Un-Sex-Ed

I've heard talk of the "pearl-clutchers" who object to the sex-ed portion of the new Ontario Health and Physical Education curriculum, but I've never met any. My suspicion is that, apart from a handful of people belonging to fringe religious groups (such as the small group that gathered to protest at Queen's Park on last Tuesday), no one really objects to this update. Why? Maybe because contrary to what many of the media stories on the new curriculum would have us believe, this is an extremely tame sex-ed program. In fact it's not about sex at all.

As I tweeted on the day the curriculum was released:

New K-8 #onted #sexed curriculum not particularly "sex-positive": word "orgasm" occurs 0 times--same # of times as in '98 and 2010 docs.
— StepfordTO (@stepfordTO) February 23, 2015

OTOH mentions of STIs in all docs too many to count. #ONsexed (not a bad thing but...balance?) #onted
— StepfordTO (@stepfordTO) February 23, 2015

It's not just orgasms that are MIA; pleasure in general gets short shrift, though at least the concept is mentioned—eight times in the 2015 release, up from five in the 2010 version. And, yes, there are those "shocking" references to wet dreams, vaginal lubrication and masturbation in Grade 6, but since these topics are mentioned (once each) in the optional teacher prompts, the likelihood of them making their way into actual classroom teaching or discussion is slim. By contrast, teaching about abstinence or delaying sexual activity (eleven mentions) is not optional: it is clearly a part of the curriculum that is expected to be taught—in fact, it is listed as one of the "key topics" for Grades 7 and 8. STIs are another key topic for these grades. There is a lot of information about STIs in this curriculum, as of course there should be, but as I said in my tweet, the balance between "scary" and "fun" topics may strike some as skewed.

Or rather it would be askew if this were a sex-ed curriculum: that is, a curriculum about sex and sexuality. It is not. The Human Development and Sexual Health portion of the Health and Physical Education curriculum is in fact a harm-prevention program whose aim is to educate kids about the possible dangers they may encounter as they grow into sexual beings. That is precisely how the government has framed the new curriculum in their parent guides and news conferences, and most of its "controversial" parts can be explained in light of this aim. Education minister Liz Sandals has pointed out, for instance, that young kids need to know the proper names of body parts so they can communicate with family members and police if they are being abused. Older kids need to be aware of anal and oral sex in the context of STIs, since rates of teen pregnancy in Ontario have dropped while STI rates have risen—the reason being, according to Sandals, that teens are engaging in pregnancy-avoidant sexual behaviour, unaware that alternative acts carry other risks. The new lessons about online behaviour and sexting are safety-focussed in obvious ways, as are the anti-bullying sections, the LGBTQ sections, and the new additions about consent.

All of these new emphases are welcome, and they all make sense given the government's explicit goal of keeping kids safe and healthy. One would be hard pressed to object to a program that furthers such a goal. Which is why, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, so few people oppose the new curriculum. Progressive parents and educators, and organizations such as Planned Parenthood support it, but so too do well-known conservative pundits and columnists, such as Margaret Wente and Michael Coren. (See also this thoughtful post by a Baptist pastor from Eganville, Ontario. )

I'm happy that there is wide support for this curriculum and that it will finally be implemented in September of 2015. Kids need sexual harm-prevention education. But they also need sex education. As I said in my post on the 2010 version of the curriculum,

We live in a culture in which there exists, for adults and kids alike, a parallel, free and nearly universally available alternative to sex ed: namely, pornography. A progressive sex education must be at least as interesting as its pornographic rival.

The pornographic rival has not gone away. And progressive sex education for Ontario kids is still lacking.

What's Abstinence Got to Do With It?

Too much, frankly. See my post on Ontario's sex-ed curriculum over at Rabble.ca

The New K-8 Ontario Sex Ed Curriculum: Too Far or Not Far Enough?

Last month the Toronto District School Board suspended a middle school teacher for displaying a sexually explicit safe-sex poster in his Grade 7 and 8 classroom. The board has since overturned the suspension, but the media interest in this case, and others like it, would lead one to believe that Toronto public school children are exposed to too much sexual information in the classroom, too soon. If my experience is any indication, nothing could be further from the truth. During their four years of school-based sex ed, my twin daughters–now in Grade 8–learned too little, too late.

