One of the most fraught areas of the culture wars is the debate about how children and teens should be taught, what materials are appropriate and how history should be presented. Parents and politicians have accused educators of manipulating our youth and fear that they are being indoctrinated with sexually deviant ideas and other ‘woke’ ideology.
In the realm of sexuality and gender, there is great concern that introducing gay and transgender topics at an early age may influence vulnerable children to explore or embrace these behaviors when they would otherwise not have been inclined to do so.
The rationale for carefully exposing children to these concepts and topics is twofold: (1) to reassure children or teens who are gay or ‘gender fluid’, or who may be starting to question their sexuality or gender, that their questions, inclinations or feelings are legitimate and not something to be ashamed of. And (2) to make all children aware of the range of sexuality and gender so that they will not be inclined to bully or ostracize the children or teens who are beginning to show signs of non-heteronormative behavior.
The big question is whether introducing these topics at an early age, with all good intentions, can actually change or influence one’s natural inclinations. The argument is that children and teens are very impressionable and often insecure. They are just beginning to establish their social and sexual identities and relationships. Will they be motivated by these educational materials to experiment in ways that cause long term aberrations in their sexuality or concepts of gender? Will they take steps that will be difficult or impossible to correct or change in the long term?
Recent Gallup polls on LGBTQ+ identification show a rising percentage of people who identify as other than purely heterosexual – from 3.5% in 2012 to 7.2% in 2022. More striking is the difference between generations, with 19.7% of Gen Z and 11.2% of Gen X (Millennials) identifying as LGBTQ+ and only 3.2% in the older generations. Whether the fairly dramatic increases across the generations are indications of more honest self-appraisals or of the effect of social awareness and peer, social media, or educational influence is of course very difficult to determine.
If partisanship were less vicious, one could hope for a thoughtful dialog about what the best educational strategy would be for these topics. It is naïve to think that children aren’t already confronting these issues in many other domains – social media, friends’ circles, movies and series, etc. Wouldn’t it be wise to give a more measured and fact-based presentation in schools to provide perspective?
A similar battle is being fought over history. Specifically, how to portray the history of the United States in confronting the less savory aspects of our history such as slavery, racism, treatment of Native people, imperialism, workers’ movements, immigration and other non-exceptional parts of the story. Finding a balance that does not whitewash our nation’s history but also provides insight into the very admirable people and events that populate it is critical for creating citizens who will guide our nation into the future.
It is sad that we have such fierce cultural clashes on education. I am confident that children and teens are capable of making sensible decisions and drawing appropriate conclusions from a full exposure to the complexity of human sexuality and world history. It is far better for them to learn critical thinking through debate and discussion about wide-ranging subjects in the relative accuracy and neutrality of the classroom and the home than to have their only resource be the wild west of social media.
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