Teaching LGBTQ+ to kids.

If you read my posts from the beginning of this thread you will see that I have on repeated occasions stated that I didn't want any positive intervention from the part of teachers as children left to their own devices are far more tolerant than their elders. However I do believe that schools have a role to play in informing half of the population that they have as much self worth as their male counterparts. How you can draw a parallel between this and the teaching of creationism is beyond me!

To just pop in here, I realised I was LGBT when I was 10, in a religious school with absolutely no information. I went into secondary school with no information, and it stayed that way. I was told nothing of how to practice safe sex when one party didn't have a penis, nothing about oral dams, female condoms, etc.

I was never told in primary school that loving another girl was ok, and I was never taught in secondary school how to have a safe relationship with a girl. I'm currently in year 13, I still have never had a lesson where someone explained how to have safe sex with someone who isn't a man with a penis.

Please teach that I exist in schools, please teach teenagers how to protect themselves. You are aknowledging that we exist. I don't care what your personal opinions of my relationships are, I don't care about your relationships, but I acknowledge you exist. Please give me the same courtesty.

To just pop in here, I realised I was LGBT when I was 10, in a religious school with absolutely no information. I went into secondary school with no information, and it stayed that way. I was told nothing of how to practice safe sex when one party didn't have a penis, nothing about oral dams, female condoms, etc.

I was never told in primary school that loving another girl was ok, and I was never taught in secondary school how to have a safe relationship with a girl. I'm currently in year 13, I still have never had a lesson where someone explained how to have safe sex with someone who isn't a man with a penis.

Please teach that I exist in schools, please teach teenagers how to protect themselves. You are aknowledging that we exist. I don't care what your personal opinions of my relationships are, I don't care about your relationships, but I acknowledge you exist. Please give me the same courtesty.

Yes exactly.And funnily enough all that knowledge about straight people and straight sex did not make you straight did it, which is what is at the base of many of the objectors arguments, a fear that a few books and discussions will turn their kids queer.
I am sorry you felt so unheard and unseen but I think the current generation of kids are at least a more accepting generation and with the internet so much more information is out there thankfully.

Part of my text above #72

"The LGBT issues could be highly politicalised and instead of informing children about the existence of gay people for example using history and context, the subject can go to different direction such as sexuality and relationships."

Agree with you on that matter i.e that kids should be made aware that there are other than heterosexual individuals on this planet and those who have made the transition from one gender to another or those who don't identify as a particular one.

I appreciate that, but I'd also say that sexuality and relationships need to be mentioned too. It's important the subject goes in that direction, for students in senior school. Refer to my previous post for the exact points I made, but I had no idea how to have safe gay sex, keep safe, etc. I know how to put on a condom and use birth control, but what good does that do me?

So many LGBT young people are putting themselves in danger because the subject isn't going towards sexuality and relationships. It crushes me that I had to google this stuff, no-one sat me down, no-one told me anything. It's incredibly important to talk about relationships too because LGBT relationships are exactly like heterosexual ones, just with different genders/gender identities/sexualities etc. There can be abuse, r*pe, all of these things. I didn't even realise that could happen with two women. These conversations aren't political, it's keeping teenagers safe during sex and safe from damaging relationships.

Speaking with my friends, which is where my understanding had to come from without reliable information, we never politicised it. We never talked about laws, except to say "Hey! We can get married now!". I would fault the teachers if they weren't able to tell young people how to put on a female condom without making it political.

All that needs to be said is "Boys can love boys, girls can love girls, some people aren't born as their true gender, some people don't have a gender, some people's genders are fluid. Some people don't want to have sex, and that's just as ok and acceptable as wanting to have sex. Here's how to avoid STI's if it's two people with penises, here's how to avoid it if it's two people's with vaginas, here's how to avoid pregnancy if one party has a womb."

Why is it so controversial to provide basic health information to our children? Why are other's politics more important that protecting our children? I'm not controversial, I'm a human being that deserves to know how to have sex with someone I love.

Out of interest - if you don't want to talk about LGBTQ topics until the child is older - if your child (say at the age of 5) made friends with someone who had two mums or two dads, wouldn't you let them go to their friends house? Wouldn't not letting them go confuse/highlight the topic more?

If the question is addressed to me, Of course I would! I have no problem with any sort of family structure as long as the children evolve in a secure environment. Just because a child grows up in a heterosexual household his emotional and mental well being is not guaranteed. I don't discriminate on any grounds when any of my children choose their friends because they are just that, their friends not mine. But getting back to what I wouldn't want taught to five year olds. Unless a question comes spontaneously from a child I don't feel the need for any form of sexual education at that age. If a question is asked I'd like it answered honestly but in a way that the child doesn't come away feeling even more confused than at the time the question was asked.

It isn't a universal value, so it's always going to cause division among parents who do not wish for their children to be taught values that they don't agree with.

If the school is teaching values that go in opposition to the parent's values, then you have a conflict of interest.

It's better to leave subjective values to parents rather than the state, or you end up undermining the family structure.

It is a fundamentally bad idea to have the state monitoring and influencing behaviour like this. You clearly have no idea of the potential ramifications.

If indoctrination has to exist, it's better at the parental level, not the state level.

There's very little in schools that will receive universal approval from every single parent of a school-age child. There's always someone who'll object. Is there any real evidence that this issue is unusually polarising or divisive? No, not really.

It reflects what is already firmly established in law, a consensus across the major parties, and a comfortable majority of the public that demographics indicate is only likely to keep growing. To the extent that it is even still "divisive", that division is declining as the anti-LGBT side continue to shrink in number.

No, you just have a difference of opinion. A conflict of interest would require considerably more.

Well, it's not simply subjective. Schools have a responsibility to make their students aware of what will be expected of them, both in the wider world and within the school community. In both those contexts, they will generally be expected, regardless of private opinion, to behave in accordance with treatment of gay relationships as equal to straight ones, and may well face disciplinary consequences from work or school for not doing so. This is not simply an abstraction - schools, companies, etc have responsibilities to their other students/employees/etc, who may well be gay or have gay family members.

As I mentioned above, I feel that waiting might not be a luxury many have anymore. Like it or not, they will learn from you or 'other' and being passive isn't much of an option. (This stuff was prob so much easier before young kids had phones) I think despite all wishes, v quick at school a parent would get "Why does Sally have 2 mums?" or such,

Someone's sexuality is big thing to them. far less so to pretty much everyone else in my eyes?

I'm not looking at asking 5 yos to make such choices, or even understand the detail (I'm also unsure why we're only considering 5 yo's/Primary 1s in the thread in general) like I'd expect a primary school kid to be able to understand the basic concept of how a family can be put together... without feeling a desperate pressure to start their own at a kid, straight or otherwise.

Exactly, it's something that is there not something that has to be addressed in any semblance of particular detail, just as I wouldn't really talk about ANY romantic relationships at any age before perhaps 10 (

Kids will ask questions around the subject way younger than that if they pay attention to what's going on around them When you answer they often go away and think for a bit and come back and ask more questions about the subject. Questions that I can remember that my kids asked before they reached Junior school included:

If you believe that schools should teach about discrimination laws in this country, for example, then that's not a values thing. It's how you apply your methodology that pertains to whether we're teaching subjective values, or facts.

Facts, there is nothing you can do to prevent a kid from asking you these types of questions, so it's best, to be honest with them (if necessary) but at times you have to limit on how much you can say because it can confuse them and I don't personally think I wanna tell them all about this.

I have to just ask, what exactly is your problem with it? What do you think will happen to them? They know about hetero relationships because they are everywhere so what exactly is wrong with knowing about others?