As a middle aged woman who grew up in an extremely faith-filled region of the Fraser Valley, I had to watch many of my friends, both “straight” (if that even exists) and LGBTQ+ have to struggle through puberty, being told that changes and urges and questions about their bodies and their personal preferences (sexually speaking) were shameful and unseemly, unnatural even.
They were afraid and/or punished and humiliated for their curiosity about their bodies and feelings those bodies generated, by stuffy backward thinking hypocrite “grown-ups” who undoubtedly had gone through their own hellish puberty. They were shame-filled because that’s what grown-ups filled their heads with.
I’m so proud that our schools are now creating an environment for children of all ages to feel safe to explore the questions that sleep in the backs of their minds, often at an early age. As puberty approaches, they go into it armed and empowered with knowledge about sex and the best way to stay safe and feel confident and included in the colourful tapestry that makes up human and even animal sexuality. Science has proven that homosexuality is prevalent in all species of life on this planet and to deny it is as unnatural as trying to indoctrinate kids into believing that this planet is only 5,000 years old.
Teenagers are going to have sex whether Barry Neufeld and his ilk like it or not.
Some kids will prefer to have sex with other kids of their same gender or kids that identify with a gender they were unfortunately not born with due to random genetic coding that started in the womb. If it makes him uncomfortable to talk about it as a supposedly educated man, then he needs to step down and make room for someone who looks to the future our children face rather then trying to shove them back into a time where the world falsely believed in two tidy little boxes with either a pink or a blue label stamped on their brains.
S. Curry
• Send your letter to the editor via email to editor@theprogress.com. Please include your first and last name, address, and phone number.
• READ MORE: Chilliwack Progress Letters