Julian Sanchez makes good sense here on recent bills in Florida designed to regulate and censor LGBTQ content in schools: Yes, indeed. Kids will learn about LGBTQ issues sooner or later. It’s pointless to try and keep them from finding out about the existence of homosexuality, of gay love, of gay marriage, of trans people and gender nonconformity. They’re gonna find out. They have smartphones, usually much younger than they should. They’re curious and the world is always a click away. It’s foolish to try and prevent them from learning about this stuff. And, in fact, the more that you try to restrict what they learn, the more likely they are to explore this world in a way that openly defies your efforts. LGBTQ people, politics, art, and culture exist. You’re entitled to object to LGBTQ rights, in a free society, but you’re not entitled to (or able to) create a bubble in which others are kept hidden from knowledge of the existence of LGBTQ people. People love that I’m forever tweaking liberals about their attachment to various forms of unreality, to thinking that they can wish away facts of life that they’re uncomfortable with. But it’s the same deal here.
My YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is one of the most challenged and banned books of the last 20 years. According to the American Library Association, my novel was the most banned and challenged book in the United States in the decade 2010-2019. So I have more personal experience with the right wing's vilification of books and writers than just about everybody. But I'm also highly aware of the way the left censors and silences writers. And a lot of this silencing and censoring happens before a book is even published, with sensitivity readers who demand changes based on ever-shifting moral standards and definitions of "triggers" and, more dangerously, by creating an environment where writers silence and censor themselves because they fear professional and personal excommunication. As I've written elsewhere, the right wing are censorship vikings and the left wing are censorship ninjas.
If "sit down and shut the fuck up" isn't a position that works with kids (and any teacher will tell you that it doesn't), it sure as hell isn't going to work with those kids' parents.
Will the Democrats ever figure that out? Gimme a break! Just sit down and...
I agree with your views on access to information, I'm honestly basically an anarchist on the subject as well and think kids will be fine no matter what they read, but I think you're missing what the conservatives are trying to do. They think inclusion in a public school library implies tacit _approval_ of the ideas, and therefore should be banned from there. It's fine if kids learn about it, as long as they know it's not 'normal' and society doesn't approve.
I'm pretty sceptical whether this is even effective from a stigmatising perspective, and I don't really approve of centralised authorities agreeing on what the normative behaviour that should be presented to kids is. But I think the main thrust of their argument isn't about hiding its existence, but making it clear that mainstream society, as they see it, thinks it's morally wrong. And maybe there's a salutary value in kids discovering some 'forbiddne' knowledge on their own? But regardless, I think it's more about making it clear that certain things are _just not done_ by the right sort of people, rather than fully trying to hide their existence.
My issue with this, like so many things culturally now is there is no room for shades of grey. Everything is black and white. You are either against children hearing that gay people exist OR you think 3 year olds should be defining their sexuality. There is no room for "gay people exist, they live among us, they are our neighbors, family members, friends. They work at the businesses we frequent, they are parents of students at your school etc.
My son is in first grade, he attends a K-4 school in our very progressive school district. Last week his school had a diversity festival after school that showed all kinds of diversity, racial, ethic, hair, hobbies and yes, gender and sexuality. I did not bring him to the high school's GSA table because their presentation was educating about all the flags and then asking children to make crafts that represent they flag of their identity. No sorry. Children that age don't understand what pansexual is and should not be trying to define themselves. We just visited his gay grandfather, our next door neighbors are a lesbian couple with two sons he plays with. He's asked them why they are two moms. This is how you expose and educate children about differences, not by asking them to identify their differences and wear it as a flag at the age of 6.
It’s pointless to ban books not only because kids will find the stuff anyway, but also because hardly any of them were going to seek out such stuff in a library in the first place. Banning controversial books in school libraries is like banning controversial forms of quilting.
