“When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.” – Adrienne Rich

The United States Supreme Court has taken a case in Mahmoud v. Taylor that could possibly continue the psychic disequilibrium that Adrienne Rich raises.

Related

New Supreme Court case could force “Don’t Say Gay” laws on every school nationwide
The court’s conservative majority plucked this obscure case from lower courts to further a “religious freedom” agenda.

The case arose from conflicts between teaching LGBTQ+ topics and parents’ rights on religious grounds in the education of their children. The case stems from some parents’ concerns about a policy sanctioned by the Montgomery County Board of Education regarding new elementary school storybooks covering LGBTQ+ topics that can be read in classes.

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One of the contested books, for example, is entitled Pride Puppy! about a puppy who got lost in the crowd during an LGBTQ+ Pride parade. 

When the policy first passed, parents could opt their children out of the curriculum, but later, the board reversed itself and made the policy mandatory since the opt-out choice could become untenable to administer.

In this demographically diverse school district, some Christian and Muslim parents, in particular, objected, though I wonder whether parents can opt their children out of reading age-appropriate stories about Jewish, or Asian, or Black people.

This case harkens back to one of the earlier curricular programs created in 1991 by the New York City Board of Education called The Children of the Rainbow Curriculum introduced to first-grade teachers to “assist with teaching about multicultural social issues.” The board developed the program to counter the increase in hate crimes directed against members of marginalized communities.

The lesson plans offered a variety of resources in its 443 pages of suggested readings, activities, and other lectures for teachers to assist in educating, developing, and providing academic and social skills for students and promoting diversity, racial, and ethnic harmony in order to decrease prejudice and bigotry in its many forms.

Unfortunately, the section on families discussing gay and lesbian-headed households incited enormous criticism from parents, religious groups, and other board members. Some opponents argued that the curriculum encouraged sex and sodomy in children.

Following a series of contentious debates and extensive media coverage, the New York City Department of Education voted against accepting the entire Children of the Rainbow Curriculum.

And the moments of psychic disequilibrium continued.

Heterosexism & cissexism hurt everyone

I find it paradoxical that in our society, love of difference makes one the same, while love of sameness makes one different.

In this regard, I cannot help thinking about something Frederick Douglass, who escaped enslavement and worked for the cause of liberation, once said when he described the dehumanizing effects of slavery not on those enslaved alone, but also on white slavers whose position to slavery corrupted their humanity.

While the social conditions of Douglass’s time were very different from today, nonetheless, I believe Douglass’s words hold meaning by analogy: “No [person] can put a chain about the ankle of [another person] without at last finding the other end fastened about [their] own neck.”

Though it cannot be denied that oppression serves the interests of dominant group members, eventually it will backfire, and the chain will take hold of them.

Therefore, I have come to understand that within the numerous forms of oppression, members of targeted (sometimes called “minoritized” or “subordinated”) groups are oppressed, while on many levels, members of the dominant or agent groups are hurt. Although the effects of oppression differ qualitatively for specific targeted and agent groups, in the end everyone loses.

This is true as well within the social oppressions called “heterosexism” and “cissexism.”

I define “heterosexism” as the overarching system of advantages bestowed on heterosexuals. It includes the institutionalization of a heterosexual norm or standard, which establishes and perpetuates the notion that all people are or should be heterosexual, thereby privileging heterosexuals and heterosexuality, and excluding the needs, concerns, cultures, and life experiences of people who do not define as heterosexual or gender normative.

“Cissexism” (a.k.a. “binarism,” “transgender oppression,” “genderism”) comprises a conceptual structure of oppression directed against those who live and function external to the gender/sex binary, and/or the doctrine that they do not exist at all.

In truth, heterosexism and cissexism are pervasive throughout society, and each of us, irrespective of sexual or gender identity and expression, stands at risk of their harmful effects.

First, heterosexist and cissexist conditioning compromise the integrity of people by pressuring them to treat others badly, which is contrary to one’s basic humanity. They inhibit one’s ability to form close, intimate relationships with members of one’s own sex, generally restrict communication with a significant portion of the population, and, more specifically, limit family relationships.

Heterosexism and cissexism lock all people into rigid gender-based roles, which inhibit creativity and self-expression. They often are used to stigmatize, silence, and, on occasion, target people who are perceived or defined by others as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender but who define as heterosexual and/or cisgender.

In addition, heterosexism and cissexism are some of the causes of premature sexual involvement, which increase the chances of teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Young people, of all sexuality and gender identities, are often pressured to become heterosexually active to prove to themselves and others that they are “normal.”

Societal heterosexism and cissexism prevent some LGBTQ people from developing authentic self-identities and add to the pressure to marry someone of another sex, which in turn places undue stress and oftentimes trauma on themselves as well as their spouses and children.

Heterosexism and cissexism, combined with sexphobia or erotophobia (fear and revulsion of sex) results in the elimination of discussions of the lives and sexuality of LGBTQ+ people as part of school-based sexuality education programs, keeping vital information from all students. Such a lack of information can kill people in the age of HIV/AIDS. And heterosexism and cissexism (along with racism, sexism, classism, sexphobia) inhibit a unified and effective governmental and societal response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

With all the truly important issues facing the world, heterosexism and cissexism divert energy and attention from more constructive endeavors. They also prevent heterosexuals and cisgender people from accepting the benefits and gifts offered by LGBTQ+ people, including theoretical insights, social and spiritual visions and options, contributions in the arts and culture, to religion, to education, to family life, indeed, to all facets of society.

