One of the realities of time we are in now is the growing children living with same gender couples. Aimee Fisher (2008) mentioned that in United States of America alone over 2 million children are being raised by gay and lesbian parents. With children from these homes as pupils in our classroom, the implication is that children awareness of gender differences and sexual orientation is on the rise. When it comes to diversity few issues are as controversial to children as the issues of sexuality and sexual orientation. Robinson (2002) reports that in the context of children and, by association, early childhood education they are areas that are fraught with many obstacles and cultural taboos that operate to silence, marginalize, and/or limit any dialogue or representation of this form of difference.
Many cultures and indeed many individuals see and confine these two issues to the realm of adults with children been perceived as too young to dabble into it and therefore introducing them to such topics is regarded as not proper. It was in the light of such believe that the proponents are advocating that early childhood center should avoid the inclusion of books depicting gay or lesbian individual such as same-sex partnered families.I do not subscribe to this position that such materials should be banned from early childhood centers. I believe that children need to learn about these issues from early stages just like other issues too. Invisibility does not mean absence or irrelevancy. That such things are not allowed will not translate into children not having it in their subconsciousness or that it will not be something that they will have to battle with later in life. Some children are actually from families that have gays or lesbians as members and I think addressing issues related to sexuality and sexual orientation rather than hiding it will make for understanding by the children.
There seems to be a conspiracy of silence about sexual orientation and marginalization against lesbians and gays in our schools. It is not uncommon to hear words that are pejorative been used daily in our school against lesbians and gays but with teachers doing nothing about it. Some educators are scare of taking any action because in some countries (for international educator especially) there is a perception that talking about sexuality and sexual orientation in the classroom means a teacher is talking about sex with children and are therefore unprofessional.
However, since such classroom discussion does not necessarily involve human reproduction and in view of school obligation to make every child safe, supported and ready to learn I strongly believe that it is time for teachers and other stakeholders in early childhood to see it as both professional and moral obligation to check sexual discrimination in early childhood as well as ensure that the conspiracy of silence and marginalization is removed by encouraging a critical understanding of sexuality and sexual orientation in early childhood level of education.
