Is my child too young to learn about being gay? | Tim Ramsey | TEDxOxford

Can a child be too young to learn about being LGBT? The answer: no child is ever too young. In this humorous and moving talk, Tim Ramsey argues that only when every parent explores about LGBT identities with their child from birth will we address the well being crisis facing LGBT young people.

Tim Ramsey, the founder of award-winning non-profit Just Like Us, grew up believing that being gay was the worst thing he could be. Having come out, Tim launched Just Like Us to change the lives of other LGBT+ school students by empowering young people to challenge prejudice and champion LGBT+ equality at school and work. As the founder of School Diversity Week, the national celebration of LGBT+ equality in education, Tim has involved over 650,000 school students and teachers work to ensure every young person can be themselves and their best at school.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

When I showed the first draft
of this talk to my dad -

and don't judge, but yes, aged 28,

I'm doing the emotional equivalent
of still living with my parents -

he asked me,

"Did you really feel like that?"

The bit my dad had been reading
described how ashamed I felt

when I realized that I was gay.

I felt it was wrong,
I felt it was unnatural.

He and my mom found that hard
because as far as they were aware,

I wasn't going through that;
I was straight.

And don't get me wrong,

there are many things I'm glad
they didn't know I was going through,

like the time a friend brought in
a porn magazine, and I joined in,

tearing out a photo,
hiding it in the back of my phone,

at a time when you could
take the back off your phone,

and hoping that if I stared at that
long enough, it'd turn me straight.

I'm glad they didn't know about that.

But because they hadn't thought
that there was any other option,

other than being straight,

they'd made no provision,
like so many parents,

for that ten-percent chance that I wasn't.

So until that moment,

I had planned to talk about the work
that Just Like Us does,

the charity I set up

that trains LGBT young people to go into
schools as relatable role models for kids.

They go in and they share
their personal story growing up

to support any kid who is LGBT,
or just doesn't know,

and to empower
straight students as allies.

But what my dad's question made me realize

was that I really meant
to talk about parents

and their role in this issue.

In many ways, this is a story
of failed ambition.

It's about the challenge
of building bridges

with people who don't want to know
anything about LGBT issues,

with people who don't think they need to,

because LGBT issues
have just never affected them,

and with people who think they should do

but maybe just don't
really know what to do.

Now, I don't mean to make it sound
that working with schools is easy.

It's not.

Some schools still think they're not
allowed to talk about LGBT issues;

others, that they don't have
any LGBT kids at school;

and others are, shall we say,
"on a journey."

As one house mistress
of an all-girls boarding house said to me,

"We have got absolutely
no problem with the gays,

but we're just not ready for lesbians."

"They're already there!" I told her.

(Laughter)

Now, parents obviously affect
whether or not we work with a school,

but their influence is much broader

and extends way before
a child starts school.

Whether it's their cognitive development,
the food they grow up loving or hating,

their sense of self-worth,

parents are the coauthors
of their child's life.

They define how that child grows up
feeling about themselves.

And unlike, say, children born
into minority ethnic communities

or religious communities,

most LGBT children are not born
into their minority community.

They're on their own.

They're the first member
of that community,

which they then have to find
and then build for themselves.

They don't have the parents
who share that same history,

overcame the same challenges,

faced the same oppression.

They're born an island.

Whilst the social, cultural, political,
racial background can make that harder,

I think there's a danger that every parent
risks not realizing the power they have

to shape whether or not
a child realizes who they are,

positively

or with a great sense of shame.

Ultimately,

we want to get to a point
where a parent doesn't say,

"Is my child too young
to learn about LGBT issues?"

but demands to know
why they're not learning about them,

and not just at school but at home,

and it's about a lot more than sex ed.

But why is this bridge so hard to build?

Well, I mean, let's be honest:
being LGBT comes with a lot of baggage.

For most of history, it has been
labeled a sin by religion,

punishable by law,

in some sense a threat to society.

And I know that in many ways,
attitudes have moved forwards,

but you need only look at a newspaper

to see that hatred and suspicion
around transgender people.

Until I was 13, it was illegal
to talk about LGBT issues in schools.

The last piece of law banning
homosexuality in the merchant navy

wasn't repealed until 2017.

So until recently,

this othering of LGBT people demonized us
as a target of moralized anger.

But what does that mean?

Well, it means that 4 in 10 people

still think that same-sex relations
are in some sense wrong.

At its worst, you see that in the rise
in hate crimes against LGBT people,

but it also manifests itself
in smaller ways.

Before Christmas, I went to see
Bohemian Rhapsody at the cinema -

it's a great film -

and a couple of things happened.

About a third of the way through,

the woman behind me
whispered in shock to her friend,

"Wait ... Is Freddie Mercury gay?

I was like, "How are you here?"

(Laughter)

And then about 20 minutes later,
as I was getting over that,

the guy next to me
who had been quite happily,

although extremely irritatingly,

singing along to all the tunes,

when Freddie and his manager kissed,
he retched in disgust.

And it's that shadow of othering

that I think taints the way we think
about LGBT issues with children.

That can be in the idea

that a child can be too young
to learn about LGBT issues,

as if you wake up on your 16th birthday,
in a shower of glittery gayness,

and you think, "Yes! Yes, queen. I'm gay."

You don't!

It would be a lot easier.

Or in the idea that many parents have

that being LGBT is going to make
their child's life harder,

that they're not going to be able to do
everything that a straight child would.

