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Defining LGBTQ+ Words for Elementary School Students from Welcoming Schools

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Defining LGBTQ+ Words for Elementary School Students from Welcoming Schools

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When children ask questions about LGBTQ+ words, it is often best to offer simple and direct answers. You might choose to answer a student's question with another question to figure out what they are really asking -- is it about name-calling, a classmate's two dads or something they saw on the internet. Listening first helps you respond.

Here are a few items to keep in mind when defining terms for children:

Use examples to help children understand definitions.

Questions about LGBTQ+ words can provide teachable moments on topics like understanding difference and treating people with respect.

If a student uses an LGBTQ+ term in a derogatory way, ask them if they know what it means. If they don't, give a short definition and explain how using an identity as a slur is mean and emphasize that the word is not a bad word.

The following list can serve as a starting place for educators to respond to questions about LGBTQ+ words. These suggested definitions can help to ensure that you feel confident in your own knowledge and ability to communicate these ideas to students. Use your own expertise to modify definitions based upon the age of your students.

Gender

Cisgender: When your gender identity (how you feel) is the same as what doctors/midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy or sex assigned at birth).

Gender Binary: A way of seeing gender as two distinct and opposite groups-girl and boy. This idea doesn't include all the ways we can have a gender identity and express our gender.

Gender Expansive: Some people feel that the traditional ways of being a "boy" or "girl" do not fit for them. They live their lives showing that there are many ways to be a girl, boy, both or neither.

Gender Expression: People express themselves in many ways, such as through clothes or hairstyles. Sometimes people think that these things go with certain genders, but really you cannot guess someone's gender or pronouns from how they look. In our school we respect that every person is unique and different, and we don't tease or bully anyone about their personal expression.

Gender Identity: How you feel. Girl, boy, both or neither. Everyone has a gender identity.

Intersex: An umbrella term that refers to people who are born with bodies that are naturally different from what is traditionally considered female or male. (This occurs in about 2% of babies born, similar to the percentage for redheads.)

Non-Binary: People who do not feel like the words "girl" or "boy" fits. They may feel like both or neither. They sometimes use pronouns such as they, them, theirs.

Sex Assigned At Birth: When a baby is born, a doctor or midwife looks at the baby's body/anatomy and says they are a boy, girl or intersex.

Transgender or Trans: When your gender identity (how you feel) is different than what doctors/midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy or sex assigned at birth).

Who You Love

Bisexual: People who love people of more than one gender. [In grades 3 - 5, you might say people who love or are attracted to people of more than one gender.]

Gay: People who love people of the same gender. [In grades 3 - 5, you might say people who love or are attracted to people of the same gender.]

Heterosexual: People who identify as women who only love [or are attracted to] people who identify as men. Also, people who identify as men who only love [or are attracted to] people who identify as women.

Lesbian: People who love people of the same gender. Two women. [In grades 3 - 5, you might say people who love or are attracted to people of the same gender.]

Pansexual: People who love people of any gender. [In grades 3 - 5, you might say people who love or are attracted to people of any gender.]

Sexual Orientation: Who you love. [In grades 3 - 5, you might say who you love or are attracted to.]

Gender and Who You Love

LGBTQ+: Acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer people plus community members who use different language to describe identity.

Queer: People use this word as a way to identify with and celebrate people of all gender identities and all the ways people love each other. When used in a mean way, it is a word that hurts.

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When children ask about LGBTQ+ words, it is often best to offer simple and direct answers. Here are some possible responses and ideas to keep in mind when defining terms for children.

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Dolls and Trucks Are for Everyone by Robb Pearlman

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Dolls and Trucks Are for Everyone by Robb Pearlman

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225 Michigan Ave, Suite 1300
Chicago, IL 60601
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Our free consulting services help you prepare for censorship and implement vital intellectual freedom best practices within your library or school. We create and edit policies, strategize plans for working with communities and families, and provide workshops and programs about the First Amendment, privacy laws, internet filtering, and intellectual freedom.

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Subject matter experts from the Office for Intellectual Freedom are available to speak at workshops and professional development sessions on topics such as collection development, professional ethics, and law and policy concerning intellectual freedom, censorship, privacy, internet filtering, the First Amendment and more.

We host webinars to educate librarians and the public about the nature and importance of intellectual freedom. Our webinars are recorded. After the live event, many of the recordings are accessible at the OIF YouTube channel.

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Banned Books Week in the fall draws attention to the harms of censorship and the benefits of unrestricted reading.

