Teaching Sexuality to Kids

In an age where individualism is celebrated and different expressions of gender are slowly but surely reaching a place of acceptance, conversations like the talk on sexuality by Lindsay Amer -- a queer media content creator, are important to have.

The speaker is the mind behind 'Queer Kid Stuff' -- an LGBTQ+-centric web series that is promoting education, social justice and freedom of expression. Lindsay begins their talk on sexuality with the theme songs for their videos and their speech is infused with a level of whimsicality that quickly turns grim when they share truthful statistic about LGBTQ+ teens.

Lindsay Amer advocates that it is exceptionally important to educate youth about sexuality, gender, and its different expressions early on to increase the chances of children becoming "kind, empathetic, self-confident adults." Here, diversity is exceptionally important. And when met with oppositions of the sort of 'Let kids be kids,' Lindsay shares a very true sentiment -- the fact that this can only be said ethically when it includes all kids. Here, the talk on sexuality takes a gruesome turn as Lindsay calls attention to some troubling statistics -- a seven-year-old in Denver, Colorado committing suicide due to bullying because he was gay; the fact that lesbian, gay and bisexual teens are three times more likely to commit suicide; that 80% of killings of trans people in the US -- 128 in total for 2013, have been of trans women of color. Bringing these facts to the attention of the audience, Lindsay Amer highlights the importance of accessibility to queer media for kids and the support it can offer to youth that is in the process of finding themselves.