Blog Post 5

When I attended both middle school and elementary school there was never much talk on homophobia and heterosexism. When I went to Mentor High, it became apparent to me how these issues occurred in school. Since Mentor was a huge, public school there were many lesbian and gay students who were open about their sexuality. Walking through the halls, I would see girls kiss girls, and boys kiss boys. I knew there was a gay alliance club, but it was never promoted much. When I transferred schools my junior year, I transferred to a small, private school. When I transferred to Gilmour I received and email about a boy changing his gender and that Gilmour expected everyone to be accepting towards "her." Gilmour was very open to the idea of this sex change and was very responsible with handling the situation. There was no complaints or problems when she started to use the girls bathrooms and locker rooms which was very surprising to me. At Gilmour their gay and lesbian club spoke openly about what they stood for and would speak in front of the whole school during morning announcements. Gilmour had a very liberal approach and was very open to sexuality, and Mentor was too, but not as much. When taking liberal approaches this is very important to children because we need to teach children when they are young to be open to different perspectives on life or other people's lives, in order to reduce judgment. If we try to radically change a child's thinking, we force them into seeing one side of a perspective too much, without letting them have some of their own thoughts or views. I am very hopeful that wherever I teach in the future, that the school will be open to LGBT Alliance, so that all students feel welcomed and safe in school.