Homosexuality in the Classroom.

[Darcey1]

My daughter is nine. Yesterday she came home from school and said that her teacher had told the class that she was a lesbian. The teacher is about to have one of these civil partnerships and according to my daughter told the class that girls could marry girls and boys could marry boys if they wanted to.It was according to her entirely natural. This seems like corruption to me. I don't want my daughter exposed to this kind of lifestyle.

I am very upset about this and don't know what to do. Am I over reacting? Should the school have warned us that the teacher was going to do this? Do you think I should make a complaint to the school?

I think that my sexuality (I am straight) is an integral part of my personality and I could not easily separate parts of my life into being about and not about sexuality. I am sure there is overlap between elements of straight and gay sexuality, but really, why should anyone be made to define them precisely?

It is like culture; I am not going to define my Englishness as culture should be discerned not defined.

There shouldn't be a need to put part of who you are into some kind of box, as if you can stop being gay in particular situations.

There is also the more obvious point that straight people don't notice they are being straight all the time because we live in a straight culture; it becomes an issue when someone is gay all the time because then people notice. I work in an environment where, as far as I know, everyone is straight. I find it aggressively heterosexual as a result.

MillyR, your remark about Englishness is interesting, and your observation that "[t]here shouldn't be a need to put part of who you are into some kind of box, as if you can stop being gay in particular situations."
If you've ever lived abroad for an extended period of time, you might feel differently about your Englishness you might begin to feel it was more innate than you suspect now (assuming you're in England just being yourself). You might feel yourself putting part of who you are into some sort of box if you moved elsewhere, even some place where English is spoken. You're firing on a different set of cylinders, a little bit alienated from your true self, if you live away from your native place maybe a bit like gays in a straight world or straights in a gay one?

It's more a question of finding something that suits you, surely, rather than choosing something, or finding someone that suits you, which is what everyone does after all. There's a huge variety in straight relationships we're not all each other's cup of tea just because of being straight. I think there's an assumption that some women arrive at the realisation they're attracted to other women early in life, some later, and with any amount of water under the bridge in the meantime. I don't know how much of this is true or how much is the result of women being conditioned to be more passive or have less consciousness of their sexuality or express it once they realise it's there, whether straight or gay. With men, I think the jury is out on whether they would all know for sure from an early age there's an assumption out there that men have far less nebulous and much more clearcut and stronger sexual feelings from their teenage years or even before. In some cultures, a man or woman might be tempted to deliberately 'pass' as straight for various reasons.

So true.

Sorry, I didn't really mean that sexuality in general or sexual orientation in particular was analagous to culture, nationality or ethnicity.

I was more making the point that when we are asked to define quite complex aspects of identity, it justs descends into a meaningless stereotype. So Englishness just becomes red telephone boxes, mini skirts and chicken tikka masala. Or it becomes about fair play and tolerance, as if other nationalities don't have those qualities!

If you really want to know about an ethnicity, or participate in your own culture, then it is something that is discerned, not defined. Something similar happens with a person's sexuality, but there the analogy ends, as clearly some expressions of an individual's sexuality are private and intimate.

I agree with Mathanxiety; we do hide parts of ourselves in certain circumstances, or tone them down in order to establish common bonds. I work abroad sometimes and I am the only English person in the group; I can tone down my Englishness, but I am sure I still seem very English to the rest of the group!

Two comments to make here.

Firstly: I feel that dp got a bit of a hard time. Whether or not you agree with her opinions, she is entitled to her prejudices; the thought police aren't quite here yet. It is difficult to change your opinions/beliefs on some things. At times, there isn't even even a rational cause for what you feel; it is just there and it is hard to articulate why you feel that way.

Secondly: teachers DO have to be careful what information they share with students, especially at secondary level, and they also have to be very careful what they do and where they do it. A ex-colleague of mine went to a nightclub in the nearest large town. He picked up a lad there. He was seen to do so by some ex students; and furthermore was a bit shocked in the morning to find out the lad he had picked up was 17 and a 6th former at one of the schools in the large town. This could have had serious consequences for his career. He was lucky and got away with it.

