An 8-year-old boy was recently the center of a controversy. At a Fairfax County School Board meeting in the United
States, people of the board spoke against a change in the school’s policy to include “gender identity” in their anti-discrimination policy.
Tyler, 8, is a transgender boy that uses the boys’ bathroom at school.
Tyler does not just represent himself in this, he is also the face of many other children who face this type of discrimination just based on how they identify with their gender.
“The rights of intersex people have been largely overlooked by policy makers and legislators across the EU over the years,” says FRA interim Director Constantinos Manolopoulos.
The LGBTQ+ spectrum is one that expands world wide, and many different people from the LGBTQ+ community are a part of a diverse amount of cultures, countries and backgrounds. Even though we are seeing the rights of children being questioned in the United States, we can see children and people of similar backgrounds facing the same issues.
“Spain was rated the most gay-friendly country in the world in 2013 and least homophobic country last year, according to Pew Research Center. It was also an early supporter of gay rights legislation such as same-sex marriage and adoption, both of which have been legal in the country for a decade,” according to The Local.
When you’re reading the news and it involves LGBTQ+ topics, something that causes a lot of confusion is not knowing the difference between definitions.
We can see this in the case of Tyler from Fairfax. In one instance, Casey Mattox, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending
Freedom, testified at the School Board meeting Thursday.
Mattox said that with the inclusion of “gender identity” in the school policy, his control over his daughter’s education on sex would be eliminated.
But that’s the point that is trying to get made. If Mattox were to understand the difference between sexual identity and gender identity then he would see that the anti-discrimination law to include gender identity is not a way to control his daughter’s sex education.
When people don’t understand the terms they are using then they create tension and confusion.
In the video below, Christina Vessa and Lia Conger interview six of their campus community members on what they think the definitions of sexual identity, queer, gender queer, transgender, cisgender and transitioning are.
It’s not a surprise that some people are far off from the actual definition or don’t know what it means altogether.
