My thoughts on gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation

The purpose of this blog is to share my response or thoughts on the issue of gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation. This topic is one of our nation's most talked about issues. However, as the adults go through the drama of arguing their opinions regarding gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation the early childhood world is fighting their own battle too and that battle is making sure that young children everywhere grow to be compassionate, empathetic, respectful and loving adults. They do this by beginning now to teach them to embrace culture and diversity and yes, this does include being open-minded about gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Below you will find my responses to my selected questions.

*Your response to those who believe that early childhood centers should avoid the inclusion of books depicting gay or lesbian individuals such as same-sex partnered families.

My response to this question is this, early childhood education prides itself on inclusion. This means doing our very best to be inclusive of all individuals regardless of color, religion, sexual orientation, and etc. As we accept children into our early childhood programs we are not just accepting the child by themselves, but we are also accepting the mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and close family friends as well. This means that children cannot control the families into which they where born, all we can do as early childhood professionals is to help them learn to love and embrace and understand the beauty of his or her family. So yes, this does mean that if a child has parents of the same sex, we must do everything in our power to make this family feel welcome. As we work to make all of our families feel welcome in to our program we will have books and photos of same sex families, because we want to do our best to make sure all of our families are represented in the books and photos in the environment.


If you have ever used or heard homophobic terms such as "fag," "gay," "homo," "sissy," "tom boy," or "lesbo" as an insult by a child toward another child? Or, by an adult toward a child? Describe what occurred. How might these types of comments influence all children? (Note: if you have not had a personal experience, ask a family member, friend, or colleague).

Being in early childhood for quite a bit of time, I often find myself in amazement over some of the things that I hear the young children say, especially preschool aged children. I can recall an event that occurred one day during worktime and as the children played in the dramatic play area. On this particular day, there were three boys and two girls playing restaurant. Each of them were working very busily cooking and preparing food, setting the table, and placing plates and cups on the table. When they where done with that task, one of the little girls told everyone that it was time to go and get dressed for dinner. During this time the children dug through the box looking for clothes to dress up in. When everyone had selected their clothing they walked back to the dining area to have dinner, that's when on of the girls pointed to the little girl that was wearing the suit coat and told her that she was gay. She told her that she was gay, because she was wearing the boy clothes. The little girl with the suit coat began to cry. I feel that comments such as these can influence children in that it will cause them to discriminate in their play. This discrimination in play can occur as children select what books to read, what dolls to play with, and with who they may even play with. When things like this occur in early childhood it opens the door for other problems such as in behavior and the overall morale of the class. When children believe others do not like them they may begin to act out or withdraw. Teaching anti-bias education in preschool is key to helping children learn to be accepting of all people.