With a diverse group of librarians and writers, OIF publishes an engaging Intellectual Freedom Blog with a huge selection of topics and viewpoints. Every Friday, OIF News Editors, publish a free weekly compilation of news about censorship cases, and articles about privacy, internet filtering, academic freedom and the First Amendment. Anyone can subscribe to receive the Intellectual Freedom News in their email inbox on Fridays.

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Sharice's big voice : a native kid becomes a congresswoman by Sharice Davids

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Sharice's big voice : a native kid becomes a congresswoman by Sharice Davids

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If you're a kid like Gavin : the true story of a young trans activist by Gavin Grimm and Kyle Lukoff

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If you're a kid like Gavin : the true story of a young trans activist by Gavin Grimm and Kyle Lukoff

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Notable native people : 50 indigenous leaders, dreamers, and changemakers from past and present by Adrienne Keene

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Notable native people : 50 indigenous leaders, dreamers, and changemakers from past and present by Adrienne Keene

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Rainbow revolutionaries : 50 LGBTQ+ people who made history by Sarah Prager

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Rainbow revolutionaries : 50 LGBTQ+ people who made history by Sarah Prager

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Kind like Marsha : learning from LGBTQ+ leaders by Sarah Prager

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Kind like Marsha : learning from LGBTQ+ leaders by Sarah Prager

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People of Pride: 25 Great LGBTQ Americans by Chase Clemesha, MD

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People of Pride: 25 Great LGBTQ Americans by Chase Clemesha, MD

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What do you do with a voice like that? by Chris Barton

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What do you do with a voice like that? by Chris Barton

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Were I not a girl : the inspiring and story of Dr. James Barry by Lisa Robinson

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Were I not a girl : the inspiring and story of Dr. James Barry by Lisa Robinson

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Sewing the rainbow : the story of Gilbert Baker and the rainbow flag by Gayle E. Pitman

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Sewing the rainbow : the story of Gilbert Baker and the rainbow flag by Gayle E. Pitman

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Maiden & Princess by Daniel Haack and Isabel Galupo

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Maiden & Princess by Daniel Haack and Isabel Galupo

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The Civil War of Amos Abernathy by Michael Leali

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The Civil War of Amos Abernathy by Michael Leali

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Ivy Aberdeen's letter to the world by Ashley Herring Blake

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Ivy Aberdeen's letter to the world by Ashley Herring Blake

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Mama and Mommy and me in the middle by Nina LaCour

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Mama and Mommy and me in the middle by Nina LaCour

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Love Without Bounds: An IntersectionAllies Book About Families by Drs. Chelsea Johnson, LaToya Council, and Carolyn Choi

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Love Without Bounds: An IntersectionAllies Book About Families by Drs. Chelsea Johnson, LaToya Council, and Carolyn Choi

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True you : A gender journey by Gwen Agna and Shelley Rotner

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True you : A gender journey by Gwen Agna and Shelley Rotner

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Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer, and Joe Wilson

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Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer, and Joe Wilson

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When Aidan Became a Brother by Kyle Lukoff

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When Aidan Became a Brother by Kyle Lukoff

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'Twas the night before Pride by Joanna McClintick

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'Twas the night before Pride by Joanna McClintick

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Miss Rita, mystery reader by Sam Donovan

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Miss Rita, mystery reader by Sam Donovan

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Representation: Use these questions to help you review, analyze, and select books with LGBTQIA+ content.

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Representation: Use these questions to help you review, analyze, and select books with LGBTQIA+ content.

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1. Where is the Joy?

2. Are the main characters Queer?

3. How are the Queer characters powerful, visible, and JOYFUL?

4. Is there only one self-identified or out Queer person? Why?

5. Do the books promote single stories of LGBTQIA+ people?

6. Do the books center pain or the Queer identity as the main or only conflict?

7. Were they written and/or illustrated by LGBTQIA+ creators?

8. Do they include incidental representation of Queer people?

9. Do the Queer characters represent different ethnic, faith, gender, and language groups? How is intersectionality present?

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These 8 categories help us explore, understand, find, promote and teach LGBTQIA+ books. The categories also help us avoid single stories, affirm intersectionality, and diversify representation.

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These 8 categories help us explore, understand, find, promote and teach LGBTQIA+ books. The categories also help us avoid single stories, affirm intersectionality, and diversify representation.