I agree with everything here, but (the famous "but") I'm not sure I understand what you think is appropriate or inappropriate for a public school teacher to teach young children, let's say 10 and under. I saw a parody tweet where someone said they were a teacher and they were secretly teaching Christianity and baptizing the kids in a sink, and saying to the kids they should not tell there parents. When looked at this way you can see the fear of parents about how much power teachers have and I think I would agree that they should stick to the three R's and let parents (and the world) teach the rest. At around 11 or 12 than I'd want my kid to be exposed to real life much more, but really before then the exposure they get, and they will get it, should not come from professional teachers.
Thank you for making this point so eloquently. I don’t object to the existence of content warnings but to the requirement of them. I choose not to watch shows with gun violence because it deeply upsets me, but that’s what google is for.
Children are not little adults. It’s perfectly reasonable to gradually introduce complex topics in tandem with their cognitive and psychosocial development. We can argue about the boundaries and appropriate ages to expose kids to the realities of domestic abuse or sexuality or the Holocaust. And yes, some kids will be exposed much earlier than is ideal, but that doesn’t magically mean the 7-year-old mind is equipped to process those things. Basically, I don’t think Freddie’s libertarianism would (or should) survive the experience of actual parenting.
With respect to kids over 15ish and college students, I’m completely in agreement with Freddie.
Thank you for the pretty evenhanded take on the FL so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill. It's really frustrating as an extreme social liberal to watch the "T" take over the LGBTQ and treat transgenderism as if it's in the same category as being gay. I'm fine with teachers talking about gay relationships--who cares if Heather has two mommies? Who cares if one of their teachers brings his husband to the weekend softball game? Not me! I could not care less if my children discover that they are gay or if they discover they are straight and have some gay sex adventures or discover that being bisexual means twice the opportunity for partners!
What I do care about is the very casual treatment of transgenderism in schools. In the school district we fled from, our children were taught, starting in kindergarten, that if they were uncomfortable in their "sex assigned at birth" they might be trans. What does it mean to be "uncomfortable"? In the books they were read, including "I Am Jazz," uncomfortable means liking sparkles and unicorns if you're a boy-assigned-at-birth. It means feeling uncomfortable with your body. And the staff is standing by ready to help your child begin a social transition and to keep it hidden from you. Ready to set your child on a path to a lifetime of medicalization because you defy gender stereotypes!
It's infuriating for people like Julian Sanchez to assume I am anti-gay rights because I don't want our school putting the idea in my 10-year-old daughter's head that she can skip out on the painful rite of passage that is puberty because it's uncomfortable.
I think we’d go a very long way if in the first several years of school the emphasis less on developing one’s personal identity, and more on developing empathy for others.
Anti-bullying regulations that are actually enforced would solve a lot of issues minority, gay, trans kids, or any others might have. And if empathy were taught as a virtue, perhaps they be unneeded.
A couple of typos/phrasing issues you may want to adjust:
"(Pictures that are circulated of the book are routinely circulated are typically dismissed as conservative fabrications, but you just have to look at the book to know that isn't true.) "
This is the tension at the heart of higher education: the legacy heterodox movement that supports universities as places to engage in challenging material, even material that upsets, and learn the skills to synthesize and build arguments, vs. the progressive approach that has expanded the definition of harm so broadly, that anything remotely challenging to a worldview, to an ideology, is considered out of bounds. Of being morally wrong.
The latter of these positions is where catastrophism rules the day. If everything not aligned with the correct ideology is harmful, if words are violence, you can justify censorship and restrictions on personal behavior without the slightest pause. After all, who can possibly argue against "But people will die!" and not risk being seen as a monster?
For the most passionate among them, there are no gray areas. Protecting the right people -- those with the right politics -- is an absolute good, and the determination of what those harms look like is applied with absolute certainty.
Underlying these judgments and reactions is the fundamental idea that being upset is....wrong. "It's not my job to educate you" is the response that comes from thinking that having to explain or make an argument is a significant imposition on one's freedom. Where truly harmless social interactions can be couched as "microaggressions" because how someone receives an event -- "living my truth" -- is seen as dispositive of a breach of the social contract and can be litigated in public to the reputational destruction of the offender.