Part of the reason for this is that their teachers have been working from what many professionals in the field of sex ed—including members of the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association (Ophea)–consider to be a flawed and obsolete curriculum. In 2010 the McGuinty government, in consultation with parents, students and experts in children's physical and mental health, overhauled the health and physical education curriculum. But the sex ed portion was shelved after conservative religious groups–most vocally, Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College–protested against its explicitness and its frankness about LGBT issues. Currently, the curriculum in effect throughout the province is the "interim" 2010 document, which is the new physical and health education curriculum with the sex ed portion cut out and replaced with the 1998 version.

The problem with this older sex ed program is that it is . . . well, old. It was conceived before widespread Internet access, thus before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, texting, sexting, cyber-bullying and online porn. But socio-technological outdatedness is not its major shortcoming in my view. The 1998 curriculum, written in the politically and culturally conservative Mike Harris era, is a document of its time in more fundamental ways, as well. Consider, for example, that it does not mention puberty or menstruation until grade 5 (by which time a growing proportion of girls will have started their periods), that it steers almost entirely clear of LGBT issues, despite the fact that, as my daughters have attested, "gay" starts being used as schoolyard slur as early as Grade 1. When it broaches sex and sexuality in middle school it does so primarily in relation to STI prevention and abstinence. In Grade 7, the learning expectations in the Growth and Development strand are as follows:

– identify the methods of transmission and the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and ways to prevent them;
– use effective communication skills (e.g., refusal skills, active listening) to deal with various relationships and situations;
– explain the term abstinence as it applies to healthy sexuality;

In the Grade 8, students are introduced to sex and contraception, but again the emphasis is on abstinence, with students expected to "explain the importance of abstinence as a positive choice for adolescents" as well as "apply living skills (e.g., decision-making, assertiveness, and refusal skills) in making informed decisions, and analyse the consequences of engaging in sexual activities and using drugs."

One can debate the merits of "abstinence-is-best" as advice for pre-teens and teens, as well as the wisdom of equating sexual activity with using drugs, but it would be difficult to argue that this approach to the subject of sex in middle school is strictly educational. In fact, the abstinence message has little to do with the realities of adolescent sexuality; rather, it is a moral interpretation of human sexuality derived from specific interpretations of Judeo-Christian teachings on marriage and family life.

But although abstinence-is-best is a moral message, its presence in the 1998 curriculum is primarily political. At the time, the Christian right was in ascendance in the US both politically and culturally. In 1996, federal funds to the tune of 50 million dollars a year were made available to states teaching abstinence-only sex education programs. (George Bush more than doubled the spending on these programs in his 2003 budget.) Culturally, it was the era of teenage purity balls, chastity rings and abstinence pledges. In Ontario, the Harris conservatives represented the watered-down Canadian version of this cultural zeitgeist. And so the term "abstinence," which was not a part of my own sex ed vocabulary, wended its way into the Ontario sex ed curriculum.

Between 1998 and 2010, a  lot changed in Canadian culture. Gay marriage was legalized in 2005. Access to the Internet grew steadily in the naughts, reaching approximately 80 percent of Canadian households by the end of the decade. It was clear to educators as well as legislators in the liberal McGuinty government that sex education in the province's schools was in dire need of an overhaul. And the 2010 Physical and Health Education curriculum is quite the overhaul. Undertaken while current premier Kathleen Wynn was education minister, the 2010 curriculum* is, at 211 pages, five times longer than the 1998 version it was meant to replace. It is also considerably more complex, covering a wider range of topics, with a greater emphasis on mental health, specifically on cultivating "resilience" in adolescents as they bumble towards adulthood. On balance, it appears to be a stronger, more relevant curriculum for elementary kids living in the 21st century. Unlike its predecessor, for example, it addresses the intersection of technology and sexuality head on, beginning in Grade 7, with discussions of online bullying, sexting, sharing photos online, etc.

It is its relevance in other areas that triggered the religiously-inflected criticisms that resulted in the new sex ed strand being shelved before it could be implemented. The purported problems begin in Grade 1, with kids being introduced to proper names of their body parts, including vagina and penis. From the teacher and student prompts (a new feature in this curriculum) :

Teacher prompt: “We have talked about the body parts that everyone has. What body
parts do only boys have and what body parts do only girls have?”
Student: “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”
Teacher: “We talk about these body parts, like all body parts, with respect.”

One wonders what critics of this section think children should call the body parts between their legs that they are aware of possessing from toddler hood. ("Wee wee", "down there"?) After all, other body parts are studied and referred to by their scientific names in early grades; to my knowledge there have been no objections registered against the naming of the uvula.