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1. Biographies with Named Queer Identity

2. Crush & Romance

3. Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Gender Roles

4. LGBTQIA+ Characters

5. Rainbow Families

6. Nonfiction: Informational SEL/EDIJB (Social-Emotional Learning and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Justice and Belonging)

7. Pride

8. Incidental Queer Representation (Representation that is not named or written in the text.)

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The ghostly guest (Batcat vol. 1) by Meggie Ramm

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The ghostly guest (Batcat vol. 1) by Meggie Ramm

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Aaron Slater, illustrator by Andrea Beaty

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Aaron Slater, illustrator by Andrea Beaty

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1. Understand your mission statements and policies and refer to them in response to challenges.

2. Confirm support and allyship from your direct supervisors and Head of School.

3. Listen to yourselves, your students, your families, and your colleagues.

4. Use first person, plural pronouns, "we, us, ours," when referring to your diverse LGBTQIA+ community.

5. Read more books by self-identified Queer authors and illustrators. Follow the ALA Stonewall Book Awards & the Lammys.

6. Add the books to your classroom libraries.

7. Use them as READ ALOUDs and mentor texts.

8. Add the books to your summer reading lists.

9. Offer a variety of windows and mirrors. Seek and affirm intersectionality.

10. Dismantle gendered organization of your collections. Decolonize.

11. Do not place visible labels on LGBTQIA+ books.

12. In your online catalog, use lists, subject headings, and tags.

13. Collaborate with allies, co-conspirators and advocates.

14. Start, facilitate or advocate for a GSA.

15. Work to become more confident and humble as you learn and resist.

16. Stay current with language, scholarship, and book reviews.

17. Center JOY!

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Gender Identity for Kids: A Book About Finding Yourself, Understanding Others, and Respecting Everybody! by Andy Passchier

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Gender Identity for Kids: A Book About Finding Yourself, Understanding Others, and Respecting Everybody! by Andy Passchier

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"Thank you to Miley Cyrus and Happy Hippie Foundation for generously donating to our organization! We are grateful for your support and your donation will help us send LGBTQ-inclusive books to elementary school classrooms across the US and Canada!"

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At Pride and Less Prejudice (PLP), our mission is to foster inclusive classrooms by providing age-appropriate LGBTQ-inclusive books to preschool - third grade classrooms.

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Family Equality - Advancing Equality for LGBTQ Families

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Family Equality's mission is to advance legal and lived equality for LGBTQ+ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change.

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Our online groups and events, and other resources for

gender expansive youth and families during the time of Covid-19.

Gender Spectrum has years of experience in creating safe, successful online spaces

for adults and young people. If your organization is doing more work online, we can help.
Online Consulting
Gender Spectrum hosts online groups for pre-teens,

teens, parents, caregivers, and other family members.
View All Groups

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Gender Spectrum Homepage - Gender Spectrum

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Our online groups and events, and other resources for gender expansive youth and families during the time of Covid-19. Gender Spectrum has years of experience in creating safe, successful online spaces for adults and young people. If your organization is doing more work online, we can help.

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GLSEN Safe Space Kit: Solidarity with LGBTQ+ Youth

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You can download the contents from the Documents section on this page. Please feel free to print your own copies and distribute them. We appreciate your commitment to creating safe spaces for LGBTQ youth in schools.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:

Proudly sponsored by Write About and Peergrade

Depending on where you live, you might think we've reached a point where society has truly embraced people of all gender and sexual identities, making the topic of LGBTQ rights kind of a non-issue. The truth is, for many LGBTQ students, discrimination and harassment are still a daily reality, and school is one of the main places where they experience these things.

A 2015 national school climate study conducted by GLSEN, an organization focused on ensuring safe and affirming schools for LGBTQ students, found that over 85 percent of these students have experienced verbal harassment and 66 percent have been discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As a result of feeling more isolated and unsafe, many of these students miss school, avoid bathrooms, and stay away from locker rooms. Students who experience more victimization are also more likely to have lower GPAs and to report feeling depressed.

And it's not just other students who create this hostile climate for their LGBTQ peers. Over half of the more than 10,000 students surveyed reported hearing biased remarks from school staff, and school staff often fail to intervene when they hear these remarks at school.

The good news? Overall, the number of students who report being harassed or discriminated against is declining. The climate is improving across the board, but for many students, it's not happening fast enough.

What Teachers Can Do

As educators, we set the tone for how our students treat each other. No, we can't control everything, but we can do a lot to influence the climate in our schools and make sure our classrooms are places where all students feel welcome.

The best place to learn more about the specific things you can do is on GLSEN's website, and I've posted two of their best resources for teachers below, but to get you started, I've pulled some of the most important steps teachers can take. I also interviewed Becca Mui, GLSEN's Education Manager, to contribute her insights to the podcast.

These tips, pulled from resources created by GLSEN and my interview with Mui, will give you a good start toward making your school safer and more welcoming for LGBTQ students.