Powering these dynamics are the rewards that accrue to those asserting their right to never experience anything resembling adversity. Elite status gained through victimhood. Institutions so terrified of being canceled, that they label the most censorious among us as "stunning and brave."
That poem should come with a trigger warning. I'm not a big poetry reader but I'm sitting here now both trying to find more Linda Pastan to read and also not sure how I'm going to move on with my day. I have the get the kids to school, man! Warn me next time!
There are no trigger warnings for life. Great piece.
My YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is one of the most challenged and banned books of the last 20 years. According to the American Library Association, my novel was the most banned and challenged book in the United States in the decade 2010-2019. So I have more personal experience with the right wing's vilification of books and writers than just about everybody. But I'm also highly aware of the way the left censors and silences writers. And a lot of this silencing and censoring happens before a book is even published, with sensitivity readers who demand changes based on ever-shifting moral standards and definitions of "triggers" and, more dangerously, by creating an environment where writers silence and censor themselves because they fear professional and personal excommunication. As I've written elsewhere, the right wing are censorship vikings and the left wing are censorship ninjas.
If "sit down and shut the fuck up" isn't a position that works with kids (and any teacher will tell you that it doesn't), it sure as hell isn't going to work with those kids' parents.
Will the Democrats ever figure that out? Gimme a break! Just sit down and...
I agree with your views on access to information, I'm honestly basically an anarchist on the subject as well and think kids will be fine no matter what they read, but I think you're missing what the conservatives are trying to do. They think inclusion in a public school library implies tacit _approval_ of the ideas, and therefore should be banned from there. It's fine if kids learn about it, as long as they know it's not 'normal' and society doesn't approve.
I'm pretty sceptical whether this is even effective from a stigmatising perspective, and I don't really approve of centralised authorities agreeing on what the normative behaviour that should be presented to kids is. But I think the main thrust of their argument isn't about hiding its existence, but making it clear that mainstream society, as they see it, thinks it's morally wrong. And maybe there's a salutary value in kids discovering some 'forbiddne' knowledge on their own? But regardless, I think it's more about making it clear that certain things are _just not done_ by the right sort of people, rather than fully trying to hide their existence.
My issue with this, like so many things culturally now is there is no room for shades of grey. Everything is black and white. You are either against children hearing that gay people exist OR you think 3 year olds should be defining their sexuality. There is no room for "gay people exist, they live among us, they are our neighbors, family members, friends. They work at the businesses we frequent, they are parents of students at your school etc.
My son is in first grade, he attends a K-4 school in our very progressive school district. Last week his school had a diversity festival after school that showed all kinds of diversity, racial, ethic, hair, hobbies and yes, gender and sexuality. I did not bring him to the high school's GSA table because their presentation was educating about all the flags and then asking children to make crafts that represent they flag of their identity. No sorry. Children that age don't understand what pansexual is and should not be trying to define themselves. We just visited his gay grandfather, our next door neighbors are a lesbian couple with two sons he plays with. He's asked them why they are two moms. This is how you expose and educate children about differences, not by asking them to identify their differences and wear it as a flag at the age of 6.
It’s pointless to ban books not only because kids will find the stuff anyway, but also because hardly any of them were going to seek out such stuff in a library in the first place. Banning controversial books in school libraries is like banning controversial forms of quilting.
I agree with everything here, but (the famous "but") I'm not sure I understand what you think is appropriate or inappropriate for a public school teacher to teach young children, let's say 10 and under. I saw a parody tweet where someone said they were a teacher and they were secretly teaching Christianity and baptizing the kids in a sink, and saying to the kids they should not tell there parents. When looked at this way you can see the fear of parents about how much power teachers have and I think I would agree that they should stick to the three R's and let parents (and the world) teach the rest. At around 11 or 12 than I'd want my kid to be exposed to real life much more, but really before then the exposure they get, and they will get it, should not come from professional teachers.