But of course, in our culture not all body parts are equal; some are designated "private." Vaginas, penises and breasts are only allowed to enter the public realm in controlled, mostly sexualized ways, most often packaged for consumption (think pornography). The ordinary functions and processes of these parts, such as vaginal lubrication, wet dreams and erections, all of which are covered in the new sex ed curriculum in Grade 6, are not to be mentioned publicly or discussed matter-of-factly–at least not according to McVety et al. If we don't name certain experiences, the argument seems to go, we can pretend they don't exist; we can pretend that children don't, for instance, already possess bodies and budding sexualities, and that they won't one day (sooner rather than later, perhaps) be sexually active persons. It seems superfluous to point to the ample evidence suggesting that comprehensive sex education leads to later initiation of sexual activity and safer sex when initiation occurs. Critics of sex ed in general, and Ontario's new curriculum in particular, seem determined to believe the opposite. It's difficult not to suspect that the real objection is to sex education, full stop–an objection to bringing the private and familial into the public (educational) sphere where its meaning becomes unfixed and up for negotiation.

In a similar vein and for similar reasons, religious groups objected to the LGBT content of the 2010 revised curriculum, specifically the teaching in Grade 3 about "visible and invisible" differences such as sexual orientation. In later grades, the curriculum lays out for kids the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity. The expectation for Grade 8 is that students will:

demonstrate an understanding of gender identity (e.g., male, female, two-spirited, transgendered, transsexual, intersex) and sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual), and identify factors that can help individuals of all identities and orientations develop a positive selfconcept [six].

Not surprisingly, this section riled the McVetys of the province with its suggestion that human sexuality is a more complex and fluid phenomenon than the version of it on display in other parts of the culture, in mainstream movies and TV shows, for example–and in evangelical churches.

That's not to say this portion of the curriculum is beyond critique. The careful, culturally-sensitive language is potentially problematic not because it is symptomatic of a "radical sex ed" agenda, but because such language runs the risk of dating the document and restricting kids' understanding of sexuality. There is, after all, no scientific or even cultural consensus as to the number and nature of human gender identities. Meanings and definitions of sexuality are continually being contested, which is as it should be. The sex ed classroom is as good a place as any for robust, open debate about the complicated interrelationships between sex, gender and sexual orientation. Nonetheless, with homophobic bullying and cyberbullying showing no signs of easing up in middle and high schools, any curriculum that gets kids thinking critically about such issues is a good start and long overdue.

The true flaws of the new sex ed program lie elsewhere, in my opinion. Its controversial LGBT content notwithstanding, the 2010 curriculum strikes me as still too timid a document in key areas. Certain problems seem to have been carried over from the 1998 curriculum. For instance, although sex ed now starts in Grade 4, one year earlier than in the 1998 program, menstruation and spermatogenesis are still not taught until Grade 5, which is far too late given the age at which many kids now reach puberty. And, in the 2010 version, as in its predecessor, contraception is not taught until Grade 8.

When it comes to sex itself, echoes of the old abstinence-is-best-agenda remain. For instance, in Grade 7 you find this expectation:

explain the importance of having a common understanding with a partner about delaying sexual activity until one is older (e.g., choosing to abstain from any genital contact; choosing to abstain from having vaginal or anal intercourse; choosing to abstain from having oral-genital contact). . . .

And in the next paragraph, the term abstinence is explained in a "teacher prompt":

The term abstinence can mean different things to different people.
People can also have different understandings of what is meant by having or not having sex. . . .  Having sex can be an enjoyable experience and can be an important part of a
close relationship when you are older. But having sex has risks too, including physical risks like sexually transmitted infections . . . and getting pregnant when you don’t want to.

The ideal student responds (in the accompanying "student prompt") as follows:

“It’s best to wait until you are older to have sex because you need to be emotionally ready, which includes being able to talk with your partner about how you feel, being prepared to talk about and use protection against STIs or pregnancy. . . . 

Abstinence rears its head yet again–albeit in attenuated form–in Grade 8, when students are expected to:

develop their understanding about sexual health (e.g., about issues such as abstinence; the choice to delay first intercourse; setting sexual limits; safer sex and pleasure; use of contraception, including condoms, for pregnancy and STI prevention), using knowledge of self and of safe-sex practices and contraception (including condom use), seeking additional information and support as needed, and practising (e.g., through role play) the communication, assertiveness, and refusal skills that may be needed for decision making in real-life contexts.

