I remember the heavy feeling I had as a child knowing it wouldn’t be honest of me to be the things they expected of me. And the biggest issue with this dilemma at such an early age was my inability to articulate the way I was feeling. I knew being wrapped in blue swaddles and being gifted plastic trucks was only what my parents were told to do. I simply didn’t have the vocabulary to let my family into my identity. I knew the only person that would understand my desperate attempt at communicating, would be my mom. She always held a long pause when I was speaking. She clearly listened to everything I said before responding. Even if, at the time, my sentences were just filling in. Me and my mom sat on my brand new bed. My feet dangled off the edge as I looked down to my hands in my lap. Mom had sensed I had something on my mind and asked “Are you Ok baby”? I remember the fan installed in my window maintaining a soft hum over the silence.
“You know how Asher has a red heart?” I said, my eyes still locked on my hands. “I have a pink heart,” I explained.
My older brother Asher, was an example of the person I believed I was supposed to be. The fans’ hum became a roar in the silence. A pink heart was my toddler brain’s visualization of a queer soul. A feminine presence invisible from the outside.
It was clear to her what I was trying to say. Something as simple as that innocent observation was enough for her to drop everything and simply listen. I think my parents were particularly protective of me after this interaction. They were preparing themselves and myself for the real world. Because I felt comfortable enough to tell them so early on, I think the rest of my childhood went smoothly. They started to give me things that aligned with my interests. There is a real power words can give an individual entering any new phase of life. The ability to defend oneself. And the gift of reintroduction. The more confident I grew in my ability to articulate feelings, the more authentic I felt in my role as a child in my family.
Every so often I would receive a set of hot wheels cars or a transformer action figure from an extended family member and be reminded of how lucky I am to be surrounded by people who understand me. My parents did their best to remind me that those distant family members didn’t really know me and wanted to send their love in the way they knew how. I wasn’t too bothered because of the support system I had. This simply re-introduced the idea that the rest of the world wasn’t quite up to date.
I remember my first backpack in preparation for kindergarten was bright pink with lime green accents. My mom reminded me of the implication wearing the bag came with. “People may think your pink backpack is strange”. She warned. But it was the only bag that I could confidently get on the school bus with. So she didn’t hesitate to embroider my name onto the small back pocket, ensuring no one mistook my bag for anyone else’s. I was made fun of. But I knew it was only because my peers didn’t have parents like mine. If there were an expansion of simple words like “boy” that allowed more freedom around self expression, there would be less confusion around the difference between something like gender and sex for example. These simple changes in an educational environment halt the binary’s ability to define them for us. It’s the predetermined expectation of these words that destroy their potential as learning moments. Additionally, if themes of household diversity and identity were added to the curriculum, me and my peers would have the opportunity to be ignorant in a safe space like an elementary school. I remember conversations between myself and classmates as early as 1st grade, where they continuously ask whether I was a boy or girl while I hadn’t even asked that question to myself. Or know what to do from there if I came to a surprising conclusion.
My way of articulating identity continued to evolve into my teenage years as I began to make friends in the LBGT community. They gave me something nothing else in the world could. A real sense of belonging and normalcy through language. Like most friend groups we began to develop our own kind of language. It is made up of both LBGT slang and pop culture references. But really it’s just for me and my friends. Something we share that purposefully gatekeeps that sense of belonging. I enjoy the thought of alienating someone in a conversation simply because of the amount of conversations I’ve endured where I censor myself from saying something many wouldn’t understand or relate to.
That’s exactly why inclusive language in education is so important. Children should be encouraged to use words for whatever purpose feels the most comfortable. If every child was simply introduced to the existence of a queer vocabulary, not only would they be able to better identify it in themselves later in life, but they would be able to defend their peers against discrimination sooner. Ignorance comes from the inability to articulate and regulate one’s own emotions. The world obsession with “protecting kids”, is suffocating them. The introduction of the “Don’t say gay bill” has massively changed the way thousands of children will look back on their childhood. The lack of exposure to what exists in the real world will lead to more bigotry and self hatred. And the continued censorship of literature and history will only narrow the following generations’ understanding of our country’s past. Allowing the toxic cycle to continue. Children prove time and time again that they are capable of understanding diversity but because of our own ignorance, we deny them that information. Classrooms are full of the diversity that schools intentionally erase. It’s down to whether they decide to acknowledge their existence or not.
They will continue to exist regardless.