1. Educate Yourself

If you do not personally identify as LGBTQ or spend time in that community, you'll be a much more effective ally if you commit to listening and learning about the issues. "A huge portion of support is staying educated," Mui says, "so things like listening to podcasts or just reading some blogs about LGBTQ people and continually learning about that can help you become an ally and an advocate in your school."

Making an effort to use whatever terminology is currently embraced by the LGBTQ community is another important way to show respect.

"It's always helpful to have a shared language when you're talking about identity," Mui explains. "One of the things that is tricky about LGBTQ and trans identities when people are not part of those communities is that that language is changing, specifically the language we're using to talk about gender."

This is a challenge even for people within the LGBTQ community. "It is literally my job to be connected, to be supportive, to know what's going on," Mui says, "and I'm constantly finding out that something's been updated, something's been changed." She recommends viewing language as an always evolving process. "Having the attitude that we use the language we have and we are open to learning that something's been updated can be really useful."

With that in mind, let's start here by looking at the acronym LGBTQ:
L = Lesbian G = Gay
B = Bisexual
a person who is attracted to two genders, or people with your gender and other genders Q = Queer
also an umbrella term to describe sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression that doesn't conform to heteronormativity a male-identified person who's emotionally or physically attracted to other males
a person who is female-identified who is emotionally or physically attracted to other females
In some spaces, the term "gay" is used as a general term to describe the LGBTQ population as a whole, but GLSEN is trying to move toward language that's more inclusive, rather than placing gay men at the center.

T = Transgender (or "trans")
an umbrella term for people whose gender identity doesn't match the sex they were assigned at birth

The opposite of transgender is cisgender (abbreviated as "cis"), someone whose gender identity is aligned with the one they were assigned at birth.

"Historically, (this term) was used as a slur," Mui says, "but there is a power in re-claimed words, and we find that across different types of marginalized identities, the power to take a word that has been used negatively and say, 'This is mine' that a lot of young LGBTQ people are feeling."

Another term that comes up frequently in discussions of LGBTQ issues is heteronormativity, which is defined by the Queer Dictionary as the belief or assumption that all people are heterosexual, or that heterosexuality is the default or "normal" state of human being. In our schools and our society at large, we often come from a heteronormative place, speaking of the LGBTQ population as the "other," which communicates to our LGBTQ students that they are deviant or unnatural. We'll talk more about that a little bit later.

To learn more about terminology and other important issues, download GLSEN's Safe Space Kit below.

GLSEN Safe Space Kit
A Guide to Supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Students in Your School

2. Check Your Biases

As with any kind of advocacy, it's crucial to understand your own background and biases. "All of us, LGBT and non-LGBT, have learned messages about LGBT people," reads a passage from the Safe Space Kit. "What were the earliest messages you received about LGBT people and where did they come from? Were they positive, negative or neutral? Understanding the messages we receive can help us identify our own beliefs and biases that we can then challenge, helping to make us stronger allies."

The GLSEN Safe Space Kit provides a "Check Yourself" exercise that will help you take a close look at your own underlying beliefs.

3. Teach Inclusively

The things we teach and how we teach them can send important messages to our students about whether or not they are valued as they are. "So much of our language is gendered in ways that we're not really thoughtful of," Mui explains. "Just saying, 'Boys and girls,' and not really thinking about who we're saying that to, or addressing the compliments that we're giving to students, really thinking about how are we using language, how are we making space in our language for students to identify and be whoever and however they want is a really important step."

Here are some things you can do to make sure you're nurturing your LGBTQ students in your instruction:

Include a variety of gender representations.
When students are presented with a narrow picture of gender roles-and they don't see themselves in any of them-they develop a sense early on that something is wrong with them. GLSEN's Ready, Set, Respect! toolkit for elementary teachers (link below) encourages teachers to make sure that classroom books and materials include diverse families and people whose careers and other life roles don't conform to gender stereotypes.

Group neutrally.
Out of habit, teachers will often divide students into "boy" and "girl" groups. This can make students who don't conform to gender-based stereotypes feel uncomfortable and isolated. The Ready, Set, Respect! toolkit recommends that instead, we divide students more neutrally by birthday month or by numbering them as 1s and 2s.

Evaluate your speech and materials for heteronormative and gender-normative bias.
In casual conversation, in the examples we use while teaching, and in our materials, we often communicate assumptions about gender and sexuality: Boys are attracted to and will grow up to marry girls (and vice-versa), girls will naturally prefer activities like shopping while boys will naturally be interested in athletics, and so on. All of these send the message that there is only one way to be "normal" and that students who don't fit these descriptions are abnormal. As you talk, teach, and look at your materials, ask yourself whether you're communicating these messages, and find ways to replace them with more inclusive examples.

