Queer as Kids: Or … Can We Please Teach Love?
A Prism & Pen writing prompt
You have to teach kids to hate
Nobody is born a racist. Nobody is born knowing they should make fun of transgender or gay people. “You have to be carefully taught,” as Richard Rogers observed in South Pacific.
This year, banning discussion of LGBTQ people in school is trending. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill would ban classroom discussion of trans and gay people in elementary schools, and a larger battle is raging on the local level. From relatively conservative Tully, NY to progressive Athens, Georgia, school administrators are teaching kids that queer people are too controversial to talk about. Kids are learning that being queer is shameful. Books by or about LGBTQ people are evaporating from school libraries in response to parents’ demands.
You have to be carefully taught … just like this →
Former teacher and GOP candidate Shelly Luther said the quiet part out loud last week in a viral speech. She wishes school children were free to laugh at trans kids. An administrator in Athens told a teacher some parents find the rainbow flag as offensive as a swastika, ordering student art saying “Gay is OK” be removed from a classroom wall. Administrators in Tully lied about a non-existent district policy when they refused to allow Tyler Johnson to mention being gay and overcoming bullying in a school publication.
Being LGBTQ is not shameful or inherently sexualized
I knew I was gay by the time I was 11. I am not unusual. By the time I was 11, I had been taught very carefully to hate myself because of how I fall in love. The “Don’t Say Gay” movement crystallizing in the U.S. today centers around the notion that being LGBTQ is controversial, shameful and sexualized, that parents have a right to teach their children about SEX on their own timetable. This ignores that all children know cis/straight people who have girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, or husbands — and that nobody thinks such knowledge equals kids being talked to about sex.
Queer as kids. Can we write about love?
If you’re part of the Prism & Pen writing community, or even if you’re not, we’re inviting you to write about teaching kids carefully … about love.
- Were you or are you an LGBTQ young person? What would you tell the world about love and acceptance? About your life?
- Do you have LGBTQ children? We want to hear from you!
- How about school teachers, librarians and counselors? What are your thoughts on teaching love instead of shame?
- If you don’t fit any of the above categories, we STILL want to hear about the loving kind of world YOU want to live in. How do get there?
Queer as Kids: Or … Can We Please Teach Love?
That’s our Prism & Pen prompt for the next two weeks. If you write for us already, you know the drill. If not, check out our guidelines and email P&P with a link to your draft. If you don’t know how to submit, write anyway and we’ll help you. Or write to me directly at [email protected], DM me on social media, or comment here under the prompt.
Ready to write?
Please send in your creative essays, poems, short fiction, memoir, art reviews, or history. If you’re already working on something else, we welcome submissions about anything within our guidelines at any time.
If you’ve not yet written for P&P, here are our submissions guidelines and procedures:
Stories so far →
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