Blog 5

The Rofes reading was very interesting and his thoughts on liberal and radical ways of addressing homophobia and those who were LGBT were very different. When Rofes described his childhood he said it was neither good nor bad. (Rofes 4). He also said "despite the constrictions place on children…children are always to a grater or lesser extent active agents in participating in the production of their own childhoods and adolescences" (Rofes 5). He followed this up by saying that while many of us don’t ask for the circumstances which we live in, many of us do not fully accept them (Rofes 5). I agree with him that we play a role in "shaping our own consciousness" (Rofes 5), however he puts it in a much harsher way. To me Rofes seems very unsympathetic and act as if life sucks but we just need to deal with it. While yes this is true, I don’t think he goes about presenting it in a beneficial way. He also mentions that while many people say those who are gay are born gay, he himself doesn’t belief that and he personally chose to be gay and to like males. In the schools that I have visited and attended growing up, LGBT was a topic addressed in many different ways. At an elementary level, it wasn’t even a topic of discussion. At the middle school I attended it was more evident and some people were open to the idea of there being gay students. Middle school kids also made fun of those who were gay. The high school I attended took what I consider to be a very liberal approach. We had openly gay students, staff, and teachers. It was a topic that was talked about a lot and everyone was very accepting of LGBT people. Those who weren't accepting of it, I thought shared their beliefs and why they believed them in a very respectful way. In the future I hope that more schools and students can be accepting of LGBT and try to be less homophobic. While we are all entitled to our own opinions, LGBT is a very common topic throughout schools now and I think it is best to be open minded rather than closed minded when the topic comes up.