There is, buried within the long parenthesis, a mention of pleasure, and to be fair, the pleasures of intimacy are discussed in other parts of the Grade 8 expectations, especially in a section outlining the pros and cons of being in an intimate relationship. On balance, however, when it comes to sex, the pro side is given short shrift. There is very little detail about sexual pleasure, masturbation or orgasms, and quite a bit of information about scary STIs, unwanted pregnancies and the negative social consequences of being in a relationship (alienation from friends, for example).

It is true that this is an elementary curriculum, and a more "sex-positive" element may emerge in the new high school curriculum, which I have not seen. Still, it is fair to ask whether it is appropriate or necessary for children's introduction to sex ed to contain so much implicit moralizing, so many preachy and condescending warnings against sex. It seems that in an (obviously futile) effort to appease its potential critics, the writers of the curriculum have lost sight of what a truly progressive sex ed program might look like. I do not pretend to know what the details of such a program would be, but I don't believe it would be quite so fear-based. Instead of emphasizing abstinence, it might focus on consent, a concept conspicuous by its absence in the 2010 curriculum, despite the welcome inclusion in the Grade 8 expectations of a discussion of gender-based violence.

I think, too, that a progressive sex education would engage kids, and nothing is less engaging or easier to dismiss than sermons about the dangers of sex. This is especially true given that we live in a culture in which there exists, for adults and kids alike, a parallel, free and nearly universally available alternative to sex ed: namely, pornography. A progressive sex education must be at least as interesting as its pornographic rival. Unlike its rival, school-based sex education need not–and ideally, would not–have anything to sell or promote beyond knowledge of and interest in a vital component of human experience.


* Public access to the 2010 version of the curriculum is no longer available. Link now directs to the further revised 2015 version that was implemented in 2015.

Teachers: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (plus the Sexy!), Part 1

I promised several people (including my kids) that my next post would be about the sorry state of sex education in Ontario schools, but between the time I first thought about writing it (after being interviewed by a local newspaper on the issue) and now, I've become less motivated. Maybe sex just isn't on my radar as much today as it was a month ago, or maybe events have conspired to turn my thoughts elsewhere. But what I've found myself thinking about recently is teachers. And I've found myself trying to reconcile the two types of writing I've been engaging in: i.e., blogging, which for me means viewing the personal through a theoretical and political lens, and fiction writing, which is . . . well, something else entirely. The reconciliation I've settled on is a kind of personal creative non-fiction, which is quite a departure for me in this space. But bear with me. The personal—be it parenting or aspects of one's own educational history—is still the soci-political for me, as I hope will become clear.

First off, I should clarify that I want to talk about my teachers, teachers who affected me for better or for worse (but mostly for better) during the long years of my student-hood. The differences between teachers (and teaching) in the past and today are part of what I think makes the topic interesting, but of equal interest are the parallels and resonances between "then" and "now."


The Ugly

I start with the "ugly" because the teacher in question happens to have been my very first teacher, my kindergarten teacher, Mrs B. (She was not in fact ugly; my reason for referring to her this way will become apparent.) She was a woman in her early sixties, nearing retirement when I passed through her classroom. In those days, a requirement of kindergarten teachers was that they be able to play the piano. I remember a lot of singing, children's voices reverberating throughout the sunlit room, belting out songs like "I've Been Working on the Railroad," while Mrs B played the piano. A lot of that year is a blur, but one incident stands out in my mind. At Halloween Mrs B dressed up in a convincing (to a five-year-old) witch costume, complete with warty face mask, hat, and cape. She brought in a large cauldron, filling it with what she called her potion. She sat us around her while she stirred the concoction and handed out cups, inviting the kids to taste it. There was silence as kids inched-wormed backwards, enlarging the circle. A boy beside me trembled softly. No one accepted Mrs. B's offer. No one except—after several moments of careful consideration—me. I took a sip of what I immediately recognized as some combination of ginger ale and eggnog. It was good.

