Summary
In this conversation, Jess from Ask Educator discusses the importance of sexual health education for children, particularly in relation to gender identity and expression. The dialogue explores how parents can address their discomfort with these topics, the biases that children form early on, and the role of illustrations in making sexual health education more accessible. Jess emphasizes the need for open conversations about gender and sexual orientation to empower children and combat societal norms that can be oppressive. The discussion also touches on the historical context of the gender binary and the impact of colonialism on our understanding of gender.
ASK (Acquiring Sexual Knowledge) on Instagram
This episode is not available on YouTube, as Jess has received endless death threats from being trans and discussing trans rights and hence worries about their own safety as well as the safety of their children.
Books mentioned: We’ll All Be Free by Caroline J. Sumlin (book here, audible here)
Also mentioned: Matt XIV on Instagram
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Read the Transcript:
Adrienne (00:00)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. Today I have Jess from Ask Educator on Instagram. Jess, thank you so much for being here.
Jess (00:08)
Thanks for having me.
Adrienne (00:09)
Would you mind just doing a short little intro about who you are, what you do, what your zone of genius is, your passion?
Jess (00:15)
Sure, yeah, I’d love to. Like you said, my name is Jess and I run the Instagram account, ask underscore educator. This started out as a sexual health oriented account that I began while I was doing my certification training. When I was just bombarded with so many mind blowing moments in class and I felt like I needed to share them with the world.
I’m also an illustrator and artist and you can find a lot of my illustrations on that account.
Adrienne (00:46)
I really, really am drawn to your illustrations. They have such a cute kawaii vibe to them like that Japanese kind of really cute artistry and that married to sex ed and sexual health I find so unique and original. I love that you do it that way.
Jess (01:04)
Thanks, yeah, I’ve kind of, you know, explored and altered my style over time, but it has largely derived from the original drawings that I did, which were with a big fat Sharpie. has lots of rounded edges and like a chubby feel to them that I really liked. It brings like a lighthearted kind of fun approach to sexual health that reflected what I was learning in class. My teacher was, one of the funniest people I know.
Adrienne (01:23)
Mm.
Mm.
Jess (01:29)
is one of the funniest people I know and class was always such a hoot. And so I wanted to reflect that in my artwork as well. I also, I’m a parent and my kids definitely enjoy being taught about sexual health through like fun, cute illustrations rather than through like really medical or clinical looking drawings.
Adrienne (01:37)
Mm.
Mm.
Mm hmm. Well, I can’t wait for your children’s book that I hope you eventually come out with about that because there’s just in general a lack of resources I feel like for for parents, right? If you go to the library, there’s not a giant sexual health for kids section. And so I think the more
people like you doing this work out there and taking your expertise and knowledge to parents and in classrooms and all that is just so needed and helpful. So I will be the first person to order your book if you ever come out
I’m not sure how well you follow me, but I am an unschooling account for parents. I coach parents on how to unschool, which is just a
branch of home education that means we don’t follow set curriculums, we don’t replicate school at home. And in this journey that I’ve been on in last 10 years with unschooling, it has really morphed into also this like heavy social justice parenting account because once you start unpacking school and you know that
as a tool of capitalism or Western culture, whatever, and I started to pull on that thread and noticed, well, we’re breaking away from this system, from any kind of propaganda, from just like noticing, reframing and unpacking these beliefs that we are conditioned to have around school or learning or childhood or success or whatever. I started to pull on that and notice how much.
all of these systems are interconnected. And so I started delving into ableism and racism and all the other isms around social justice I wanted to bring you in to talk about gender and how the idea of this gender binary and, you know, our discomfort with anyone operating outside of
our colonial worldview of what gender should look like, how that is a challenge with colonialism and white supremacy and how that affects it all. that’s going to be kind of the broader topic I wanted to discuss. But I wanted to start with how do you respond when parents are worried about introducing
this topic too young, they feel like kids are too young to be learning about orientation and gender identity and expression and all that. And they get very uncomfortable around Pride Month or I assume you get uncomfortable parents when you’re talking about sex ed in schools, a lot of parents are pulling their kids out or what have you. how do you approach that with parents who are uncomfortable and worried about their kids being too young?