Some students have an almost prurient interest in the lives of teachers, and others will take what they have been told and turn it into horrible rumour (and I have seen that happen as well). It is better to maintain a professional distance where you can.

st there were also several challenging to the pov posts made that weren't answered, which suggests the poster knew they were on shaky ground. I will not allow this pov to go unchallenged and will continue to ask questions and request proof of people who hold such opinions.

I'm still waiting for my posts to be answered.

PatientButRelentlessTiggaxx

"Female Chauvinist Pigs is a book by the way"

Also a highly amusing punk band.

This topic interests me as my DP is bisexual, but has always struggled with it, because of other people attitudes to sexuality. It's taken a lot of time for him to come to terms with it (not that he has fully) being about the person he is with rather than what genitals they possess. Not helped by people thinking it is all about sex, when there are so many complex emotional issues behind it.

But Elfytigga, she has a right to her pov whether you like it (the pov and her right to have it) or not. That's part of living in a free society surely? Otherwise, if we are not free to think what we like, then we do have the thought police. We all have our own prejudices. You have to make allowances for family background, education and upbringing as well as deeply held religious belief.

My take on it is that you can think what you like, but don't articulate it in circumstances that may cause problems where your views are aired.

If you mean the posts about what is in Leviticus, I could point out that dp is an RC from what I gather and not a practising Jew, so the food laws and the laws about mixing fibres won't apply to her. The OT was replaced and broadened by the NT for the Christian community.

I don't feel that attacking someone in some of the terms used on here actually encourages people to change or at least examine their views; rather it makes that person feel isolated and not inclined to venture on here again and engage. Leningrad had it seems to me the right approach; she was enquiring, but not aggressive or strident in her posts to dp.

She has a right to her pov, indeed. And we have a right to challenge it. Or at least to ask for the reasoning behind it.

"If you mean the posts about what is in Leviticus, I could point out that dp is an RC from what I gather and not a practising Jew, so the food laws and the laws about mixing fibres won't apply to her. The OT was replaced and broadened by the NT for the Christian community."

That's exactly the point people were trying to make to DP, she essentially said "You can't pick and choose which parts of the bible you follow...except I believe that one verse of Leviticus still applies, and not the rest of it."

'It' there referring to Leviticus, obviously, and not the entire Bible...!

She was probably thinking of the passage fro Romans 1:26-27, St Paul writes: 'The men also abandoned natural relationships with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.'

The point I was trying to make is that you won't get her to unpick or re-evaluate long held beliefs by bitching at her, but as Leningrad is trying to do by trying to find middle ground. It also depends on her age; I'm 43 (probably quite old for MN) and I grew up with quite different mores from say those in their late 20s/early 30s. What is mainstream and acceptable now wasn't when I was 18 for example, and it is hard to think through your prejudices and try to change your thinking.

She totally wasn't quoting Romans, scaryteacher , for a start she quoted Leviticus... but nice sidestep of the Bartlet argument. If we move to Paul, I could go for 'so do women have to cover their heads in church', IIRC?

I have plenty of common ground with DP, we seem to share the same musical taste; which make her opinions all the more bizarre to me, as the punk/rock world is not the most right-wing of places as a rule (I realise there are exceptions to this!)

And I was fairly polite, it's just when lots of people disagree with a poster, it all kind of adds up and looks like she's getting a shoeing, when that was not necessarily the intention of any individual poster.

I think St Paul was a misogynist bastard who wouldn't last 5 minutes on MN, but there you go. I think you probably mean the bit as well when he said he would not allow a woman to preach in church or have authority over a man.

I wasn't getting at you per se THoS, but at those who were saying she was a bad mum and should be ashamed of herself. Comments like that make people retrench and refuse to engage, which isn't the object here.

What's wrong with being right wing? I am!