Today I wonder how kids could have been so petrified of a teacher in a witch's costume. (Would today's kids be as frightened?) I also wonder why I decided to risk tasting the potion. It may be because I had an older sister who chased me around the house pretending to be Captain Hook; that experience was far more terrifying to me than Mrs B in an ugly witch's costume. But I think it goes beyond that. Mrs B had read to us, played piano for us, led us in the Hokey Pokey, bandaged our scraped knees, reprimanded us when we stepped out of line the way a parent might, firmly but without malice. Nothing in her previous behaviour suggested that she would attempt to poison us on this occasion. So, I said yes to her scary potion, as I'd said yes to all the lessons and activities she'd offered us up to that point. Fill me up, my gesture seemed to say, with anything and everything you have to offer. The cup seems to me a perfect synecdoche for the transmission model of learning operative at the time. But even transmission is never truly one way. By accepting the gift of Mrs B's potion, I was giving her something in return: my trust.


The Good

For the next several years of my schooling, teacher after teacher proved themselves worthy of my trust. In Grade 1, there was Mrs M, who was surprised when I wrote this message on a test: "Am I right?" I remember her showing the note to my mother, and the two of them sharing a laugh about it. Both my mother and Mrs M appeared to consider it strange for a student to attempt to communicate with a teacher in a non-sanctioned way. What I appreciated about Mrs M—or what I appreciate now, looking back—was her openness to this gesture on my part. "Yes, you are," she'd written in response.

Maybe this openness was part of what emboldened me a few years later to ask Mr H, my Grade 5 teacher, a rather odd question. Mr H was a mild-mannered man with minimal control of the class, and a seeming lack of interest in anything other than music. We spent hours on end repeating our "ta-ta-tee-tee, tas" or learning solfege or singing songs like Both Sides Now. A friend who was also in Mr H's class thinks it was a wasted year. I disagree. I loved all the music and singing, and I especially enjoyed the children's operetta—His Majesty's Pie—that we staged outside of school hours, under his direction. It boggles the mind that he was given such leeway to pursue his own interests, but I don't think we were the worse for it. Watching an adult live out his passion day after day is not a bad thing for a child to witness.

But to the question: A boy and I had been talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I told him I was going to be a man. (In grade two, I'd told the teacher I wanted to be a nun; clearly in the intervening years I'd set my aspirations higher—or lower, depending on your point of view.) He snorted. "Very funny." "No, I'm serious," I said. "Impossible," he said.

I knew better. My older sister had a college classmate who was in the the process of transitioning from male to female. The students at the college derisively dubbed her "Nick the Chick," but my sister had told me the story in non-judgemental terms, and I was intrigued. I'm pretty sure I didn't actually want to become a man when I grew up; I did want to prove a point to my classmate. So I dragged the boy to the front of the class where Mr H stood writing on the blackboard. "Sir," I said. "I can change from a girl to a boy when I get older, right? I can be a man if I want to." Mr H swung around, an expression of mild surprise on his face. He glanced from me to the boy, then back at me. The look of surprise evaporated, replaced by his customary poker face. "Yes," he said tersely. "Now go sit down, both of you."

Mr H often used to preface answers to questions with "I cannot tell a lie." He was also fond of the phrase "Man is an adaptable animal." He displayed honesty and adaptability that day, but he also showed the boy and me that change—especially the socio-sexual change that the newly emerging recognition of gender dysphoria betokened—is not something to get worked up over. It's difficult not to marvel that decades later we (in Canada) still have governments capitulating to fringe groups complaining about the GLBT content of proposed new sex ed curricula.

(See also: Part 2, The Bad and the Good, Redux)

Let the Kids be Glad to Be Gay

In a recent article in the Toronto Star, I came across this breathtaking statement:

But there is a time and place for everything, said Rondo Thomas, of the Toronto-based Evangelical Association, but there is no “time and place” in an 8-year-old’s mind to try to make them conceptualize something beyond “tying their shoes.”

Really. So this is what these religious "leaders" think of the intellectual capacities of eight-year-olds. It makes about as much sense as their claim that the McGuinty government's new anti-bullying legislation is tantamount to pro-gay education. Logic is clearly not Thomas's—or his comrade in fanaticism, Charles McVety's—strong suit. (But then these are the same kinds of people who believe that pre-marital sex leads to dancing.)

But even if it were true—even if anti-bullying education of necessity raised the issue of homophobia (the word is mentioned in the new legislation) and other fears of difference, even it if raised it with eight-year-olds, or five-year-olds, for that matter—so what? When you have teenagers like Jamie Hubley and countless others still taking their own lives after being bullied for being gay, clearly anti-bullying education must tackle homophobia. Kids are never too young to "conceptualize" hate. Or love. Which concept comes to predominate in their thinking about themselves, and others who may be different from them, depends to a large degree on the way in which they are raised and educated.

