A couple of nights ago, I had a discussion with my daughter, who is in 4th grade. It started because she had heard about banned books (which mercifully isn’t a thing in her school library because we live in a place where those who write the rules are sane). She was wondering what it was about these books that would make people so upset that they didn’t want anyone to read them. So we looked at a few examples, and LGBTQIA themes kept emerging. So she wanted to know what all of those letters stood for.
So, I started from the beginning, with lesbian being a woman who is attracted to women. She knew what gay means, and thought it was interesting that gay men are just called gay, but there’s a specific word (lesbian) for gay women. Bisexual wasn’t much of a leap for her, because understanding that some people like men and some like women, it didn’t seem so strange that some people might like both.
When we got to the T, I thought it might be interesting to see what she might already know, so I told her that T stands for transgender and then asked her if she knew what that meant. She said she did, and went on to explain that being transgender is what happens when your body doesn’t match what you know inside you really are, like your body looks like a boy but your brain knows you’re a girl.
I learned that this knowledge came in part from a book she read at school, and in part from talking with others. It seemed like a pretty solid understanding, so we moved on to the Q, which I explained as a broad term than can apply to any number of sexual identities or orientations that are not exclusively heterosexual. My biologist brain used the analogy that cats are mammals, but not all mammals are cats, just like gay people are queer, but not all queer people are gay.
Intersex surprised her a bit, because she did not know that sometimes people are born with physical characteristics (maybe visible things like genitals, maybe invisible things chromosomes) of male and female. (I also noted that intersex and transgender are not the same thing.) She asked “what do they do?” which I took to mean how do they live — as a boy, or a girl, or both? I told her that in many cases they don’t choose themselves, because their parents and/or doctors pick one and go with it. I think she understood the practical aspect of this, but it seemed like she wasn’t so sure about the idea someone else choosing for that person. So I asked her what she thinks it would be like to be trans if everyone else thought that they should decide who you are. She seemed offended by the concept that such a fundamental aspect of ourselves should be up to anyone else.
Asexual was also a new one for her, but it made sense once I drew some parallels with how she feels about her best friend or her mom. You love them, but you aren’t sexually attracted to them, so just imagine that along with not being attracted to your best friend and your mom, you’re also not attracted to anyone else either. When I mentioned that some people don’t think it’s possible for someone to feel that way, her “how would they know” response suggested that she gets that sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. are deeply personal and individual things.
Now that we’d made it through the acronym, I steered the conversation back to the beginning, and explained that along with banning books, some people try to pass laws that prevent trans people from getting health care, tell them which bathrooms they must use, and even to dictate whether or not any women can prevent or end pregnancies, and that only a few years ago — within her own lifetime — federal law did not fully recognize same-sex marriages. I asked her if she could guess who was pushing those laws in government. She rolled her eyes and sighed “Republicans...” (She hears a lot of political discussion in our house.)
That’s when I explained that while I have many reasons for disagreeing with Republicans, these issues are deep, because with these laws they’re not just doing the wrong thing, they’re coming after people I know and love, so it’s personal to me. I want my daughter and her mother to have control over their own bodies, and I want LGBTQIA people to be safe and free and I don’t think I’m really free if they aren’t. She asked if I knew any LGBTQIA people, and I told her that I know several, and that her mother and I have friends in that community, some who she has met herself. She asked me if I know anyone who is trans (I know half a dozen and said so). I asked her if she knows anyone who is trans. She said no, but that a friend of hers at another school does. “So you’re not trans, and Julie (not her real name) isn’t either, but Julie cares about her friend who is trans, and you care about Julie. So laws that harm trans people can still harm you too.”
Then I asked her — After all of this discussion, did she think there’s anything that we just talked about that shouldn’t be in any of the books in her school? She said no, with a look that implied that such an idea was silly. “Do you think there should be rules that don’t allow your teachers to even talk about any of this in school? Because — “ And she already knew what I was going to say.
I think she’s on the right path. It will be several years before she’s old enough to vote, but I’m optimistic that she’ll know what to do when she gets there.
