Blog Post 5/ Rofes E.

       After reading about Rofe's childhood, his view on LGBT'S, and our society as a whole, I was very enlightened. My over all feeling when I had started to read was that I was upset due to his personal struggles in school, such as being bullied on the play ground and having to worry about potentially hurting the kids that have pushed him around for numerous years. I have always known that people with different sexual orientations can face numerous amount of pressure and mental abuse by their peers, but I have never heard direct and personal experiences from someone suffering from it. It definitely has showed me that this is reality and the way our kids are feeling in our school systems needs to change. In conjunction, he had claimed that instead of viewing LGBT'S as vulnerable and fragile individuals, we should see them as "daring, powerful, and rebellious". Personally, I can really relate to this statement because whenever the subject of gay and straight individuals comes up, I generally feel bad and continue to think that I could not imagine what they are going through. In the future I am going to focus on changing this state of mind.

Another aspect that I thought was very interesting was the way Rufe talked about, was the amount of LGBT'S teachers in our school system. It was very interesting when he had talked about how there is an uprising of openly LGBT teachers in high school and higher grades, but not in early education. I was never aware of this and personally think that if our nation is going to own up to its slogan that "All people are equal" there should be a wide variety of teachers of different sexualities in all fields of education. When we are young, we constantly look to the people above us to see what is acceptable or not. If all that young kids are surrounded by are straight teachers, our society is going to be stuck in the rut that we are in now, and our newer generations will will continue to discriminate against LGTB'S. In addition to this, I thought it was very upsetting to know that when Rufe's was a kid he felt like he had no one to talk to and had no rights to do anything about the obstacles he had to overcome due to "choosing to act" as a girl.

I strongly agree with his point that as a society as a whole, we also discriminate against children. We are constantly taught through the media and the ones around us that the adults are superior. Even though I am considered an adult at 18, I still feel sometimes as if my opinion or train of thought is not valuable when talking to someone older. I think a lot of the times we just assume that everyone older than us is smarter and knows better, but this is not always the case. Rufe pointed out that during school, he had no lawyers to go to, no self-defense, and no resources to go to about children fighting back with his issue. Although many liberal schools have been creating support groups for LGTB students, all of our schools need to become equipped with help centers and groups that students can become a part of. I think that due to Rufe's experience there should be some sort of support group in lower education as well.

Although, I had agreed with most of his points, I had a hard time agreeing with his belief that he was not genetically born as gay but "chose to do so early on as a child". In psychology class, we are constantly learning about people not having enough of a certain hormone or that a certain gland did not form to the correct size and therefore, changes can change one's behavior. I am not saying that when one is gay they have completely no choice over it, I just think that genetics could potentially play a huge part in wether a person decides to change their sexual identity.

 At my high school kids that identified themselves as LGTB's were not welcomed or accepted by the majority of people that went to my school. It was very difficult to see that a lot of my peers would make fun of them and talk behind their backs. I want the school system where I will be teaching to be highly supportive and encouraging to all kids, regardless of their sexual orientation. There should be a support group for LGTB students and kids should be able to feel as if they could talk to any teacher about any of these issues.