So yes, bring on the anti-bullying, pro-gay legislation. In fact, I urge schools to hold a special pro-LGBT assembly every year, for kids from grades kindergarten to 12. I humbly suggest that the theme song for such an assembly be this classic by Tom Robinson:




(See also Separate Schools for LGBT Kids? and  Breeding Tolerance: Is it Possible.)

The New F Word and Kids

Recently, I watched an episode of TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin on my computer. The episode was called "The New 'F' Word," and I had missed it when it first aired in January 2011, despite the fact that a good friend of mine, Charlie Keil, a professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto, was one of Paikin's guests on that occasion. The hour-long show consisted of a discussion of the recent decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to ban the Dire Straits song "Money For Nothing" from Canadian airwaves because of its repeated use of the anti-gay slur "faggot."

I was twenty minutes into the show when my 11-year-old daughter, J, walked into the room. Although she did not stay long, I am pleased that she walked in when she did, and saw the show's title displayed across the screen. The ensuing discussion—which occurred while I paused the show, and which I have transcribed below—served as a unplanned continuation of a conversation that began when she was quite young. (See here.) I'm not a big fan of the phrase "teachable moment," but I do believe this was one.

J: Hey, what's Charlie doing on there?

Me: He's a guest on the show.

J: "The New 'F' Word"? What's that? Charlie won't even say the old F word. [She's right! This is revealed near the end of the show, starting at 46:25.]

Me: The new F word is "faggot." It's a pejorative term for "gay." Have you heard it?

J: No. Why are they talking about it?

Me: Because a song containing the word has been banned from being played on the radio.

J: Good.

Me: But it's complicated. In the song, the word is used satirically. Do you want to listen to the song?

J: Okay. [I find the the original version of "Money for Nothing" on YouTube and play it for her.]

Me: So you see, the person saying the word in the song is a character. He doesn't represent the singer's views.

J: I still think he shouldn't say it. But I guess it's like in a story when there's a character you're not suppose to like, who says nasty things.

Me: Yes.

J: Or like in Billy Elliot, when the miners say the old F word because that's the way they would talk in real life. [J and her twin sister have said they do not want to see the stage version of Billy Eliot because of the swearing.]

Me: Sort of. But it's a bit different because the old F word isn't directed at a specific group. The new F word is worse because it targets gays.

J: Yes, but I still don't want to hear either the old or the new F word.

Me: But do you understand why some people might object to the new F word being banned?

J: Sort of. But if it upsets people to hear it, maybe it should be banned.

Me: But, J, in art—in songs or stories or plays—you have to be able to critique ideas or words, and to do that you have to be able to say them. When they're used in that context they're not necessarily hurtful.

J: Maybe you just think they're not hurtful when they're used that way because you're not gay.

Me: Maybe.

Breeding Tolerance: Is it Possible?

In 2008 I published an article in a local newspaper about my daughters' emerging understanding of the word “gay.” The article was inspired in part by Ellen Degeneres’ emotional plea for tolerance in the wake of the murder of Lawrence King, a teenager from Oxnard, California killed by a classmate simply for being gay. Now, two years later, King's murder trial is underway, yet the bullying of gay teenagers continues unabated. Gay teens have been driven to suicide in Indiana, Texas and California. Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death after his roommate posted a video online of him kissing a man in his dorm room. In light of these deeply disturbing incidents, I have decided to post an earlier, less-edited version of my 2008 article here; I believe it is—unfortunately—still relevant and timely.

Twin sisters question the meaning of “gay”

In February 2008, Lawrence King, a gay teenager from Oxnard California was killed by a classmate for openly expressing his sexuality. After reading the chilling details of the story on the Internet, I was left with a perturbing question: How does a child grow up to believe that hatred and murder are acceptable responses to difference?

My eight-year-old twin daughters have been brought up in a fairly typical, liberal heterosexual family. Yet the word “gay,” with all its ambiguous cultural freight, entered their lives at a young age. One fall day in Grade 1, they asked offhandedly, “What's ‘gay’”? My face must have registered surprise because E added by way of explanation, “Connor was talking about it.” Connor was a boy in their class who had older siblings and was clearly in a different league of worldliness.

