For Goodness Sex (13 page)

Our kids are constantly being taught powerful lessons about what it means to be a girl or a boy, starting at a very young age. Parents recognize that by the time children are in kindergarten, they can clearly articulate which toys, activities, and behaviors are for boys and which are for girls. Researchers Michael Morgan and Nancy Rothschild found in a 1983 study that the more TV a child watched, the more stereotypical his or her views of gender.
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We have to be aware of the messages our children are hearing and internalizing about gender, and we also have to be aware what messages
we’re
giving them about it.

Because gender is one of the single biggest identity markers in a person’s life, it’s important for kids to understand how gender identity is constructed. Some of our identity is assigned by nature and some is the result of nurture, and it’s crucial for kids to see this as they form ideas about both their own gender and other genders. For the majority of people who feel comfortable in their bodies and at peace with their own gender, teasing out these different elements can seem tedious, but I think it’s absolutely essential to developing healthy sexuality. So much about men and women—their desires, self-esteem, expectations, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior—is assumed by society, and often incorrectly. It’s no coincidence that the 1980s pop psychology book
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
hit home with so many people. It was one of the first books to deconstruct gender stereotypes for men and women, sometimes in ways that were quite on the money (women like to vent, men like to come up with solutions) and other times with assertions that were more controversial (that our differences are hardwired), and do so in a way that gave everyone permission to celebrate, challenge, discuss, or even roll their eyes and laugh at all of them.

I don’t mean to convey the idea that I believe there’s something wrong with your kids strongly identifying as a man or a woman, or that men and women are the same—they’re not, nor should they be. But I do think we make a lot of assumptions about gender in our society that are worthy of discussion. So in this chapter, I’d like to look at the role of gender and identity by using some common myths I help kids deconstruct in the classroom. These myths are a good starting point for conversations about the biology of gender as well as the sociology of gender, and kids often find these assumptions about the sexes to be eye-opening.

Examining Gender Myths:
Turning Stereotypes Upside Down

Boy Parts Are Entirely Different from Girl Parts

There may be no greater misunderstanding about gender than when it comes to our sexual and reproductive anatomy. We’re raised with the notion that men’s and women’s bodies are very different—it’s often suggested that a man can’t truly understand the workings of a woman’s body and vice versa. Popular magazines marketed toward both genders run splashy cover stories offering to demystify the other gender’s genitals for sexual pleasure, with detailed instructions for men on the intricacies of clitoral stimulation and for women on the best techniques for pleasuring a penis. Perhaps you’ve even come upon your child reading one of these magazines or searching for a website that deals with this information. You should know it’s also common for a teen boy to be curious about what
Seventeen
has to say, as well as for a teen girl to want to sneak a peek at her brother’s issue of
Maxim
. No matter what the magazines claim, though, the truth is, when it comes to genitals, men and women really aren’t that different. This is a lesson that always blows my students’ minds—and their parents’ minds when they go home and repeat it around the dinner table.

There’s no doubt that men and women’s genitals, our external sexual organs, look different. But that appearance masks an important biological commonality. At six weeks of development, all human embryos growing in their mother’s womb have the same ambiguous blob of tissue between their legs. Then, according to the genetic blueprint encoded in the child’s DNA and the hormones its body develops, that little blob will shape into a penis and scrotum or a vulva. In other words, the genitals of a boy and a girl develop from the same tissue but are shaped differently. The head of the penis and the clitoris, and the scrotum and the labia majora (the outer lips of the vulva), are constructed by nature using the same building blocks. All human embryos, no matter what their genetic code, are equipped with two “kits,” one to make male internal sexual and reproductive organs and one to make female ones. Which kit gets used is determined, again, by our genetic blueprint and hormones. The unused kit just degenerates.

I like to illustrate this lesson in class with a fun activity: I give each student a can of Play-Doh. After covering a few very important ground rules (no throwing Play-Doh, no eating Play-Doh, and no sticking Play-Doh into one another’s hair or clothes), I invite them to mold their Play-Doh into a penis and scrotum. This is an invitation, not a requirement; kids are always allowed to “pass” on any in-class activity that violates their values, although very few kids have ever chosen not to participate over the years. In fact, they giggle and cheer and raise all kinds of ruckus when they set to their task. That noise is important; it allows them to burn off nervous energy. To some readers this may seem totally off base, but it’s actually an important tactile lesson. I’m giving the students permission to touch things that look like genitals for an educational purpose. When they’ve completed their penis and scrotum sculpture, I’ll ask them to turn it into a vulva by just reshaping what they’ve done. They can’t crumble everything back into a blob and start over. They’ll study it carefully and then reshape the Play-Doh with their hands. It shows them that you really can reshape a scrotum into labia, just by spreading the clay up and outward. When you push the head of the penis back to make it a clitoris, the shaft of the penis opens up to create the inner labia. It’s fun to watch their faces, especially the girls, because some of them haven’t entirely known what their bodies really looked like before this exercise. The ultimate goal is to desensitize the topic and demystify the genitals to help kids understand how their bodies work—and this activity gives them a way to explore safely.

After we learn about our biological similarities, I encourage my students to stop referring to males and females as opposites. How can we be opposite if our bodies are made up of fundamentally the same tissue? In my class, we say “other” gender instead of “opposite” gender. This is also important, because
opposite
implies only two, while
other
does not. And we know that human gender, both biologically and sociologically, can be more than just male and female. It’s disrespectful and imprecise to use such limited language to explore a diverse reality.

