I would love the girl scouts (the seniors not the brownies of course) to learn about sexual health! I think information will allow our daughters to make informed decisions about their sex lives. Because when we talk about it and they know all about it, don’t you think they’ll be less likely to be pressured into something they didn’t really want?

To begin, there is a difference between sex and gender as well as a difference between a “lesbian” student and a “transgender” student. You don’t find gender in between your legs, only genitals that define your sex [male or female being most common.] But there are also many other people who are born with a mixture of sex characteristics. Gender is the way you express that sex. You and I may do it by wearing a pretty dress or makeup which is the norm in our society. Our vagina + our inclination to express ourselves in a “feminine” manner = woman according to society. However not everyone feels comfortable in the skin the were born into and there is more and more medical evidence that biological processes are responsible for a mix up in hormones or even an extra y or x chromosome. Someone who has a vagina but does not identify with it because their head tells them it does not fit may not feel comfortable using the bathroom with other women. No one makes you feel uncomfortable in a public restroom and everyone should have the right to feel safe. Gender neutral bathrooms are single stalled nearly everywhere and no one is forced to use it. Why is it such a bad thing to make everyone feel comfortable? Or is the majority opinion the only one that matters?

Secondly, disproportionately, heterosexism is promoted and normalized in our society. Much like being white or non-disabled, or middle-class. These are the groups we see most often on television and though gay people have been represented more in the media, the majority of kids will grow up believing that girls marry boys and boys marry girls. In your opinion, heteronormativity is a good thing. But what is inherently good about it? Everything “positive” that results from it is subjective; ie: procreation. Your belief that the bible says heterosexuality is inherently good is only your opinion and that does not mean it is the only one that should be expressed. There are gay families as well as racial minority families, homeless families, and families with disabled parents. All of these families are underrepresented in the media in comparison to the norm. Representing them occasionally will at the most validate someone who has same sex parents rather than making the feel invisible or make people less likely to discriminate. Your belief that people should not act upon their feelings does not eliminate the existence of married couples who do nothing more than share a love between themselves. Everyone deserves equal treatment and representation. Last time I checked, the bible doesn’t determine who gets what.

Oh and finally, before you speak about homosexuality as a “curable” disorder, why don’t you look at the treatment that was associated with the condition previous to 1970- Treatments such as forced sex with prostitutes while under forced ifluence of drugs and alcohol,forced electric shock therapy (manty times attatched to genitals) often causing convulsions and intense pain, forced genital mutilation such as Castrations, cliterodectomies, lobotomies and genital cauterizations. Note a lobotomy is when someone inserts an icepick like structure through your eye socket to destroy nerve connections that either alter your personality which could make you unable to function in society, turn you into a vegetable, or kill you. Treatments like this were being performed on gay patients in mental institutions where they are forced to go! When you define something as a mental illness, anyone that we decide has it can be forcibly held and treated in a mental institution! Could we not define abstinence as a mental disorder if we really wanted? I’m sure I could come up with some intelligent reasoning that says you are messed up because you are not responding to your normal instinct to procreate. I know that is an exaggeration but imagine receiving treatment such as this or being labeled as mentally defective simply because of who you love.

I hope I have given you something to think about. We are all people. We do not demand your acceptance, you have the right to your opinion and you can teach your kids or preach to the public whatever you please, but so does everyone else. Heteronormativity causes more harm than an episode of GLEE ever could. Get your facts straight.

Also, Andrew, you state it like getting health care is incredibly easy when I do hope you’ve been awake for the entire economic crisis and plummeting job market.