Thank you for making this point so eloquently. I don’t object to the existence of content warnings but to the requirement of them. I choose not to watch shows with gun violence because it deeply upsets me, but that’s what google is for.
Children are not little adults. It’s perfectly reasonable to gradually introduce complex topics in tandem with their cognitive and psychosocial development. We can argue about the boundaries and appropriate ages to expose kids to the realities of domestic abuse or sexuality or the Holocaust. And yes, some kids will be exposed much earlier than is ideal, but that doesn’t magically mean the 7-year-old mind is equipped to process those things. Basically, I don’t think Freddie’s libertarianism would (or should) survive the experience of actual parenting.
With respect to kids over 15ish and college students, I’m completely in agreement with Freddie.
Thank you for the pretty evenhanded take on the FL so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill. It's really frustrating as an extreme social liberal to watch the "T" take over the LGBTQ and treat transgenderism as if it's in the same category as being gay. I'm fine with teachers talking about gay relationships--who cares if Heather has two mommies? Who cares if one of their teachers brings his husband to the weekend softball game? Not me! I could not care less if my children discover that they are gay or if they discover they are straight and have some gay sex adventures or discover that being bisexual means twice the opportunity for partners!
What I do care about is the very casual treatment of transgenderism in schools. In the school district we fled from, our children were taught, starting in kindergarten, that if they were uncomfortable in their "sex assigned at birth" they might be trans. What does it mean to be "uncomfortable"? In the books they were read, including "I Am Jazz," uncomfortable means liking sparkles and unicorns if you're a boy-assigned-at-birth. It means feeling uncomfortable with your body. And the staff is standing by ready to help your child begin a social transition and to keep it hidden from you. Ready to set your child on a path to a lifetime of medicalization because you defy gender stereotypes!
It's infuriating for people like Julian Sanchez to assume I am anti-gay rights because I don't want our school putting the idea in my 10-year-old daughter's head that she can skip out on the painful rite of passage that is puberty because it's uncomfortable.
I think we’d go a very long way if in the first several years of school the emphasis less on developing one’s personal identity, and more on developing empathy for others.
Anti-bullying regulations that are actually enforced would solve a lot of issues minority, gay, trans kids, or any others might have. And if empathy were taught as a virtue, perhaps they be unneeded.
A couple of typos/phrasing issues you may want to adjust:
"(Pictures that are circulated of the book are routinely circulated are typically dismissed as conservative fabrications, but you just have to look at the book to know that isn't true.) "
"If a kid I gay, they're gonna figure that out."
This is the tension at the heart of higher education: the legacy heterodox movement that supports universities as places to engage in challenging material, even material that upsets, and learn the skills to synthesize and build arguments, vs. the progressive approach that has expanded the definition of harm so broadly, that anything remotely challenging to a worldview, to an ideology, is considered out of bounds. Of being morally wrong.
The latter of these positions is where catastrophism rules the day. If everything not aligned with the correct ideology is harmful, if words are violence, you can justify censorship and restrictions on personal behavior without the slightest pause. After all, who can possibly argue against "But people will die!" and not risk being seen as a monster?
For the most passionate among them, there are no gray areas. Protecting the right people -- those with the right politics -- is an absolute good, and the determination of what those harms look like is applied with absolute certainty.
Underlying these judgments and reactions is the fundamental idea that being upset is....wrong. "It's not my job to educate you" is the response that comes from thinking that having to explain or make an argument is a significant imposition on one's freedom. Where truly harmless social interactions can be couched as "microaggressions" because how someone receives an event -- "living my truth" -- is seen as dispositive of a breach of the social contract and can be litigated in public to the reputational destruction of the offender.
Powering these dynamics are the rewards that accrue to those asserting their right to never experience anything resembling adversity. Elite status gained through victimhood. Institutions so terrified of being canceled, that they label the most censorious among us as "stunning and brave."
That poem should come with a trigger warning. I'm not a big poetry reader but I'm sitting here now both trying to find more Linda Pastan to read and also not sure how I'm going to move on with my day. I have the get the kids to school, man! Warn me next time!