This month and next I'm looking at gender and learning. In part 1 below we'll think about the difference between gender and sexuality. In part 2 the focus will be on topics such as LGBT+ identity in the classroom, gender neutral teaching and same sex schools.
Standard 8mm cine film; the vinyl of the home movie world. I'm lucky enough to have footage of me as a toddler and a projector for screening it. I've started digitising the old film and last week found shots of me at the beach in 1968. I'm wearing pink dungarees (clip here). At first I didn't notice or care but slowly I realised what this might mean. It meant that my mother (gods rest her soul) didn't notice or care either. This was the year after The Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised homosexuality (for men over 21 and in private) and 3 years before the Nullity of Marriage Act banned same-sex marriage in England and Wales. A time when boys wore blue and girls wore pink. Well, most of them.
Gender: an aspect of personal identity comprising attributes, behaviours, roles and biology along the spectrum between (but often focussed only on) masculine and feminine.
Sexuality: the capacity for the physical act of sex; a label to explain the gender or sex of the person you are attracted to.
Sex: one of the binary categories (male or female) into which people are divided and labelled on the basis of the appearance of their primary and secondary reproductive characteristics, usually at birth.
Your gender might be male, female, non-binary, gender-fluid, or something else. It's about who you are. Your sexuality might be lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual or something different. It is about who you are attracted to sexually or romantically.
Breaking the Code
14 years before I stared wearing pink at the beach, Alan Turing died from cyanide poisoning. There's a forced link if ever I wrote one. His and others' code-breaking work at Bletchley Park shortened the second world war by 2-4 years and likely saved millions of lives. Convicted for indecency in 1952 he was given the options of imprisonment or probation. He chose the latter which included a course of hormone injections intended to 'cure' him.
Turing lost his security clearance and was barred from entering the US. Talk about an own goal. Some of Turing's research papers were not publicly released until 2012 - such was their use and significance that the UK government could not reveal what they contained until 60 years after they were written. He was that far ahead in his thinking. What if he'd been able to continue his thinking, writing, researching, discovering?
In 2013 he was officially pardoned for his conviction; a process stared 4 years earlier.
Turing was a gay genius living a heteronormative world. Part of his identity (his gender) was unacceptable in the time and place where he lived. His expression of this (his sexuality) got him convicted and may have contributed to his early death.
What's in a Name?
What if your name had 3 syllables but you lived in a world where other people had names with 2? 2-syllable names are normal in this world; they're expected and safe. If you have more or less syllables in yours, you risk exclusion, bullying and intimidation. You'll be the wrong kind of different.
So you decide to shorten your name to fit in. You push your real name deep down inside, you hide it away. When asked, you tell people the short 2-syllable version. They seem happy with that, with you. You're generally accepted, the quiet member of the group.
But whenever you do tell people your short name, it doesn't feel quite right. You don't say it with conviction, with confidence, you can't, it's not all you. So you look down, almost apologising. This name is only two-thirds of who you really are and gradually you become only two-thirds of the person you could be. You're always on your guard in case you let your real name slip out. You're on edge, you use the energy meant for living and learning on self-preservation.
One day you say your real name - the 3-syllable one - by mistake. Everyone in earshot goes quiet. They all look at you. They are frightened, disgusted, angry, upset by you, by your long name. No-one should have a name like that, it's just not normal. Some walk away, others swear at you ('fat-name'; 'greed-name'; over-name'). Eventually you stand there on your own. Everyone has gone. How can you continue to live in this 2-syllable world?
You freeze, unable to act, unable to work this through; your real name, the person you are is not the right fit for this world. You don't have the strength to shout it out or the strength to hold it in. It's damaging you inside, this tension, this conflict, this brutal battle that you fight on both sides...
...but what if your name had 3 syllables and you lived in a world where other people had names with any number of syllables? Or no syllables? What if they were known by a symbol or a gesture or a sound? What if a diversity of names was normal in this world; expected and safe. What if your name, who your really were, just wasn't an issue. What if, like everybody else, you were just another beautiful kind of different?
Gender and Learning
How does an individual's gender identity or sexuality support or inhibit their health, well-being and their ability to teach or learn effectively? We'll look at this in Part 2 next month. For now, here are my top 3 equality questions to get you thinking. Please do send me your thoughts:
1. How do I value myself, regardless of who I am?
2. How do I add value to those around me, regardless of who they are?
3. How do I, little by little, step by step help the world move forward, regardless of obstacles?