And this can be reinforced, I think,

by the way that our community
can be ghettoized.

We're often imagined as being
geographically distinct in a gay village,

or being socially separate in a gay bar,

or technologically apart
with an app like Grindr.

I don't for a moment mean to say
that those spaces aren't important -

they absolutely are -

but what I think it can do
in the minds of some people

is perpetuate the sense
that if you are straight,

being LGBT happens apart from you

and therefore also apart
from your children.

But that's not the case.

That's what parents need to realize.

To show that, I want us
to imagine a school of 1,000 kids.

And imagine that this school
mirrors the UK population

when it comes to sexual orientation.

If that were the case,
then of those 1,000 kids,

999 will grow up in a straight household;

practically every single child.

But the issue is that whilst nearly every
child grows up in a straight household,

anywhere between 70 and 100
of those children will be LGBT.

And that number could be as high as 49%,

as surveys with 16
to 25-year-olds have found.

More and more people identify
as "other" than simply "straight."

So we have an issue.

We have a dissonance between
the sexual orientation of the parents

and the sexual orientation of the kids,

and if we don't address that from birth,

there's a danger we'd just create
more suffering and pain for young people.

Perhaps "from birth"
sounds a little bit absurd,

but it got me thinking about how old I was

when I realized I had
to be straight when I grew up.

And I wondered if perhaps
it was when I was four,

when as a balalaika playing cool dude

I'd listen to the stories
my mom would tell me

and I'd imagine myself as the dashing
prince rescuing that damsel.

Or whether or not as, well,

the most suspicious or either
miserable person in Disneyland.

I'd sneak down in the morning to watch
a James Bond video I'd saved up for,

and I'd imagine myself killing the baddies

and then seducing
that beautiful woman at the end.

Maybe that was when I knew
I should be straight.

Or maybe it was when I was 11,

when I started secondary school.

And I was worried.

I was worried because I thought people
might think I wasn't straight,

because whilst we were meant
to play rugby like a good lad,

I played the flute, which is
apparently a gay instrument,

and even worse than that, the piccolo,
which is a teeny-weeny gay instrument.

(Laughter)

But the thing is, these straight stories,

these straight role models,
straight heroes,

straight ideas of masculinity
and femininity,

when everyone is telling you
one version of an identity,

you don't need to be bullied
to think that who you are is inferior.

That story does it for you.

And in many ways,

the journey I had to learn who I was
and to love who I was

was quite similar to the journey
I'd had up to that point,

learning I should be straight.

But the difference was
I had to write this new story

over the one I'd already
learned growing up,

that being gay was wrong,

that being straight was the only option.

And that process of rewriting and erasure
can be extremely long and painful,

and that's another thing
that parents need to realize.

We're talking about a lot more
than light banter and bullying.

We know that LGBT young people

are four times more likely to attempt
suicide than their straight peers;

that 1 in 2 self-harm;

that 6 in 10 say that it affects
their schoolwork.

We also know that this is an extremely
vulnerable period for young people.

The average time between
somebody realizing that they're LGBT

and telling someone for the first time

is three and a half years.

That's three and a half years

a child is trying to fathom out
who they are on their own,

and that is a journey no child
should have to do on their own.

So when we see that LGBT young people

are disproportionately likely
to suffer from poor well-being

and are failing to realize
their potential,

how do I feel when I see
something like this?

Or when I read emails from parents
complaining about our work?

I feel angry,

I feel so angry,

and I want to say to these parents,

"Was your child ever too young
to learn about being straight?

Were they ever too young to see mom
and dad holding hands in the playground?

Ever too young to see the story
of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine?"

Because what we do now,

failing to teach young people about
LGBT issues and straight at the same time,

is not working.

But I'm also so frustrated

because there are so many amazing books,
like Olly Pike's "Prince Henry,"

Jazz Jennings' "I am Jazz,"

films like "Love, Simon,"

that introduce young people
to these issues

in a way that is totally positive.

Now, perhaps it sounds like I'm demanding
quite a lot for 10% of the population,

but what message
do we send to young people

if whilst we ask them to believe that
gender inequality is everyone's issue,

that racism is everyone's issue,

we don't also ask them all to believe

that homophobia, biphobia
and transphobia are also their issue?

We risk doing the equivalent of only
teaching racism to people of color,

or gender inequality to women.

It doesn't work, and we know that.

But parents have that power to shape
how young people discover who they are,

and that's something that we can change.

I want to end by asking you a question.

I'd like you to put your hand up

if you have an LGBT person
in your family, or if you're LGBT.

And I'd like you to keep your hand up

if you think that life for them
growing up was harder

than for their straight siblings or peers.

And for all of those of you
who have young children

or who plan to have children
in the future,

I'd like you to raise your hand
if after everything you've heard today

you would honestly prefer
your child to grow up LGBT.

I mean, why would you,
when life is going to be harder for them?

But the thing is it doesn't have to be.

We, as parents and future parents,
have this immeasurable influence

over how our young people grow up.

Yes, most LGBT young people aren't born
into their minority community,

but that doesn't mean
they have to be alone.

It is in our power to make sure
that no child grows up

conscious of some unspoken expectation
that they're straight,

or unconsciously thinking
that straight is superior.

It is in our power as parents
to make sure that every child grows up

knowing that their sexual orientation
and gender identity

is something that their parents
imagined possible,

support fully

and celebrate with pride.

We can do that.

Thank you very much.