Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

I am torn between my opinion of including books dealing with sexual orientation in early childhood centers. One side of me feels that sexual orientation is a natural occurrence that most children that young have not considered and that including books like that would only confuse them more. On the other hand, there are many children who live in homes that may have two moms or two dads. Because of this, I think that it is important to educate all children about society and how families come in different ways. Including books like this will also help a child who live in a homosexual household. They will feel accepted and not different because of the sexual orientation of their parents. I compare this also to children who come from single parent homes. These children are embraced and this type of family unit is taught in early childhood curriculum.; therefore families that have two moms/dad should be shown as a type of family in today's society. 

I have experienced a situation in which an adult called a small child "gay." This irritated me and I automatically went into defense mode for the child. I asked the adult what made him say these things and how he would have felt if he was in that child's position. The things that the child was doing were inappropriate (playing with baby dolls, putting on girl jewelry, and women shoes) for a little boy; but instead of insulting him with name calling, I told the adult that it would be more effective to tell him/teach him  what little boys should do. I think that this situation itself did not effect the young boy because he had no idea what "gay" meant. From that point on, I began to teach gender specific things such as women wear high heels, and little girls wear costume jewelry.