Youth in turmoil – Moore

Parent advocate Paula-Anne Moore is concerned that there are children in the school system who feel differently about their sexual orientation and gender and are in turmoil as a result.

Contributing to Tuesday’s first edition in the Man Talk series for 2023 themed Gender Neutrality in Schools – Mountain or Molehill?, the coordinator of the Group of Concerned Citizens said that dismissing  how some children are feeling about their sexuality is not the way to go.

“Burying our heads in the sand and saying that they do not exist and not having a means by which those children feel that they can talk without being humiliated and ex-communicated from their community, their homes, we are doing our children a disservice if we ignore that reality,” Moore said.

She added that there are some adults who seem to think that a child who has a “non-traditional sexual orientation or feeling about his/her gender is something that is thrust upon them, [and] that they were turned that way”.

However, Moore said based on literature she has read and what she has gathered from other views, it appears as though the vast majority of children with non-traditional sexual orientation, experience feelings that come naturally to them and follow them into adulthood.

“That, they have felt almost from the time that they could remember; they weren’t turned that way. And the same way that you can have children who are LGBTQ that come up with heterosexual parents, that doesn’t turn them heterosexual, that is innate to who they are, and vice versa,” she said.

The parent advocate does not agree that questioning children about their sexuality would confuse them. Moore argued that if a child is certain of their gender identity, questioning them about it is not going to make them change their view on the situation.

“A child that is questioning themself already, it’s not going to make them question themselves anymore. What I am trying to say is, it’s already there. They are predisposed to that gender identity or that sexual orientation, or at least, many children already are, or that’s my understanding,” she said.

Moore added that as it relates to gender and education, what is happening to our boys in education is a concern that should also be considered.

She said statistics show that females are outnumbering males at tertiary institutions and also on the job market.

“Our education system is failing our boys. And we can argue that becoming gender neutral in that, girls are no longer discriminated against, girls now have as much opportunities as boys in terms of education. It seems as though boys, if they don’t have an additional benefit that girls don’t have, they are not thriving. 

“We need to look at the fact that the vast majority of teachers are females so boys aren’t seeing male role models in the schools. There are so many other factors that the experts in education here would know better than me. If we are talking about gender and education, to me frankly, that is the bigger picture, that we should also be addressing,” Moore said.

During the session which took place via Zoom, the question was also raised regarding the Ministry of Education Technology and Vocational Training (MEVT) using the term “gender neutrality” as one of the core values in the National Grooming Policy.

President of the Barbados National Council of Parent Teacher Associations (BNCPTA) Shone Gibbs who also sat on the panel said he does not believe that the nation’s children should be deprived of information surrounding topics such as “gender neutrality”.

Gibbs said that at the end of the day, any policy implemented must abide with the laws of the land and should fit in with the cultural norms of the country.

“Do not deprive our children from being informed. We can’t keep them blind, we can’t keep them ignorant. These are things that are happening all over the world and they have to know about them,” Gibbs said. (AH)