Jess (04:35)
Yeah, well, first of all, I really empathize with these parents. I’ve been there, I know what it feels like, and there are just so many parents out there that feel the same way, that are embarrassed, ashamed, and this isn’t their fault, this is just how they are raised. I know a mom who approached me with a question about
something sexual health related to one of her children. And you know, this is a person who’s like, left leaning didn’t grow up in like a religious household or anything like that. But as she’s talking to me, I can see her discomfort and her embarrassment and her internalized shame. As she’s asking me questions, I can see her eyes darting around the room, she’s unable to make eye contact with me, I can see her fidgeting and shaking her hands and things because
know, she she’s nervous to ask me this is an uncomfortable conversation for her as it is for nearly everyone even when it’s an adult talking to a professional in a one on one private setting. Yeah, it’s, it’s hard. It’s hard for sexual partners to talk to each other about sex like that that’s supposed to be like the most intimate person you know. So I get it. I get why.
Adrienne (05:49)
Mm-hmm.
Jess (05:56)
it’s so difficult to have these conversations with kids or why it can feel that way. To folks who think that like intellectually think that kids are too young to be learning about these things about gender and sexual orientation and everything, I have news for you. They’re already learning about it. You don’t need to sit down and have a talk with them. They are already picking up on cues and social norms.
from all the world around them from the time they are itty bitty little babies. And there’s nothing you can really do to stop it. I’m reminded of a parent who removed his child from one of my classes where I was gonna be teaching about identity. And he said that he removed his child because he thought she was too young to learn about identity. And when I asked more, turned out he thought she was too young to learn about gender identity. And as we…
Adrienne (06:27)
Mm-hmm.
Jess (06:51)
talked more, it became obvious that she actually does know about gender identity. She has a gender identity. And he acknowledged that, that he has one himself, and that she’s learning about this already. But the real problem he had was learning about transgender identities. So I think it’s really important to ask yourself what
Adrienne (06:54)
is set.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (07:18)
about gender or what about sexual orientation is it that you’re uncomfortable with or that you think your kids are too young to learn? Is it just about the topic in general or is it specifically about trans people that you don’t want them to learn or gay people? Is that the issue? Being aware of those biases, can really help narrow down where our fear and our reservations are coming from.
Adrienne (07:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
I really like that you brought that up. A few episodes ago, I interviewed Dr. Moses and and she is a anti-bias educator. So she helps parents and preschool teachers and elementary school teachers talk to their kids about biases and working at dismantling those. And she said that a lot of parents are so worried about talking to their kids about race. They’re too young to learn about race. They’re either going to become racist or
they’re gonna see everyone else as others and they’re gonna start to point that out and you know, a number of issues and worries and concerns. And she was saying that kids are already forming biases, whether you are aware of it or not, admit it or not, acknowledge it or not, they are picking up from TV, from books, from movies, from people around them, all those things already. And so the danger then if you’re not talking to your kids is that they will either form opinions that
may or may not be accurate, may or may not be harmful, or they’re listening to the loudest voice in the room, which can often be the most dominant and oppressive. And so her advice was definitely to be very much involved in that discussion with your kids, because it’s happening, as you said, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
Jess (08:55)
Absolutely. When you take your child to a kid’s store and there’s pink Barbies on half of the room and the other half of the room is full of trucks and violent action figures and one side says girls and one side says boys, you don’t have to sit down and have a talk with them about gender. They can already figure out what’s going on here.
Adrienne (09:14)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (09:19)
They’re quick. They learn that all on their own without any kind of discussion. mean, think about your own childhood. Did your parents sit you down and have a firm, you know, one-on-one discussion about what gender is and gender stereotypes and all that when you were five? Probably not. And probably at five, you were able to pick up on cues. You were able to pick up when someone was, you know, dressed feminine or masculine. You were able to pick up on what was okay for girls to play with and what was okay for boys to play with.
Adrienne (09:31)
Mm.
Jess (09:49)
and how girls dress and how boys dress and all these kinds of things that nobody had to sit down and tell you to your face.
Adrienne (09:58)
Mm hmm. Yeah, so it’s really parents being uncomfortable that there’s a different order of things being taught, it seems like, because it doesn’t seem like anyone has a problem with their kids picking up that all the women and girls that they know have long hair and wear high heels and dresses and all the boys and men that they know where, you know, jeans and plaid and have short hair and have beards and whatever, no one’s having that explicit conversation, as you said, but
It doesn’t seem like parents are uncomfortable with kids picking up on those cues. They’re uncomfortable with kids picking up on cues that kind of mess with their world order and their view of things
Jess (10:38)
Yes, I agree with that. And I feel like this is why it’s so important to talk to kids about gender and sexual orientation and all these other difficult topics that you mentioned early and often,
If we can show that we are open to having these sometimes uncomfortable conversations with our kids, and that we are a safe person for them to come to with their difficult questions, then that means that they won’t necessarily go searching for answers from untrustworthy sources.
that they will come to us with these questions and maybe issues that they’re having. Maybe they have problems with their genitals right now, or maybe they are questioning their identity in some way, or they saw something that defied their gender expectations somewhere, and they have questions about it or concerns. And we can…
Adrienne (11:36)
Mm-hmm.