I hesitated. How could I respond to such a question in a way that a 6-year-old could understand? “Well,” I ventured, “when you’re a man, and you want to spend most of your time or life with another man, you could be gay, or if you’re a woman and you’re more interested in living with a woman than a man, you might be gay.”

“Can two girls or two boys get married?” the other twin—J—asked.

Canada had recently passed legislation legalizing gay marriage, so I answered truthfully, “In this country, yes.”

E piped up: “When I grow up I’m going to be gay; I’m gay.”

“I’m not,” J said, “I don’t want to be gay.”

OK then, I thought, I’ll have one of each. Just give me grandchildren. Aloud, I said, “You don’t have to worry about this stuff for a long time.”

I didn’t hear anything further about “gay” for a few months. Then one day while the girls were playing dolls with a friend in our kitchen, I overheard an interesting conversation. The friend, a good-natured North Toronto girl, said about her favourite doll: “When Taryn grows up she’s going to marry a girl, so she never has to kiss a boy.” The twins nodded approvingly. I tiptoed out to the living room stifling a laugh.

It wasn’t until the end of Grade 2 that I began to notice the twins’ neutrality towards all things gay and lesbian starting to erode. E no longer wanted to be gay because, as she explained—after I was forced to answer very pointed questions about where babies came from—she did not want to have to “to borrow a seed” from a sperm bank (a solution my husband had helpfully proposed). J asserted that being gay wasn’t the best option because it wasn’t “the tradition,” at least not in our family. Curious, I quizzed them on their attitudes, wondering if they had heard negative talk at school.

“Well, we don’t know anyone who’s gay,” E said, accusingly. I pointed out that there was a lesbian couple living a few houses away on our street. The girls were surprised; my husband had taken them trick-or-treating to that house, but neither they nor we knew the couple well.

J looked thoughtful. “Hmm,” she said, “maybe it would be nice to be a lesbian because you could have lots of nice teas on the verandah with your wife.” She proceeded to launch into a make-believe dialogue, playing both parts herself in a bad English accent: “Ella come and have tea with me on the verandah. In a minute dear. OK dear,” and so on.

“Is that how you think lesbians live?” I asked, laughing.

“Yes.”

J's favourable—albeit Victorian—view of lesbianism seemed to persist. In the middle of Grade 3 she told me that her friend Sarah had taken to telling her almost daily that she loved her. “But,” J explained, “Sarah always adds, ‘as a friend,’ because otherwise she says we’d be gay.”

“What do you say?” I asked.

“Nothing. Except once when she said, ‘or we’d be gay,’ I said ‘well, we could be,’ and Sarah said ‘eeww,’ and ran away.” I considered telling J that I was proud of her for uttering that little phrase “well, we could be,” for daring to acknowledge, in her own childish way, that gayness exists, but I let it go. It seemed I’d said enough.

Except it's never enough. Time and again, I'm jostled out my doze of complacency—by a conversation, a word—into an awareness that as parents we can never do enough to inculcate acceptance of difference in all its incarnations.

Not long ago, the girls asked about another culturally freighted word, “queer.” A socially savvy friend had informed them there was another meaning besides “odd” or “strange,” but she wouldn't tell them what it was. I launched into a complicated, politically-correct explanation of how some people use “queer” as a not-so-nice way to say “gay,” but that some gays and lesbians had “taken back” the word and now used it to refer to themselves, which is OK because . . . Two pairs of 8-year-old eyes glazed over in unison. I left it at that.

Then, just last week, the girls rushed in the door after school, bubbling with excitement. “Mom,” E said, “Lauren finally told us what the other meaning of ‘queer’ is and it’s not what you said at all.”

“What is it then?”

“She said it means stupid.”

We can never do enough indeed.

Sex Ed

Recently the McGuinty government here in Ontario introduced and then quickly withdrew a new Sex Education curriculum that was to come into effect next September. The cynical interpretation of this rapid flip-flop is that McGuinty caved in to pressure from vocal members of fringe Christian right groups who objected to students in Grade 1 being taught proper body part names (e.g., penis and vagina), and to students in Grade 3 being introduced to "invisible differences" such as homosexuality. Well, this whole debate reminded me of an article I wrote two years ago for the Toronto Star, about my twins' emerging understanding of the notion of "gay." I think it's clear from the article that Grade 3 is not too early but, on the contrary, possibly too late to be introducing the concept of sexual orientation. Here is the link.