenFranklin ;

LGBTQ is sin against God's Covenant of Marriage between one-man and one-woman becoming one-flesh for life. LGBTQ is destructive behavior that wars against sustainable mores and norms, the Biblical family unit, all of which are essential for a healthy, happy, moral, sustainable, Constitutional Republic. The highest rates of suicide are among America's youth having been exposed to, deceived by, confused by, LGBTQ perversion; therefore, infusing this demonically under girded ideology into the minds of our impressionable and naive youth is nothing less than advocating for Satan as "Teacher of the Year."

piloteer

@Plaffelvohfen

And what I meant was that LGBTQ rights are not a subset of other human rights movements, it is in and of itself an individual movement that was not addressed by other human rights movements.  

piloteer

@RickeyD

Being a member of the LGBTQ community does not invalidate your personal relationship with God, and it isn't an unforgivable sin, or a sin that is somehow worse than other sins. And according to the bible, we are all sinners, and if you're guilty of one sin, you're guilty of them all. So being a member of the LGBTQ community does not bar anybody from getting into heaven, therefore it's not an advocacy for Satan.     

piloteer

@Plaffelvohfen

Pshhhht. Don't you thumbs down me. You're just jealous.  

RickeyD

@piloteer

If you are a practicing member of the LGBTQ community and are living in wilful sin i.e. LGBTQ against God's edicts and Covenant of Marriage you have every reason to question the authenticity of your salvation.

If you're truly a born again believer in Jesus as Lord and you've received the indwelling Holy Spirit of Promise as the Seal/Guarantor of relationship with God the Father by grace through faith in Jesus as Lord, you will not, you cannot, live in wilful disobedience to God...it won't happen.

If you're living in the sin of LGBTQ and have no desire to repent/stop the immoral conduct, do NOT deceive yourself into thinking that you're born again and redeemed by the blood of Christ...you are living in self-deception.

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’…

piloteer

@RickeyD

You are incorrect. Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God's edict, and they were not relocated to the fires of hell for their sin. You also cannot show us that being a willful member of the LGBT community deletes our personal relationship with God, and that particular sin is somehow more sinful or unforgivable of the sins we are all guilty of. 

Corinthians 10:13 

13 No temptation[a] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted[b] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,[c] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

2 Peter 3:9, ESV: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." ... He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent."