“I will never forget an in-service workshop we had one day within my first year. A group, PFLAG (Parents, families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), was coming in to discuss their involvement in the community, the resources they offer, etc. A couple of my colleagues refused to attend, saying they don’t agree with homosexuality and they are not going to have it shoved down their throats. To watch them respond in that way made me wonder how they would respond to a student who may come to them with gender identity issues” (Castro, I.E, & Sujak, M.C. 2014)

Sexual minority, especially homosexuality, has been a popular topic and discussed by people for a very long time. As the educators, how could we help with these situations? What schools and teachers can actually do to help with the sexual minority? I think people should have an impartial attitude when facing the gender and their sexual direction. In China, homosexuality is still an issue, which people are hard to accept homosexuality in a short time, let alone the school services. I think schools and educators should have a right attitude towards the homosexuality students and those minority students. From La Greca and Harrison (2005), they found out that heterosexual adolescents who were not dating were more likely to report anxiety symptoms compared to youth who were dating. That is to say, dating has some benefits: it can increase people’s social abilities, especially communication skills.
However, adolescents are more often staying at school, so providing a good environment for those minority students school make them feels safe and positive.

Drawing from years of research, Eliot concludes ‘infant brains are so malleable that small differences at birth become amplified over time, as parents, teachers, peers, and the culture at large unwittingly reinforce gender stereotypes . . . Girls are not naturally more empathetic than boys, they are just allowed to express their feelings more.'” (Way, 2011, p. 28)

This quote really highlights how from a very small age, children are psychologically impacted by the culture that surrounds them. As discussed in the article, boys are just as in need of male friendships as girls are in need of female friendships. They provide security, stability, and an outlet for students–whether they need to confide in someone, let out steam, ask for advice, or just have someone to talk to and laugh with, a friend can provide this support. Continue reading “Man Up”: When Culture Messes with Basic Human Needs →

“In an “integrated” culture, where women and gay people mingle with men and straight people but where few straight men want to be perceived as gay, heterosexual men likely feel increasingly anxious regarding their sexual status. Continue reading Social expectations in an “integrated culture” →

“We  see our job first as documenting the links that tie bodies to policies, and importantly,  we see these ties as both punishing and supportive; the question is for whom are policies  punishing and for whom do policies provide consistent support? Our second job is to theorize  the implications of the loss of state support for people, their families, and their communities. To this end, we ask how relationships with policies and the state form  (constrain, expand, inspire) the subjectivity of individuals—a task that diff ers somewhat from that of the philosopher, political theorist, or anthropologist.  With social psychological theory as our guide (Lewin, 1935), we look to the person as well as the environment to ask, how do you know what you want?” (P. 15-16).” -McClelland & Fine, 2013

This week’s reading left me with more questions than answers. Where do we draw the line between liberation and freedom and crime and pedophilia? I completely understand that teenagers have desire and attraction and can attest to that personally but I still find the territory this article treads in to be a bit confusing (convoluted).

Having been a society that previously had children working in factories or one that still follows religions and cultural values where humans enter adulthood a lot earlier than what the “state” allows, how do we define what is okay and what is not? There are certain age differences that I personally consider to be concerning but I’m sure that maybe in another time period no one would have batted an eye at that. At what point did we as a society decide that 18 was the age that separated children from adults? Furthermore, how do we allow youth to have sexual expression while still regulating behavior that we have decided is wrong such as child brides, child pornography, human trafficking of minors, and more? Even using the word “allow” makes me uncomfortable because who are we to decide what someone can or cannot do with their own body.

Adding to this that black and brown youth, queer youth, immigrant youth, non-binary youth, neurologically atypical youth, Muslim youth, and other youth that don’t fit society’s cookie-cutter-mold, are at a much higher risk especially when they fall into more than one of the afore mentioned “categories”. How do we make the world safer for them without simultaneously making it more difficult for them to express themselves? Expression not just in gender identity and performance or sexuality, but expression of who they want to be and what they want to do in the world which reminds us that this desire to live and live boldly goes “beyond the heart, mind, and genitals” (p. 16).