Recently I have been researching and trying to gain new
ideas and concepts in the areas of early childhood with their gender, gender
identity, and sexual orientation. These concepts are often overlooked but are
very important in child development.
There are ways in our society that homophobia and
heterosexism permeates the world of young children. This could involve books,
movies, stores, culture, and schools. I think toys are a very big part of not
supporting homosexuality. Toys are either marketed for girls or boys. There are
very few toys that are gender neutral. If the opposite sex children play with
the “wrong” toys they are looked at in a different way. They are being
discriminated against just from playing with another toy. I think this is
wrong. Boys should be able to play with dolls and Barbie’s and girls should be
able to play with Lego’s and cars. In my classroom I make sure that I have
mostly gender neutral toys, but I do have few gender related toys. I think it
is great when boys and girls play with the opposite gender toys to expose
themselves to those experiences. I have boys play “Pretty, Pretty, Princess”
and I do not say anything against it. Children need opportunities to experience
different genders and have as many experiences as they can to develop their own
personality.
Within this topic also come the thoughts if books depicting
gay or lesbian individuals should be used in early childhood centers. I first
researched libraries in my community. At the public library there are books
like this but an adult library card needs to be used to take the books out. In
the district where I teach there are no gay or lesbian oriented books or same
sex family oriented books at the elementary level. I can understand these
precautions but I do think that these books need to be exposed to early
childhood. This is a step in the right way direction to stopping discrimination
by having our younger generation fin acceptance.
Early childhood gender, gender identity, and sexual
orientation is a part of child development and needs to be explored and thought
about when dealing with young children.
Maglaty, J. (2011). When did girls start wearing pink. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html
Spiegel, A. (2008). Two families grapple with
sons' gender identity: Psychologists take radically different approaches in
therapy. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2008/05/07/90247842/two-families-grapple-with-sons-gender-preferences (22 minutes)
