We're Here, We're Queer, Get Used to It!

I used to love that chant at Pride marches when I was a young, rebellious lesbian. Sauntering down the street, taking over for the day, you shouted at the top of your lungs, celebrating how queer you were.

It filled you up for the year. You were safe. Out. Everyone around you was chanting, too.

In Milton, Massachusetts, it seems that there are some people who are going to have to learn not only are we here, but we're legally married and have kids in the school. We're in the car pool line. Our kids are going to go to school and talk about what they did on summer vacation.

With their moms. Or dads.

Get used to it.

In fact, a daughter of a lesbian mom didn't think twice about talking about her family. Why would she? Unfortunately, a group of her peers decided it was something to pick on her about. It was reported "what began as verbal harassment last January became more serious over the year, and culminated in what her attorney, Claudia Gregoire, in a letter to school officials, called a "group assault" on Sept. 10. Gaffey said six or seven students surrounded her daughter on the playground that day and were "pushing her back and forth," and two hit her. It ended when another child intervened."

Obviously these kids were not informed about the fact that being gay or lesbian in Massachusetts is legal. We enjoy the same rights as every one else.

Only state in the country, sure, but we do.

I read the article and asked my son Ben, who is now in middle school in Newton, MA, if he had ever been teased for having two moms.

Nope, he said. He went on to tell me at the camp he goes to that is for kids of LGBT parents, Camp OUT, they were asked in a circle if any of them had been teased at school for having queer parents. All the kids raised their hand, minus four. Two went to a private school with very active gay parents and two went to Newton schools where bullying programs have been in full force for many years.

It shows.

We need a structured way to address family diversity. It's time to recognize that kids come from many different homes. Parents come in many different variations. I'm just as married as the next couple down the street. My kids deserve to be recognized for who they are, without fear.

And without some idiot pulling them aside and suggesting they be "careful" about who they talk to, as Tucker Elementary school's counselor did. What kind of training does that counselor have? How could they ever see telling a kid to be quiet about their parents as a positive step?

I'm tired of people talking about LGBT parents in terms of sexuality. My god, you'd think saying "Lesbian parent" is the same as "hot wild fucking."

It's not. Explaining to kids, even preschoolers, that sometimes there are two mommies, sometimes a mom and a dad, sometimes two daddies, isn't showing them a porn movie. It is simply describing what they already know.

In fact, in preschool? They get it. They don't really care. They're more concerned with who has the favorite truck or when snack is being served. What's so scary is that they don't have any hate in them when they are so little. When you plant a seed of acceptance so young, it's hard to teach them bigotry later.

Which is why the right wing nuts get so upset about it. Gotta teach those kids to hate or else we'll lose a generation to moderate beliefs and have a dreaded open and affirming society.

My God, the Unitarian Universalists will take over!

Bottom line? Teachers can be trained and should be trained to teach understanding about different family structures. They need to address their own prejudices so they can create safe classrooms. You can hate LGBT people but please, lay off our kids. They are children. There's enough to be teased about- being tall, skinny, fat, having glasses, goofy shoes your mother bought, or always taking sushi to lunch. Let's not make it any harder for them because of who their parents are.

Schools all across Massachusetts are going to have to hear something and hear it loudly. We're here. We're queer.

Get used to it.

Comments

[mbaty]

My gay bosses adopted kids not long ago, and the kids don't even register that having two dads is rare or somehow unusual. Someday they will, but I don't think it will be that big of a problem--more kids are coming out earlier, and younger people don't have the levels of biases that the older generations were raised with, because, as you said, it's something you have to raise in a child, not something the child innately knows.
I would imagine that the previous commentor was raised with such biases and imagines that switching to a heterosexual partner makes you "free."

[kellygrrrl]

but but but ... the "values" -- how will they learn values?

[Stagmom]

Hi, Sara. People are often surprised at the conservative (that is a euphemism for bigotry) flavor in some of Massachusetts. I grew up there as you know. My girls' elementary school here in CT has a sign on the front doors that they do not permit racism, sexism or heteroism. I stopped short in my tracks. A public announcement that predjudice based on sexual orientation is not allowed? I smiled. Big. And this school was just voted the top elementary school in the state. Progress!

KIM
HuffPo Contributor

[Qbear]

Good column

I'm wondering WHY Huffington Post didn't have one thread concerning Schwatzinegger vetoing gay marriage TWICE.

I guess the only queer story lines here, are the jokes about Larry Craig, what have they had a dozen threads on ONE aging closet case.

[ventana]

Friend of mine. For decades a very active, very (VERY!) activist, jack-booted lesbian (sometimes quite literally)...finally met the right guy.

Shocked the heck out of all of us. Suddenly she walked away from the gal of her dreams, the mortgage, the adoption plans...

And she was STRAIGHT! ALIVE! AWAKE! FREE! her caps not mine.

But. Sadly. It wasn't that easy. We her accepting friends, who had always accepted her, but who were straight, and loved her for who she was, not how she was, proved the exception. She actually had to move away, and cut her ties to her previous life (and her previous reputation in her career), to get away from the abuse that came down on her from her former fellow(wrong word) lesbian activists.

Get used to it cuts both ways. Or would if I were king.

[SaraWhitman]

um... I'm not sure what this has to do with my post.

with that said, yes, the lesbian community can be very hard on bisexual women, which clearly your pal was. it's not fair, it's not right but it happens.

what I find the most striking is her own definition as "straight" and "free."

Free, I get. which is why the lesbian community is so harsh on bisexual women. go with a man, and you get all the rights given to you on a platter. go with a woman, and they are stripped away. but you're still the same person.

and please don't get me started about meeting the "right guy" because I will blow a gasket. your friend was bisexual, not straight. Read kinsey research. big ol' bell curve of sexuality, few purists, many shades of gray.