If culture is changing, so should the rules

For the past 17 years that I’ve been alive and American, I’ve noticed that our society has become increasingly more talented at sweeping certain topics under the rug. When we feel uncomfortable with something, whether it be race, gay marriage, gender equality, or any type of pressing social issue of that nature, we tend to just push it aside until activists take over and start a movement. In the past 20 years, our society has made leaps and bounds in the area of LGBTQ rights. With a total of 37 states with legal gay marriage, and the conversation about trans/queer-gender rights growing each day, it’s truly an amazing time to be alive.However, what America is now pushing under the carpet is something a little less obvious, and has a less conspicuous solution. This is the fact that, currently, our society’s  gender and sexuality ‘norm’ is still considered a straight, cisgender person who follows the gender binary and does not acknowledge the fluidity of sexuality or gender. Now, here’s the deal: I’m not going to be that gay kid ranting and raving in the school paper about how we have so much further to go until we achieve full human equality, however I do believe some questions need to be asked in order to bring some focus and clarity to an otherwise murky situation.To bring this issue back to hometown Santa Monica, I’d like to start with a personal anecdote. Samo’s award winning choral program is currently planning their tour across Europe for Spring break this year. When it came time to choose roommates, my female friend and I decided it was worth a shot to ask to room together, seeing as I was gay and the whole “getting her pregnant” thing was not going to be an issue. However, when we appealed to the district with our request, we were shot down with an immediate “no” response.Here’s why I take offense to this: If the only reason genders are kept separate in rooming is for the prevention of sexual intercorse, they are completely disregarding any gay or lesbian students that may also be on this trip. Separating the genders does not stop intercourse between a lesbian girl who decides to room with her girlfriend who happens to be going on the same trip. Same goes for the gay male who rooms with his boyfriend. Why should students be forced into these separate gender living quarters when not all students fit into the category of gay and straight? What happens when a student doesn’t fit into the category of boy or girl? I’m not saying that I have the answers, all I’m saying is that this system is simply outdated, and without a proper explanation, a hard and fast “no” from our school district is not a good enough response for me.To me, this is an example of what I like to call “Unintentional Homo/Transphobia.” Santa Monica as a community has proven to be an extremely progressive and understanding city with very few cases of outward homo/transphobia. In a progressive society, we’re still abiding by outdated traditionalist values. And even though it may be done implicitly and inadvertently, it’s still happening, it’s still unacceptable, and it needs to be addressed. For example, in the single week of sexual education that Samo provides for freshman students, the only kind of sexual intercorse discussed is straight sex. During my short-lived sexual education seminar freshman year, not once do I remember the teacher dropping safety tips for  gay or lesbian sexual intercourse. Once again, our students are being taught to believe that straight is the norm, and anything else is a “special case”, not even worth mentioning or acknowledgement.Although Samo may not be intending to come off as homo/transphobic, things like the roommate incident and our monosexual sex-ed classes give off an aura of “half-assed equality.”  We cannot revert back to our under-the-carpet-pushing-ways and sweep this one aside. If we truly want to see progression in the world of sexuality and gender equality, we can’t be afraid to talk about things like sex in ALL of its forms, and seeing as that we’ve come this far, why not keep on pushing until every student and citizen can feel completely comfortable in their skin?