If a transgender teacher is placed in my kid’s class, I have no recourse,” Appell said. “If I would like to remove my child from that class and put her in a class with a different teacher, I cannot do that because it would be akin to asking to have her moved from a teacher because they are African American or Hispanic. That’s scary. . . . It’s tough enough for a kid to process subtraction at six years old much less ‘Oh my teacher used to be a man and now she’s a woman.’ ”
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Believe me, not only will your kid have no trouble understanding trans people, they'll likely have a much easier time understanding them than you do. Unless you intentionally prejudice your children against the notion, which is what we call "indoctrination into bigotry."
There's no reason why a six-year-old would need to know that the teacher was trans-gender. When I was in school, we knew nothing about the personal lives of our teachers, although the "Miss" and "Mrs." distinction gave us a clue about one aspect of it.
The child doesn't have to process that. In fact, I'm pretty sure the child cannot, and doesn't have to, process "I inserted my penis into someone else's vagina and 9 months later a child was born" either.
No. It's tough for you to process it. As children have repeatedly shown, they really don't have much difficulty adapting to new situations and information. In fact they're kind of famous for it. Don't you dare try to play your own hang-ups and bigotry off as your child's. Not only are you the one being an asshole in this situation but you're also the adult, to boot. Fucking own up to it like one.
It'll be a lot easier for a six-year-old than it seems to be for you. I realize you've been kept down on the farm for too many years, Keith, but there IS a world out there, in which not everyone is just like you.
Kids aren't born bigots, plain and simple. when I was growing up I had absolutely zero problems with black kids and Asian kids because i had seen them on TV and at school. If I had been born in 1950's america it probably would be a different matter, because people would teach me to hate.
kids do not have a hard time processing one sentence worth of information.
your child's teacher's private life is also precisely nobody's business.
I have a six-year-old niece, and one of her mothers' friends is trans. She has absolutely no problem grasping the concept, in general anyway (to her, it's 'Mommy's friend Keith was really a girl inside, so the doctors did some complicated stuff and made Keith's body into a girl's, so now Keith is Joyce'). Subtraction, though, is still a little bit mystifying to her.
"If I would like to remove my child from that class and put her in a class with a different teacher, I cannot do that because it would be akin to asking to have her moved from a teacher because they are African American or Hispanic."
That's because that is basically what this is the modern equivalent to. A couple decades ago you would have been threatening to pull your kid from a classroom because the school dared to let an African-American or Hispanic person teach it, and rather than accept people for who they are, like your religion (if you're a fundie) and basic fucking human decency asks of you, you lash out at them simply for being different.
And, of course, the "think of the children" bit to try and pretend the bigoted assholes are the "good guys" here. As has been stated, your kid's not going to have trouble accepting the "oh my male teacher's a female now" bit. Not unless you indoctrinate him to be a bigoted asshole like yourself (this is not an invitation to indoctrinate your kid).
If I would like to remove my child from that class and put her in a class with a different teacher, I cannot do that because it would be akin to asking to have her moved from a teacher because they are African American or Hispanic.
Exactly. Because those (your) prejudices are exactly the same.
Actually it's not that hard to understand. Brain Map doesn't match body, person takes steps to make body match brain map.
Hell the kids probably wouldn't care, kids aren't born with prejudice like yourself Kieth.
Well, Keith, at least you got the pronouns right? Also, school is where you learn things that are difficult to process, it's sort of the point.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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