Jess (11:41)
be open with them and start these conversations early so that they are comfortable coming to us with those questions. Or we can remain silent and gamble on whether they come to us with that at all.
Adrienne (11:49)
Mm-hmm.
my husband and I have talked about this a few times that we both experienced like an orgasm growing up without knowing what it was. And that is a weird feeling to have happened to your body without anyone having explained to you what was going on. And then because we both knew we couldn’t go to our parents that just sat with us for years until you start talking to your friends maybe or even you know, as a Mormon that was so
taboo to talk about. So for me, it was quite a long time after that before I had an understanding of what was going on in my body. And so just from that sense of like, Hey, your child’s body is going to go through changes, whether they want it to or not, like that’s such a, thing with puberty is that things are changing in your brain with your hormones, with your physical body, and
in my home, none of that was talked about. And if it was, it was, whispered in the bathroom as like this dirty secret. And that is really uncomfortable. It’s, I know you talk about this a lot, but it’s already uncomfortable to go through puberty if someone’s talking to you about it.
Jess (13:05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, like I mentioned, having these conversations early and often with our kids can help them feel more confident when they’re met with these difficult or unexpected changes, whether it’s in their own body or whether they’re, you know, seeing people with bodies that are
Adrienne (13:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (13:33)
different than they’ve come to expect with people. You know, I think there are some conservative fear mongers out there that are worried that when I talk to kids about transgender identities or queer identities, that they think I’m detailing their sex lives or their private parts
Adrienne (13:36)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
that yeah, well, I definitely know there’s like a feeling of pushing a certain agenda and having ulterior motives and it quickly goes very dark into this area of, you’re talking to them about it. means you’re grooming them for abuse, right? Instead of, yeah.
Jess (13:54)
stuff.
Yes.
Yeah, which is, again, ironic because we know from scientific evidence that kids that have a strong understanding of sexual health, of their bodies and all that are less likely to be groomed because predators seek out kids who are not very knowledgeable in these subjects because they are less likely to be able to report them accurately and to be believed when they’re reported.
Adrienne (14:27)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jess (14:40)
So yeah, talk about ironic. In any event, I bring this up because we don’t need to talk about people having sex in order to talk about gay folks, right? It can simply be a matter of reading them a book where there is a character with two dads. That is showing them that gay people exist and there is no mention.
Adrienne (14:44)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mm.
Jess (15:08)
of any kind of sexual activity going on.
Adrienne (15:11)
Yeah, which I mean, really goes into the idea that kids are getting exposed to hetero relationships very early on. So whether that’s in their own household, if they have a mom and a dad, they’re getting exposed to orientation to straight orientation from a very young age, and no one’s talking to them about their parents genitals but
they’re getting exposed to this idea, hetero couples exist. They’re seeing that on TV. in their kids shows. in their kids books. And, you know, apart from the conservative movement that seeks to ban books that show any kind of other orientation, they’re getting exposed to orientation. just like with gender expression and identity, they’re getting exposed to that. And so it’s really a matter of
what kind of orientation are we exposing our kids to? And then you very quickly see that it’s, it’s not that you don’t want your kids exposed to orientation. It’s that you don’t want them to expose to anything outside of a heteronormative couple.
Jess (16:16)
Mm Yeah, absolutely. You know, in all of our societies around the world, queer people are always outnumbered. So that means that kids are, you know, learning on their own without any kind of discussion that it’s normal to be straight. And it’s normal to be cisgender. They don’t need to be taught that, you know, in any kind of discussion, they will pick that up on their own.
Adrienne (16:35)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (16:45)
So if we want to teach our kids that that is one identity and one way of being human and that there are others, then we will have to show them examples of other ways of being. And if you don’t know any, you know, gay people in your life or trans people in your life in person, then books are a great way to show them that these other kinds of ways of being exist.
Adrienne (16:59)
Mm.
I think you very quickly realize how non-diverse your social circle is once you start to delve into things like ableism and racism and
queer identity or trans identity, you realize how non-diverse your social circle is, or a lot of people do, I think, because then they realize like, actually, everyone in our life is very much the same. We’re kind of the same socioeconomic demographic. We’re probably the same race and culture, and we’re all, you know, not disabled and all of these different things. And then you start to unravel all these pieces and then realize,
I need to expose my kids to these things from a book because I literally don’t have this in my life, which is quite telling, I think.
