Teaching the Queer Agenda

Educate the Children!

Shove it in peoples faces!

Of course, I must address, that I don't actually believe we should be shoving queer politics and identity down peoples throats. I think education and exposure does fantastic things for our community, but forcing people to listen to our ideals can become quickly off-putting, and bigots immediately weaponize our attempts as an excuse to not listen.

However, we need some element of queer education.

Think about the last time you were taught about a gay person in school.

We're you even taught about a gay person in school?             

 I wasn't. 

The first time they even mentioned gay people in my Roman Catholic high school was during our study of A View from the Bridge at Nat 5, where (spoilers for this very mediocre play with very incest-y undertones), jealous Uncle Eddie kisses his niece's foreign boyfriend (who is also her cousin) Rodolpho in attempts to emasculate him, and basically out him as gay (which, newsflash, he wasn't gay, just European). So, I'm very glad to have briefly been mentioned potential, but not actually gay people, in this very inappropriate family relationships themed play by Arthur Miller. 

I felt so seen (this is sarcasm).   

I was fortunate enough to know queer people, and enough base knowledge and courage to do my own research into my identity and the culture of the group I was becoming part of. There are countless young queer people who feel alone, and isolated, because they don't know about their community, and their history, and there is nothing put in place in schools and general society that teaches them about these things.

That shouldn't be the case.            

Teaching the general public, especially our young people, about current and historical queer issues and culture is critical to our society's progression. Making everyone aware of the things we struggle through as queer people, the battles we have fought, the people who have made it okay for us to stand here today and say 'hey, I'm different', it's all so important.

We hear a lot nowadays - from our parents, and the generation before us - "when I was young, we didn't have all these gay people, all these different sexualities and identities", but that just isn't true. 

Queer people have existed for as long as people have existed, we are just getting to an age where it is becoming more accepted to be out. The truth is, previous generations have been ashamed to come out because of a lack of education, and shame in themselves because they themselves hadn't received the validation and information they needed about being queer to feel secure in themselves. Society had erased them from generalised teaching, leaving them to face that fear of rejection alone, until they found comfort in later life.

With the rise in social media, today's generation have been given the freedom to research and reach out to those who share their feelings, giving us that stronger sense of community. This community allows for people to explore themselves, learn about their people, and their history, without fear of rejection, because everyone else there is just like them.

But how do we find these communities if we don't know they exist?

Despite everything we've fought through, everything we've achieved, and everything we've built for ourselves as a community, modern society still fails to educate the youth about us adequately. The idea of teaching the kids about "gay" things still sparks a fear in parents, in older generations, who fear we will corrupt their poor innocent minds with such "perverse" and "obscene" education.

All because the idea of sexuality correlates with the idea of sex itself, and therefore is deemed inappropriate for young minds.

But the queer identity is so much more than who we sleep with. 

You don't see biology lessons about fertility and childbirth and pregnancy being stigmatised for teaching young people about sex, so why would educating the youth on queer issues and life be a problem?

Having some form of integration of queer lessons into school will benefit us greatly, it will benefit the general public greatly. Society will become a more accepting place, and we can all hug and kiss whoever we want and be happy.

I hope we see some movement. I hope the little queer and trans kids find their education, and their comfort. I hope they stop teaching that stupid play in English classes.

Me, when I remember that play:

Anyways, that is all from me today. I hope this has instilled a bit of passion in you, and I hope you're looking back at your education and realising you never actually learned about queer people.

Stay true!
- Bee