Guest speaker educates students on gender

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Sexoligist Marilyn Volker speaks to students about gender issues in the auditorium.

On Thursday, Jan. 19th, during fifth and sixth period, sexologist Marilyn Volker visited Palmetto to speak about major gender issues and to answer questions about being transgender.

Volker taught Palmetto students about the difference between gender, sex and sexuality.

She also mentioned topics like dealing with bullying since most people–especially youth–do not choose their appearance. Volker questioned why people get bullied and at one point, she had some students stand up and tell everyone why they thought people got bullied.

“It depends on how you were raised,” senior and president of the Alliance club Dylan Barallobre said. “You may be taught what is right and what is wrong. If you’re taught that what is wrong is unacceptable, you’ll believe that.”

Students responded to her question saying that people may bully because of the way they were raised or because of a social construct already formed. Most responses went along the lines of people being bullied because they were different and people are not used to different.

“Did the momma choose [their gender]? Did the daddy choose it? Did the baby choose it? Then why should we make fun [of them]? Why do we bully?” Volker said.

The presentation began with Volker having the audience guess what each letter in LGBTQ meant. So if you didn’t know, L is for lesbian, G is for gay, B is for bisexual, T is for transgender and Q means queer or questioning. To explain how a girl can have a penis and a boy can have a vagina, Volker used biology.

“Usually someone with a vagina has a chromosome pattern of XX, but I’ve met someone with a vagina who has an XY chromosome,”  Volker said. “[Since the Y chromosome is for males] she will have a very masculine face, or she will really be a he.”

Despite the presentation mainly dealing with gender, Volker also went over some sexuality questions as well. She brought up pansexuality, since many people do not know what it means. A student was called up to the front to describe the difference between pansexuality and bisexuality. Volker described pansexuality in a single phrase: “hearts not parts.” She stated that people who are pansexual can love anybody despite their gender or their physical anatomy, while bisexual individuals are attracted to two genders.  

During the sixth period presentation Volker brought up some more students and participation from the crowd grew. To put these students in the shoes of a transgender person she asked them what their name would be if they were the opposite sex. She explained that people who are transgender have to go through this process and really think about it.

“[I really liked] her ability to tell whatever she wanted and that if someone didn’t understand something she would be able to explain it to them,” freshman Nick Marroquin said.