Jess (17:58)
Yeah, it can be telling and it’s good to keep in mind, you like you might be aware that there’s other kinds of people in the world, even if they’re not your close friends. But your kids world is smaller than yours. So if all the people that they see are the same, they’re all white and they’re all able bodied and they’re all cisgender and straight, then yeah, they they might not be as aware as you are.
Adrienne (18:12)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (18:27)
about other ways of being human.
Adrienne (18:29)
I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, this idea that we are hyper sexualizing our kids and we’re forcing this agenda on them and why are we so obsessed with gender and identity?
And I find it comical that this demographic of people that choose to go with that narrative are the same demographic of people who look at a sonogram of a, infant in utero.
look at what their genitalia is and then throw a massive party with their friends and family to reveal their essentially you’re revealing what external sexual organ their child is going to be born with. And they from there decide an infinite number of things like the color of the baby’s room and what types of clothes we’re going to buy and whether or not we’re going to pierce our baby’s ears and what hair length.
their baby is going to have with this idea that the queer community are the ones who are obsessed with gender and orientation when in fact it seems very much the opposite.
Jess (19:35)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think the obsession is there and it’s mostly about getting everyone to conform to a certain way of being. So like you said, if you have an ultrasound of a baby that appears to, you know, have a penis in it, then
Adrienne (19:45)
Mm.
Jess (19:57)
by throwing a gender reveal party with all the bells and whistles that you describe, you are trying to raise a child that will grow up to be masculine in the way that your current culture says is masculine. queer people and trans people that I know, their work is largely focused on
the reverse, right? So like trying to allow parents to raise their kids in such a way that their kids are free to express themselves however they want. It’s not about making kids trans or turning them queer or anything like that. It’s just like, you know, being free to be who you are and who you want without living under this yoke of
Adrienne (20:49)
Mm.
Jess (20:56)
homophobia and transphobia that society has laid upon us to feel powerless and doomed to simply live out this script that’s been prepared for us ahead of time before we’re even born that we’re going to live our lives a certain way.
Adrienne (20:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. let’s get into how the gender binary then is, formulated from this idea of colonialism and white supremacy and how that all came about because I don’t think a lot of people make that connection.
Jess (21:28)
Yeah, you’re right. think a lot of people don’t.
I learned this from black and brown creators and educators that so generously shared this history that shows that, you know, this idea that there’s one way of being male and one way of being female and that there’s only two genders and only two sexes is really rooted in white supremacy and colonialism. So, these ideas are actually kind of recent.
inventions in the long scheme of things. And if we look at the history of people who aren’t white, we can see that across many cultures and societies, they acknowledge that there’s more than one more than two genders. And they acknowledge that the divide between male and female bodies was not as clear cut as some people would have you believe today. But
white colonialists believe that they could show that black and brown bodies were inferior because they did not have this strict divide between male and female, masculine and feminine. They believe that
you know, white Europeans were superior because it was very easy to tell the difference between men and women and they acted differently, they looked differently, they dressed differently, they sound differently and all that. But black and brown bodies on the other hand, well, their, you know, their women looked so masculine, were hairy and, you know, they, their bodies were not shaped delicately like
white women’s were and these brown men over here in Polynesia, they were so feminine looking. They were like dainty and they wore skirts and they didn’t have this clear divide between male and female. And on top of that, they had these weirdos who were not men or women and they’re just…
Adrienne (23:29)
Mm-hmm.
Jess (23:31)
They’re so inferior and they don’t even have any kind of like civilized gender roles. this is the story that they tell themselves in order to justify white supremacy and colonization. But if we look at even scientists today, we can see that the evidence actually supports
Adrienne (23:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (23:58)
the wisdom that these people have known for a long, long time. Scientists today, whether we’re talking about geneticists or endocrinologists or biologists or anatomists, they can very easily see that there is not a clear distinct difference between male bodies and female bodies. And when we talk to social scientists who study cultures and societies, it is
Adrienne (24:04)
Hmm.
Jess (24:26)
very clear to them that there’s not really just two genders. The folks who hold really strongly to this idea that there’s two genders and two sexes and nothing else, they tend to have a very limited idea of science, in my experience, and very little exposure to knowledge from
Adrienne (24:30)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jess (24:53)
any kind of culture or society beyond their little bubble.
Adrienne (24:57)
I love bringing this up because as I was saying, it’s always about liberation, like decolonizing work, right, is about liberation and colonizing is about control and power and dominance and oppression. And so you can just see like, hey, between the two agendas here, which agenda is trying to liberate people?
and free people and allow them to authentically express themselves and not have limits and really expand their views of the world and humanity and diversity and people and all of that. And which agenda is looking to control and impose and suppress and limit. And so to me, as soon as you start to look at all those things, everything that colonialism has done,
It’s a very clear agenda about control and limitation and, you know, shackling people versus any decolonizing work that you do around art, around race, around gender, around bodies. Any of it is just about being free and liberated. There’s no ulterior motive apart from letting everyone just exist in
freedom and in alignment with how they feel on the inside.
