• I mean id probably be good if we waited until hs or college to teach gender identity.

    Children are bombarded by gender norms long before they stop using diapers… so you can’t really mean ‘gender identity’ here. Presumably you mean “nobody should learn about transgender identities until high school or maybe college”.

    I assume, much like the many people who realize they are gay or lesbian earlier in adolescence, that many transgendered individuals also realize or suspect their gender status early in adolescence as well. It’s rather cruel to hide away information like this at the time when it is especially relevant… just as it would be cruel to not teach about periods until many girls have already started them (another bright inspiration brought to us by social conservatives). Rather than being isolated in the dark, children should be supported as they grow into their own individuals.

    • I think your argument here is essentially, more sooner, more better. This on its face makes sense, as there are people (not you nor I) who are gay, lesbian, or trans from birth and those people ought to be taught how the world has essentially mistreated them.

      I don’t think though that that is support. I mean, if you scrape your knee, and someone gives you a lecture on how pavement is harder than flesh and that because of that you were injured then they are not supporting you.

      If a person is trans, what they need is no different from what any other person needs. They need to know they are loved. They need to know that they are accepted.

      Why is it automatically the default that gay, lesbian, and trans people are automatically “isolated in the dark” if they are not taught about social structures at the ripe age of 10 years old?

      Not only is it unlikely that a child would affect our society (so therefore why teach it), but it is even more unlikely that they are mature enough to understand the complexity of what our society is.

      We should be teaching kids how to love each other, they shouldn’t need a reason.