Sexuality

TAS is a pretty gracious place. We treat each other well, for the most part, and the students thrive. Life is more complex than ever for a young person and the TAS approach is that curiosity, relationship skills, and self-awareness will always be relevant, whatever the technological, political, or emotional landscape may be in the future.
For instance, several of us teachers went to the graduation for the Bucks County Community College LPN program. What a varied and impressive group of nurses. Our graduate, Crystal Connolly stood out: she was awarded a scholarship based on her academic quality and was the only one who declared the intention of going into anesthetic nursing. That's a tough field and the life and death dimension is right in front of you. It takes nerve and ambition.

Now, this graduate might not mind me saying that she had everything working against her when she came to Tinicum. School, home, and her social life were extremely problematic. But her own verve and intensity, and our patience, eventually combined pretty well. At the time, she felt that the academic skills she got from us were woefully inadequate. Perhaps that is true. Of course, we can't force a person to study, write, do homework, or get enough rest. Several years down the road, I still haven't figured out how to make a horse drink water. Yet enough room was provided for her character to come together independent of all the other circumstances, and enough support was there for her to take some chances. And look at her now.

She was intense, strong, willful, fierce, and couldn't rely on anyone but herself. This is the kind of young person who makes her own luck.

Towards the end of the school year several boys and girls were lounging in the lobby (or foyer, or hallway...whatever it is) doing what some kids do: a rapid fire engagement of warmth and teasing, with many layers of irony and some pretty sharp jabs. I had to point out, however, that their constant use of the word "fag" could really shut a kid down. What if someone in school was struggling with whether or not it is "right" to be attracted to someone of their own sex, and who had likely suffered a lot in his or her previous school? To their credit, they got it. They hadn't considered that, and they are proud of the fact that our school could be a shelter from that particular storm.

Years ago we had a (nearly) openly gay student. Since then, we've had none. Of course we have had gay students, but even a place like TAS isn't safe enough for that. And the news would get around anyway.

Are we doing enough to ensure that a student who struggles with his or her sexuality is getting the kind of care our nursing school graduate received? Do we realize how much pain he or she carries? Or is what we do just enough?

Buddhism is the practice of dropping categories and letting experience speak for itself. Every person has their own way through the world. It should be relatively easy for a contemporary American Buddhist to drop the fixed notions of male and female, straight and gay. After all, as Walt Whitman put it, we "contain multitudes".

To wit:

The standard model of human development is built on 46 chromosomes, including two that determine sex: XX for female, XY for male. But, as Callahan points out, not everyone ends up 46XX or 46XY.

Variations in sperm or egg, in the mixing of cells from mother and father and in the cell division that follows can all stir the genetic soup into alternative outcomes. The possibilities, Callahan writes, "are as grand and as varietal as the fragrances of flowers: 45X; 47XXX; 48XXXX; 49XXXXX; 47XYY; 47XXY; 48XXXY; 49XXXXY; and 49XXXYY." These variations are familiar to geneticists - the first on the list, for instance, is known as Turner's syndrome - but the general public is still stuck in a black and white, XX/XY world.

New Scientist has an interesting book review up about the intersex world. Over the course of a lifetime we all must realize that the world is far more complex, and far more interesting, than the version of it we carry around in our heads.

This is worth reading too, for the difficult, practical problems of the intersex world:

Now imagine what you do in a Customs line when you enter a country. Imagine you’ve heard from acquaintances who’ve been turned away by the US, or that worst-case-scenario lurking at the back of your head about Homeland Security issuing a memo about “cross-dressed terrorists.” What do you put then? What do you wear then? How do you present?

Imagine how vulnerable you feel. Driving (what if a cop pulls me over). At the bank (what if they think I’m trying to scam my own money). At the doctors. At school. At work. At anywhere they want a piece of ID, anywhere they want you to tick a box that divides humanity into two. Anywhere they want you to fill out a form. Confess, little tranny girl, confess. Tell them what in their minds what you “really” are. Or else. And they’ll get you anyway.

Because it’s not likely to be a problem for most of y’all, this is something that I’d wager the average cissexual person has rarely to never thought about. That tiny little box is the epicenter of governmental interest, of laws, of bureaucratic guidelines. Lawsuits are fought over the right to change the letter in that little box.

Why is this important to TAS? Students fall apart in other schools for a multitude of reasons. We always have a higher percentage of neglected, sexually abused, and otherwise victimized kids that your average school. A teenager who doesn't fit the mold is going to have trouble, and when it comes to enforcing sexuality, violence usually isn't far behind. It is a human rights issue.