Jess (26:24)
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the great trans advocates in this area is Alok, whom you can find at AlokVieMenon. They are so excellent at responding to haters in their comments. They get so many haters about the way that they look and the way that they identify when it comes to breaking gender norms. And they always respond with
Adrienne (26:33)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (26:53)
first of all, compassion for this person and also a recognition that this person is coming with hate for them because they are oppressed, right? Because they’re
living in a society that forces them to see the world in a certain way that is so controlling, where they aren’t free to simply, you know, wear nail polish or makeup or what have you, because it doesn’t align with the gender that they identify as. They feel compelled, to live in this small, tiny little world.
Adrienne (27:14)
Hmm.
Mm.
Jess (27:34)
that they’re also wanting everyone else to do this as well. So they’re not okay seeing someone like a loke breaking these norms. need to type hate comments under their profile pictures and things like this. a loke is such an inspiration to me because they are always able to see how the haters that they get are oppressed by
Adrienne (27:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jess (28:03)
this system that would compel them to live a very, that would compel them to walk such a fine line in order to express their gender correctly.
Adrienne (28:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
similarly to I think a lot of people think dismantling patriarchy is about liberating women, but it’s actually liberating all of us because patriarchy oppresses every single person, right? Not just women or femmes, but like all of us are oppressed by colonialism. We’re all oppressed by the patriarchy. We’re all oppressed by white supremacy in one way or another.
Jess (28:26)
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne (28:39)
not to the same degree and not in the same ways at all, but it is a system that is oppressing every single person. And I want to wrap this up with the idea, one of my good friends, Caroline J. Sumlin, she wrote a book called We’ll All Be Free. She’s a black woman author, and she talks about how the greatest tool of the oppressor is fear.
And I want to end with.
alluding to part two in our conversation about trans policies and how they affect children and trans youth and, folks and how it is very much fear and these political tactics of worry and anxiety and concerns and fear mongering that then
control is used to control how people vote. Things like banning books or removing their kids out of school to, avoid the woke virus and things like that. So we are going to get into that into part two. Thank you so much for being here. Is there anything you wanted to end on and this idea of the gender binary being a tool of oppression or parents, you know,
in their well-intentioned efforts to talking to their kids about this topic.
Jess (30:03)
I think most parents do have their kids’ best interests at heart and want their kids to be free and liberated and live their best lives. like you said, it really is fear that would keep them from doing that. So if a parent is stopping their little boy from wearing nail polish, it’s probably not because they hate that child and they need to control them.
It’s probably because they’re afraid that if they let that little boy go out in public with nail polish, he will be teased in some way or bullied and that will hurt his feelings and the parent wants to protect them from that. And hey, I feel you. I empathize with you big time. I have fears like that on a regular basis with my own kids. However, it’s really important to recognize that those kinds of actions have unintended consequences.
So by, for example, by not allowing your little boy to wear nail polish because you’re afraid that he’s going to be bullied, what that little boy sees is that it’s not okay to wear nail polish even around you, that you’re not comfortable with it and that you will not be there to, you know, protect him from those bullies. Instead, you will just not allow him to wear it at all.
There’s a really good illustration by Matt Bernstein, whom you can find it on Instagram at Matt XIV, that depicts a little child with like bright butterfly wings and the parents are behind cutting off those wings with a giant.
Adrienne (31:35)
Hmm.
Jess (31:39)
pair of scissors and the caption reads, don’t be your child’s first bully. I think about this all the time. Sometimes, we, by restricting our kids own creativity out of, out of fear, what we’re actually doing is bullying our own children. And, you know, is that something that you want to do? I know that it comes from a place of love.
Adrienne (31:46)
Mm.
Mm.
Jess (32:05)
You love your child very much, you want to protect them from harm, but that fear is actually driving you to take actions with unintended consequences. If we can instead show our children that they are free to express themselves however they want and that we love and support them, not despite that, but because of that, they will love us so much in return and appreciate us.
Adrienne (32:18)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess (32:34)
and trust us with their innermost thoughts and their honest feelings instead of feeling like they need to hide themselves from us.
Adrienne (32:43)
Thank you so much. Let’s end on that because I just think that that is so beautiful. Matt is a wonderful account to follow. thank you so much for being here and I will see you for part two.
Jess (32:53)
Great, thanks for having me.