Racial Identity Development

EDUC6357: Diversity, Development, and Learning “Start Seeing Diversity: Sexual Orientation”

Program Transcript

NARRATOR: Bias related to sexual orientation, also called homophobia, is any attitude, action, or institutional practice that subordinates people because of their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

Homophobia is often used to keep people from moving outside their assigned gender roles. For example, Carol's son, [? Shola ?], really wanted a doll. She said everywhere he went, he talked about it. But her mom and sister said that if he played with dolls, he'd grow up to be a sissy.

Carol brought the issue to staff. We responded by asking what kind of help Carol would have liked from her husband in caring for the kids and what kind of man she hoped [? Shola ?] would become. We suggested that playing with dolls was a way for boys to practice nurturing.

CAROL: After that, I felt a lot more comfortable, and I went and bought him a doll. I explained to my mother and sisters-- I said, he's training to be a father like he's watching me be a mother. The book William's Doll really helped me too. It's about a boy who loves things like basketball and electric trains but still wants his doll.

NARRATOR: In early childhood programs, the issue of sexual orientation often comes up when we're talking about families. Children growing up in a variety of families face bias. To validate the families in our program, we begin with our own photographs, drawings, and stories, and classroom visits from family members.

To ensure the inclusion of diversity, we combine the reflections of our own families with many others, using commercial materials like puzzles and pop-its. We also find photographs of diverse families to use in making games and for discussions.

We talk about the ways families are similar to and different from one another, and do number activities like counting the number of people in different families, looking at pictures of single parent families, racially mixed families, extended families, adoptive and blended families, two parent families, and others.

Photographs like this one of a family in which the parents are lesbians have sparked many difficult discussions among staff. One person said she had the right to her own beliefs, and using pictures and stories that include gay and lesbian families, or even acknowledging that some families have two dads or two

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moms, went against those beliefs. Then in one group, a teacher heard a child say, "You can't have two mommies."

FEMALE SPEAKERS: I could see one child was really upset, so I stepped in and said, there are lots of different kinds of families. In some families, there are two mommies.

NARRATOR: Although this was difficult for her, the teacher said she knew her role was to help all children develop a positive identity, regardless of her own beliefs. A couple of people said they didn't think this was an issue for their classroom, because none of the children came from families with gay or lesbian parents.

After discussion, though we decided that it is still important to acknowledge the existence of families with gay and lesbian parents, so that children are prepared to be respectful when they do meet people who are lesbian or gay.

This issue came up in a different way another day when two girls were talking and laughing while working closely together. Another child passing by said, ooh, they're gay. The teacher intervened saying, some people are gay. All of us, whether we are gay or not, want to have friends that we really like, and even hug or kiss them sometimes.

When we discussed this incident at a staff meeting, some of us felt that the teacher didn't need to acknowledge that some people are gay, because the children didn't know what gay meant anyway. There was controversy about this, so staff decided to ask at a group meeting if children knew what the word meant.

Several of the children said, gay is when two men or two women love each other. The teacher asked, but I love my mother and sisters. Does that mean I'm gay? Children said, no, gay is when two women or two men really love each other.

In followup discussions, staff agreed that even if children don't know what gay means, many of them are using it as a put down. We agreed that this hurts all of us, whether we are gay or not, by making us afraid to be affectionate with friends.

After some difficult negotiations, we decided that it was important to have in our classrooms pictures and stories that included families of two women or two men with children. We also decided to respond when children ask questions or use gay as a put down.

As well, we had a dinner meeting for families and staff together to introduce our curriculum approach regarding family diversity. We wanted to create an

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opportunity to discuss values, experiences, and bias, and to get feedback from families.

In this meeting, we broke into small groups and played games with photographs of diverse families. After the games, the small groups brainstormed lists of diverse kinds of families. We expected there to be some controversy. Instead, with some giggling, gay and lesbian families were included on the list.

Then we talked about our own childhood experiences. Some people said they had been teased for not having a father at home and had learned to lie to avoid the teasing. This discussion helped everyone to see the need to validate all the kinds of families children are coming from.

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