I'm going to tell a little story this morning that features my 4-year-old self --- although I was 5 when the image at left was taken, a queer kid with a Mona Lisa smile and a primary student at Dry Flat country school.
The story seems timely in light of the feeding frenzy engaged in this session by Iowa's governor and Republican-controlled Legislature: Approximately 30 pieces of LGBTQ+ related legislation targeting educators, queer children and their parents and queer adults.
Gov. Reynolds is expected to sign very soon a law banning gender-affirming healthcare for young people under 18. Another proposal percolating through the system would bar public schools from sharing information about sexual orientation and gender identity with students in grades K-6.
All of the legislation is predicated on GOP and fundamentalist Christian assertions that sexual orientation is a matter of choice and gender dysphoria an illusion; that if information is withheld from youngsters, all will emerge triumphantly heterosexual.
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Queer folk are asked quite often --- "When did you know?" And my answer is, "When I was 4" --- the summer of 1950. I remember this all with great clarity and can date it because we moved from the farm where we lived at the time to the farm where I grew up later that year --- just in time for Christmas. I started school the following September.
My dad had hired two young men --- probably high school students --- to put up hay for him on the 4th of July 1950 and I was utterly transfixed by those bare-chested beauties (I came from a notably modest family where skin was rarely bared). We dropped them off at their homes that evening while heading into Chariton to visit the carnival and view the fireworks at Yocom Park. I've never forgotten that.
Also that summer, a friend of my parents was injured in an accident of some sort and landed flat on his back with among other wounds a broken arm at Yocom Hospital. We visited. Another bare chest; another fascinated kid.
Now this doesn't seem like much and of course I didn't have the language or knowledge to put any of this into context, but there was no doubt after that about what my interests were and already I knew enough to keep those interests to myself.
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As prepubescence rolled onward toward puberty, two other little boys and I recognized each other for what we were and --- faced by a complete lack of adult input or general public knowledge --- took on the task of figuring things out for ourselves.
We got the gay part right --- but miscalculated badly (and hilariously sometimes) while speculating about how heterosexualism worked.
Of course we knew enough to shield adults from our research and keep our findings to ourselves --- for many years, actually.
One of my little friends grew up and after returning home from Vietnam moved to a major city, came out, lived fully and died as the result of AIDS --- many years ago now.
The other moved far away from Lucas County, too, but remained steadfastly in the closet. He dropped dead of a heart attack some years later.
And here I am, on a course midway between these two.
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The point of this little exercises is --- Kiddos aren't equipped to make mature decisions on their own in many instances, but they are self-aware, curious, interested, watching you for cues and, if questions are not answered, will conduct their own research. They may or may not share their conclusions with you.
A rather small share of the youngsters out there are queer; a smaller share of those queer kids, transgender.
No amount of legislation can change that. Making sure accurate information is available at home and in school is one way to help launch those who do not conform to the heterosexual norm toward productive lives.
My little buddies and I were (and are) damaged goods in large part because of the times in which we lived. And then AIDS claimed a substantial share of the gay men of my generation.
But things have gotten better. It is disheartening, however, to see the same old lies and the same old magic thinking lifted up in legislatures across America --- including Iowa's.
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