Everyone from a certain generation remembers the hippie-ish Marlo Thomas anthem, Free to be... You and Me.
The song preached that it's acceptable to refute gender stereotypes.
The headlines speak for themselves.
Almost every week, there is a report about a young person committing suicide, being beaten up or being bullied for his or her sexual preference.
We should all go into our attics and find our vinyl copy and give the Thomas record another spin.
One day of the year, school kids are encouraged to wear pink and teachers are on watch to help kids whenever they can. The campaign gets better and is out there for all to see but it's still not enough.
Because 12 year olds are still hanging themselves.
Most people remember, sometime in Grade 6 or 7, when it was learn how to put a condom on a banana day, or as the adults would call it, sex education.
Homeroom teachers would separate the class by gender (because why would boys want to learn about girls and vice-versa), and the uncomfortable teacher would go through the paces of the basics of what can be expected, up to and including infections, menstrual cycles for girls and embarrassing rites of passage boys go through.
But again - that's not enough.
Because those uncomfortable teachers are now teaching abstinence as sex education. Abstinence between boys and girls, of course.
Not boys and boys, or girls and girls and certainly not transgendered.
This idea, that schools should only be catering to the majority of students is doing nothing more than pushing the other kids even further into obscurity, as if going through puberty and being a teenager isn't frightening enough.
There's also a series of classes called life skills, or something along those lines, involving learning how to sew, cook and sometimes auto mechanics or woodworking. When was the last time anyone needed to use a lathe? Having a dinner party and you realized you don't have any candle holders - thank god for life skills class.
Instead, couldn't the current school curriculum take the time to discuss, in detail, what it means to be gay, bisexual or transgendered? Aren't our kids owed the knowledge of the full gamut?
The fear is that teaching sex in school will only promote young people to have sex.
Whether that fear is valid or not, the alternatives aren't much better.
Kids are now having to rely on their friends, books or the Internet to learn about the ins-and-outs of sex.
And for all of it's wonders, the Internet doesn't answer questions about sex, it sells sex.
Just because a teacher doesn't mention homosexuality in the awkward sex education class, doesn't erase the fact there likely is a kid who is trying to figure out what is wrong with him, because he can't relate to what happens when a boy and girl like each other.
The rainbow coloured elephant still exists and in order for it to get better, we as a society have to make it better and let all kids be free to be who they are.
- Associated news editor, Ashley MacDonald
