What's so scandalous about sex-ed course?

Tripp Johnson, Guest Columnist

I went to one of my usual haunts for a late lunch the other day while on a casual date. As part of my continuing efforts to support the LGBT community, I was wearing my rainbow bracelet, as I do virtually every day. It's a small piece of activism, but one that I prioritise.

After some initial pleasant banter, my date directed her attention to my wrist and said, "That's a pretty controversial bracelet you're wearing," adding later, "People might think you're gay." Shortly thereafter, she remarked on the possibility of my facing violence as a consequence of being identified as gay by others.

Frankly, it isn't uncommon for people to think that I'm gay, irrespective of whether I am wearing the "controversial" bracelet. Apparently, like skin tone, hair colour, and eye colour, sexuality is something we wear on our bodies. Yet it's become a common theme for people to say that by wearing this bracelet, I run the risk of having people think that I'm gay - as if it's something that actually matters, as if I should be bothered by such a prospect.

Even otherwise accepting, open-minded friends of mine make this mistake, thereby instructively laying bare the subliminal primacy many grant to identifying the sexuality of those around them. As if my desires, my attractions, my interests and my loves - or those of anybody else for that matter - are knowledge they are entitled to. As if.

Might the arbitrary singling out of sexuality in this, our cultural matrix, be a natural derivative of the ways in which non-heteronormative behaviours are invisibilised, delegitimised, stigmatised? My belief in the veracity of such an explanation naturally led me to laud the efforts by The Gleaner to recognise LGBT rights; as well as by Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) to pull back the curtain of ignorance on these matters, through its implementation, in small part, of a sex-ed curriculum that recognises the dynamism of gender and endorses multiple forms of sexual intercourse.

Equally, my essential belief in the imperative of a guaranteed right to self-determination led me to proudly share with my friends abroad the tremendous steps The Gleaner took in continuing the fight for recognition of LGBT rights.

In spite of such tremendous steps, the front page of The Gleaner on June 17, 2014 featured the headline 'Indecent exposure: Oral, anal sex acceptance sneaked into JFJ course in children's homes'. The caption framed an unrelated image of women (albeit adults) in high-school uniforms. In my view, this is dubiously coincidental.

The article lambasted the human-rights group JFJ for its deployment of a comprehensive, impartial sexual education curriculum in six private children's homes. The first sentence of this article suggests that JFJ's sex-ed course was "hijacked" by so-called "gay-rights promoters"; the subtext of this being that human rights are irreconcilable with "gay rights"; that, in effect, those who do not abide by normalised heterosexual behaviours are deserving of neither 'rights', nor even recognition as human beings.

It also bears stating that the explicit connection drawn between oral/anal sex and homosexuality is entirely erroneous; as is the presumption that education about a given thing automatically implies acceptance of that thing.

It is indeed regrettable that the move by JFJ to incorporate a more holistic approach to sex ed was so summarily denounced as being a political move enacted by 'gay rights promoters', this in the same publication that had formerly been leading the charge for recognition of LGBT rights!

It's going to be an uphill battle; but tomorrow, I'll still be wearing the bracelet.

Tripp Johnson is a student of social and political theory and researcher at Johnson Survey Research. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and wtg.tripp.johnson@gmail.com.