Ultimately, they inhibit appreciation of other types of diversity making it unsafe for everyone because each person has unique traits not considered mainstream or dominant. Therefore, we are all diminished when any one of us is demeaned.

The meaning is quite clear: When any group of people is targeted for oppression, it is ultimately everyone’s concern. We all, therefore, have a self-interest in actively working to dismantle all the many forms of oppression, including heterosexism and cissexism.

When anyone employs their interpretation of religion to justify oppression, we must challenge and counter their attacks with truth.

Anyone can believe anything they wish, whether others find those beliefs laudable or offensive. When, however, the expression of those beliefs denies other individuals (including children of orthodox religious parents) or groups their full human and civil rights and rights to a full education, a critical line has been crossed, for they have entered into the realm of oppression, and they must be confronted.

We must address some basic questions regarding religious “rights” to discriminate and about religion itself.

Why, for example, do historians and educators describe ancient Greek spirituality as “mythology,” but they consider the Bibles (Hebrew Bible, Christian Testaments) and the Quran as historical and spiritual truth?

In reality, all religious doctrine stems from uncertainty and conjecture, from multiple Gods, hybrid Gods and humans, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to the Burning Bush, to the covenant and the parting of the Red Sea, to the Immaculate Conception and Resurrection, to Muhammad’s rising to heaven from the Rock, to the Golden Tablets, all beginning with the human creation of God(s). 

Both historically and currently, opponents of social equity have claimed “religious” justifications to deny people rights granted under the rule of law. “Faith,” though, can be defined as belief in things that cannot be proven.

Religious dogma has been used to justify all forms of evil throughout human history: from domination and colonization of distant lands and peoples; to slavery; segregation of the “races” and of the sexes; anti-miscegenation and anti-sodomy laws; isolation of people with disabilities; anti-employment, anti-voting rights, and limitations on reproductive rights and health care for women and people of color.

Religious dogma has also included incarceration and violence directed against LGBTQ+ people and bans on their literature and their stories from educational institutions; to restrictions on the education of the enslaved and limitations on the education of indigenous peoples to work skills while stripping them of their cultures and identities by the colonizers; to the overexploitation of the natural environment; to revisionist and sanitized historical education by leaders of the dominant status quo.    

Someone said to me once that throughout the ages, more people have been killed in the name of religion than all the people who have ever died of all diseases combined. I don’t know whether this is actually the case, but it highlights a vital point: We continually reject, oppress, and kill others and are killed by others over differing belief systems.

How many wars are we going to justify in the name of “God,” our “God” versus their so-called “false god(s)”?

I believe that the prime factor keeping oppression toward LGBTQ+ people locked firmly in place and enacted throughout our society — on the personal/interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels — is the negative judgments emanating from certain faith communities.

Fortunately, however, there exists no monolithic conceptualization, for other faith communities’ values and precepts are progressively welcoming toward LGBTQ+ people – our lives and stories, our relationships, our identities, our social contributions — and these communities are working tirelessly to abolish the yoke of oppression directed against us.

Lessons presented age-appropriately in the schools on LGBTQ+ topics benefit all students. For LGBTQ+ students, it will solve the psychic disequilibrium discussed by Adrienne Rich by demonstrating that others like themselves live joyful and rewarding lives and by learning about people who have made enormous contributions to their society.

For heterosexual and cisgender students, it will assist them in understanding and welcoming diversity in the human experience and will ease their entry into a continually changing global community.

Where the various faith traditions connect negatively on issues of LGBTQ+ people, lives, and expressions, however, is in the area of religious orthodoxy.

Some orthodox religious denominations, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), who during their histories had refused to minister to African-heritage people, have changed their stances and have since welcomed this demographic. Similarly, some denominations who previously opposed same-sex sexuality and gender diversity have since come around to a more progressive view.

When religious leaders, however, preach their negative interpretations of their sacred texts on issues of LGBTQ+ people within and outside their respective houses of worship, they must be held accountable and responsible for aiding and abetting those who target and harass, bully, physically assault, and murder people perceived as LGBTQ+. In addition, they must be held accountable as accomplices in the suicides of those who are the targets of these aggressive actions.

When the orthodox religious/theocratic political — yes, political — right wing declares that LGBTQ+ people are sinners and psychologically ill, and that they must not be allowed to promote their so-called “gay agenda” near children, indeed, as the line between religion and government is increasingly blurred, and when we are taught to hate ourselves, each one of us is demeaned, which denies us all our freedoms.

We have a right, or rather an obligation, to speak up, to fight back with all the energy, with all the unity, and with all the love and passion that we are capable of.

When denominations remain entrenched in historical inequities and negative representations of any group, including LGBTQ+ people, I would suggest that one might consider changing denominations.

I believe we are all born into an environment polluted by heterosexism and cissexism (two among many forms of oppression), which fall upon us like acid rain. For some people, spirits are tarnished to the core, others are marred on the surface, and no one is completely protected.

Therefore, we all have a responsibility, indeed an opportunity, to join together as allies to construct protective shelters from the corrosive effects of prejudice and discrimination of all kinds while working to clean up the heterosexist and cissexist environments in which we live.

Once we take sufficient steps to reduce this pollution, we will all breathe a lot more easily.

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