Rethinking schools: Teaching Gender Diversity in Biology

 Sam Long, Diversity Is What Makes It Interesting To Study Living Things

"The message was clear: Biological or anatomical traits outweigh personal conviction in deciding whether someone is male or female." This is a quote that come after the author explain that he is a trans man. This was the conclusion he came to after the principle in his school explain that he couldn't use the girls bathroom because he might scare people. And he can't use the boys bathroom because he's not biologically male. And he can't use the single stall bathroom because thats for staff only. This is an important quote because it explains how biological traits don't alone define your gender but more so of how people preserve you. This also alludes to the idea that being different is a problem rather than just a thing that makes you unique from others.

"When we talk about gender in our classrooms, the words that we use can shape the ideas that students take away." This is a very simple quote yet very straight forward and powerful. This is the first sentence that comes after the subtitle; Language Matters. This supports everything the author is trying to explain. That being mindful of the language we use, and ensuring we are using inclusive language matters. It not only matters to the students in front of you who are getting early exposure to inclusive language but it also maters to the teacher. We all have to retrain our brains to use inclusive language because it has not always been around. An example of using inclusive language that the author gives in this article is "biological parents" as a class they came to the conclusion that not every person gets their DNA from the mom and dad because not everyone's mom and dad are also their biological parents. So as a classroom they refer to the people you get your DNA from as your biological parents.

"For the next year, I changed all the project documents to say “genetic trait” rather than “genetic disease.” The author changes the language in the final project from "genetic disease" to "genetic trait" after reflecting on quite a few genetics changes that become a part of a persons identity. I chose this quote as it shows even as adults we always need to be reflecting and working to better ourselves. This supports the authors point that language always matters. In the spirit of always bettering ourselves here is a resource you can use to brush up on inclusive language to ensure we are always reflecting and working on ourselves because language matters.

I yet again make the connection to SCWAAMP. This idea that we talked about in class really connects to so many things. We discussed the idea that if you are not SCWAAP you are outside of the privileges that this world values. in my opinion, inclusive language is a counter to SCWAAMP. It ensures that everyone is included especially those who are out side of the SCWAAMP privileges.