Gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation seem to be a touchy subject when it comes to the preschool classroom. Recently my school went through the environmental rating scales known as ITERS and ECERS. In preparation for this I printed out a variety of pictures for the classrooms such as female construction workers, male nurses, and gay and lesbian families. Some teachers came to me expressing concern with putting the pictures of gay and lesbian families on their walls. One teacher said "Cassie, most of our families are rich, white families and you know they are going to have something to say about these pictures." In response I told her that it was okay and if anyone had issues then they could come talk to me. In reality, no one complained at all and the children were really excited to see differences on their walls.
I think that homophobia and heterosexism definitely permeates the world of young children. If you walk into a toy store, such as ToysRUs, you will notice that everything is categorized with a hidden tone of gender roles. They place "girly" dress up clothes in the section with dolls and pretend cleaning toys. While they place "boyish" dress up clothes in the section with tonka trucks and nerf guns.
With regards to language, such as "sissy", "tom boy", etc., I can recall a tour that I did for a woman that came in a couple of years ago. She said that she has two girls that love to get dirty and are real tomboys and she would rather them be like other little girls who wear dresses and are seen rather than heard. I was so appalled to hear this come out of her mouth about her own children! I responded by saying that our school promoted individuality and embraced each other's differences; if she wanted a boarding school type of preschool then we were not the right fit for her.