After we’ve gotten more comfortable talking about body parts from the Play-Doh exercise, we go into a detailed lesson on the anatomy and physiology of the male and female systems. My focus is to help my students understand how their bodies function and feel, so they can be more confident and comfortable in their own skin. My bottom-line messages in this unit are always, “You have to be the expert on your own body. You have to know what ‘normal’ is for your body. You have to know how your body feels and functions, so you can explain it to a sweetheart, who can appreciate its magnificence as much as you do.” Think how much more confident and comfortable our kids would be about their bodies if that’s a message they consistently got from their parents and other trusted adults in their lives!

Male and Female: Is That All There Is?

With all the talking we do about men and women in class, we run the risk of assuming that men and women cover the entirety of the biological and sociological gender spectrum. Nothing could be further from the truth. Limiting our gender discussions to men and women may be easy shorthand, but it’s imprecise and disrespectful to those who identify their gender in other ways. Our very language limits our ability to appreciate the complexity of gender. English allows for only three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter—not a very broad range. As more and more people identify their gender in less rigid ways, we need to create space for gender that exists as a continuum rather than within the confines of two boxes.

Without going too deep into the weeds here, I want to acknowledge that human beings exist with genetic codes that are other than the standard XX and XY sex-chromosome pairs. Humans can be XXX, XYY, XXY, XXXY, or XO, and can even have some cells that are XX and others that are XY in the same body. Each of these combinations has a name and a list of characteristics that correspond to it, and some of these genetic combinations do have detrimental physical manifestations. But they are all viable examples of human genetics.

When it comes to bodies, people can be born with genitals and sexual and reproductive systems that look typically male, mostly male, ambiguous, mostly female, or typically female. Ambiguous bodies are a lot more common than most people think. While about one in every two thousand births is noticeably atypical, many more-subtle differences go unrecognized. We no longer use the term
hermaphrodite
to describe people who have bodies that don’t conform to the typical male or female model. Intersex is a much better term, more respectful and accurate. Intersex people are becoming more visible and vocal and are challenging the assumption that atypical genitals or sexual systems need to be “fixed” to make them more gender-typical, especially when they pose no biological risk to the individual.

In terms of
gender identity
, our internal, innate sense of our own gender, there is a huge range of ways people identify themselves. Man and woman are perfectly acceptable gender identities, but so are transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, gender diverse, two-spirit, boi, gurl, and many other valid and valuable identities. In my own school over the years, we’ve had young people own these identities, and not because they were confused or trying to rebel or seeking attention. When given permission to be their authentic selves, people do just that. There have been many news stories recently about very young children, sometimes as young as three or four, who identify their gender as something other than what their body presents. Thankfully, there are parents who respond to their children’s truth with acceptance, and allow them to dress and behave in the ways that feel most natural and normal for them. I am proud to work at a school and live in a community that is open to these discussions.

“Be a Man!” and “Act Like a Lady!”: Helping Your Child Face Socially Constructed Gender Roles.

As we transition from talking about gender as a biological quality to a sociological construct, I use a lesson that the kids love to hate. As they pile into class, I’ve written seven names on the board. This sparks one of their favorite questions.

“Are we doing an activity today?”

“You bet,” I say, and they erupt into cheers and chatter. “I’m going to read you a story. The first time I read it, I just want you to listen to it. The second time I read it, I’ll give you specific instructions for what to do with it.” Then I read the story just as it’s printed below. I point to the character names on the board as they appear in the story. Go ahead, give it a read yourself.

A Day at the Beach

Terry’s parents were going out of town for the weekend and Terry thought that would provide a great opportunity to have a little party for a few friends at the family’s beach house. Terry called Chris, Lee, and Sam and invited them to the party. Chris asked if there would be booze at the party. Terry’s parents did not drink and had no liquor in the house, but Terry said there would definitely be booze at the party. Terry went to the liquor store but being underage and having no ID, there was no way Terry could buy the booze. A stranger, Pat, agreed to buy the booze for Terry and charged a $20.00 “service fee.” Terry gladly paid the money and Pat provided the booze. Coach Martin was passing by the liquor store at the time and saw the entire transaction between Terry and Pat. It being summer, the coach ignored the whole situation.

Later that night, Terry, Lee, Chris, and Sam were having a good time. Chris had always thought Lee was hot and decided tonight would be a perfect opportunity to make a move. Chris never let Lee’s cup go empty. After an hour or so of drinking, Chris suggested they go upstairs. Sam noticed that Lee looked awfully drunk and that Chris was paying a lot of attention to Lee. Sam followed the pair upstairs and found Lee passed out on the bed. Chris seemed scared and didn’t know what to do. Sam told Terry, who made a call to Dr. Green to ask for advice. Dr. Green called 911 and Terry’s parents. Lee was taken to the hospital and was released a few hours later perfectly fine. Terry’s parents decided on a week’s grounding as a punishment for Terry, for having the party and buying booze.

The second time I read the story, I ask the students to assign gender to all the characters.

“Can we use the whole spectrum of gender identity or are we assuming a gender binary?” asks a young woman who’s always thinking a bit deeper than the rest of the class.

“Spectrum of what?” ask several other kids.

“You know,” the young woman continues. “Could some of the people in the story be transgender, or gender queer, or things like that?”

“She’s making things complicated again, Mr. V,” several students whine.

“Well, life is complicated,” I say. “And we know that people can identify their gender in all kinds of ways. We have members of our community who identify as transgender or gender diverse. But for this activity, let’s assume it takes place in a universe where your only options are male and female.”

The kids get to work. The noise level in the room waxes and wanes as they discuss and debate their choices. After about five minutes, we start discussing the results. I go through each character and by a simple show of hands ask students whether they thought that character was male or female. After we finish, the students want to know only one thing.