Amid a national surge in legislation restricting curricula concerning race, gender and sexuality, Carroll County, Maryland, has designed an alternative health curriculum that purposefully excludes references to gender identity and sexual orientation.
State curriculum laws include drug addiction prevention, sexual abuse awareness and CPR. Alternatively, state curriculum regulations, while not legally binding, recommend education on mental health, substance abuse, family life and human sexuality, safety and violence prevention, healthy eating and disease prevention/control. Essentially, the regulations serve as a framework for counties when designing their curricula, but allow them discretion over age-appropriacy decisions.
However, Carroll County has gone as far to create an optional curriculum that eliminates recognition of “different family types” for pre-K students; differentiation between sex, gender identity and gender expression for middle schoolers; and changes to the high school health curriculum. In a Washington Post article published last month, State Sen. Clarence K. Lam outlines his response: a bill to legally mandate the teaching of these topics in Maryland classrooms. The legislation would codify the existing regulatory framework, therefore mainly affecting counties who currently take liberties with state regulations. Sen. Lam’s bill is simply applying a standard to everyone that already exists for non-LGBTQ+ people; in doing so, this legislation will help create safer, more inclusive and empathetic school communities, protecting the lives of LGBTQ+ students and improving the lives of their peers.
The mere question of including LGBTQ+ subjects in education raises an obviously hypocritical double standard. If different family types, or gender identity and expression are taboo topics in classrooms, how can the “nuclear family” archetype, or cisgender identities, be appropriate? If preschoolers are taught that a family is a man and woman with children, why is a family with two moms inappropriate? If middle schoolers already understand the concept of sex and gender when someone is cisgender and presents as their gender assigned at birth (i.e. a male who identifies as a boy and presents masculine), why is the line drawn at learning about transgender people, or people who dress differently than is “traditional” for their gender? By suggesting that the LGBTQ+ side of these concepts is somehow not normal, or inappropriate for children, it is clear that the issue was never the concept, but rather bigotry against LGBTQ+ Americans, and a desire to erase their identities and history. The Maryland state framework that Sen. Lam’s bill would codify does nothing beyond include LGBTQ+ people in already-taught subjects, requiring an equal standard to be applied to all, regardless of identity.
This bill would improve and protect the lives of LGBTQ+ students by creating a more welcoming and secure school environment.The American Bar Association (ABA) found that students in California who “learned about LGBTQ issues at school reported less teasing and bullying of LGBTQ students.” Additionally, the ABA found that LGBTQ+ students experience “less victimization based on their sexual orientation in schools that teach an LGBTQ-inclusive academic curriculum.” Looking across the pond, we can observe the flip-side: the negative impacts of exclusive education. Stonewall UK is a queer organization founded in response to Section 28—a homophobic law in the UK banning mention of LGBTQ+ issues or identities in schools until 2003. According to them, Section 28 created an environment where “LGBTQ+ identities were… seen as something to be ashamed of,” and led to an abundance of “ignorance, misinformation and bullying” in schools. Maryland must pass Sen. Lam’s bill to avoid the same mistake. Exclusive curricula foster disconnectedness, desolation, and even suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ students. By mandating education on LGBTQ+ issues. schools make their queer and trans students feel safer.
Inclusive curricula are crucial to maintaining the health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ students. Opponents of Lam’s bill are supporting a bigoted double standard that increases chances of bullying, violence and endangers the happiness of queer and trans kids. The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that, where inclusive content was restricted, teachers “were discouraged from providing other support for LGBTQ students.” This estranges them from their peers and creates loneliness and despair; by allowing places like Carroll County to opt out of inclusive education, we enable the systemic erasure and isolation of LGBTQ+ youth, perpetuating the omission of LGBTQ+ people and their lives from the minds and hearts of our students.
An equal curriculum creates a safer, more positive school environment that helps everybody, regardless of identity. Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, a journalist for Learning for Justice, writes that “students with access to inclusive curriculum and supportive teachers enjoy a more positive school climate.” The ABA further clarifies that “students perceived the school environment as being safer when provided with LGBTQ-inclusive information in both academic subjects and health education.” This greatly impacts the happiness and the health of students, as the Trevor Project found that “positive school environment made a larger impact on students’ lives than similarly positive environments at home, work, or elsewhere in the community.”
By creating such a school community, we help all students feel safer and happier, allowing them to better thrive than in an environment they see as restrictive or taboo. Additionally, Willingham-Jaggers continues that when non-LGBTQ+ students are taught “about the diverse world around them” it helps “prepare all young people to navigate and contribute to a multicultural society.” By teaching everyone about LGBTQ+ perspectives, we provide students with a space to adapt to an ever-changing and inclusive society, creating more educated and empathetic youth. This is precisely what Sen. Lam’s bill intends to effect.
Despite its wild characterizations, Sen. Lam’s bill does not “teach kindergarteners about sex,” nor does it violate parental rights, or endorse discrimination towards non-LGBTQ+ individuals. Simply, it requires curricula to apply an even standard to all, regardless of identity. By equalizing treatment of LGBTQ+ topics in school, it creates safer and more vibrant school communities, protecting LGBTQ+ youth from isolation, exclusion and victimization, as well as giving non-LGBTQ+ students the tools to approach different ideas and identities with empathy. Inclusive education directly leads to healthier communities and societies. Those who contest Sen. Lam’s bill under the guise of age-appropriacy do so to hide the discriminatory opinions that inform their false and bigoted pretense. Put plainly, Sen. Lam’s bill does more to advance the protection of American children than exclusionary education ever has. Our youth deserve to feel supported, informed, safe and happy in their lives and schools; this legislation is a necessary step towards that.
Written by Avni Koenig of Thomas S. Wootton High School