Include positive representations of LGBTQ people in your curriculum.
"Whatever curriculum that is," Mui says, "there are usually people involved in that, whether that's the people you're listing in a math problem or the histories that you're teaching in a history class, there are ways to bring about diversity. Integrating that into your learning helps all of your students to learn more about the world and it helps LGBTQ students see themselves in their learning." GLSEN has resources on LGBTQ history that can help with this. As with all resources, teachers should preview these material before offering them to students. GLSEN serves K-12 students, and you will know best which activities and lessons will meet your students' needs. When sharing facts about LGBTQ history, it's important for educators to balance a positive influence and celebration of icons and leaders while not hiding the truth behind historically important events.

Ready, Set, Respect!
GLSEN's Elementary School Toolkit

4. Be Visible

Let your LGBTQ students know that you are an ally by displaying some visible sign of your support. Hanging a rainbow flag or a Safe Space Poster or Sticker in your classroom can accomplish this. GLSEN's Safe Space Kit points out that this kind of visibility affects students more than we might even realize. "Even if students don't come to you directly, the kit says, "research shows that just knowing that there is a supportive educator at school can help LGBT students feel better about being in school."

5. Respond to Anti-LGBTQ Behavior

When students experience harassment in your presence, take action. Simply saying something like "That language is unacceptable," is enough to acknowledge the act and stop it. The Safe Space Kit includes more detailed information on turning incidents like these into teachable moments and how to respond in more specific situations, like when a student says "That's so gay." But the most important thing to remember is to not ignore it. "Remember," says the Safe Space Kit, "no action is an action - if an incident is overlooked or not addressed it can imply acceptance and approval."

6. Support Students Who Come Out

As you make yourself more visible as an ally, students may be more likely to come out to you about their sexual orientation or gender identity. This important and sensitive conversation needs to be handled carefully, and the Safe Space Kit offers detailed advice for teachers.

Their most important advice is to listen. Instead of assuming that you know what the student needs or that their situation will be similar to that of other LGBTQ people you have known, treat each student as an individual and just let them talk. Ask them what they need and how you can help. You can give GLSEN's new Coming Out Resource to students who are thinking of sharing this part of their identity. It may be useful to let students know about hotlines they can call to get out-of-school support. The LGBT National Help Center at glbthotline.org has a collection of numbers that can help.

Remember that this student is trusting you with confidential information that you should not share until they are ready. To be on the safe side, talk to your administrator and guidance counselor about what your school policy says about confidentiality. If it doesn't go far enough to protect the rights of students, work to change that. Policies regarding confidentiality should also take gender identity into account. GLSEN provides guidelines for these considerations in its Transgender Model District Policy: "It is critical that parental/guardian approval is never a prerequisite for respecting a student's chosen name, appropriate gender, and pronouns... Staff should take guidance from and work collaboratively with the student to ensure that the student remains safe, both at school and at home."

7. Support a Student GSA

GLSEN's research has shown that the existence of a student GSA, or Gender Sexuality Alliance, can go a long way toward improving a school's climate for LGBTQ students. "Those need to be started by students," Mui explains, "but asking students if that's something they want support around" can be a good place to start. A GSA will also need a faculty advisor, so offering your services in that way can make a GSA a reality in your school.

8. Revisit Your School Policies

Making sure that your school's anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies include language specific to sexual orientation and gender identity can also improve your school's climate, and GLSEN's research has found these types of policies to have significant impact on quality of life for LGBTQ students. Part of your work as an advocate is looking into these policies and working toward real change. Use GLSEN's Model Policies as a reference: www.glsen.org/modelpolicies.

9. Educate Your Colleagues

Apart from being more vocal and open with your own support for LGBTQ students, you can also conduct your own workshops for colleagues. The Safe Space Kit includes a sample 20-minute presentation teachers can give to school staff. GLSEN also offers in-person professional development. "We are a national organization, but we also have 40 local chapters which are amazingly volunteer-run by humans who are really dedicated and fantastic in this work," Mui says. "They're doing this work on the ground, and so we support them here from the national office with resources." Click here to view a map of local GLSEN chapters.

All of these actions will send a message of love and acceptance to your LGBTQ students-those you know about, and especially those you don't. Committing yourself to taking even a few of these steps can make such an incredible difference, impacting students' mental health, their safety, their academic success, and their overall quality of life. It just takes one person to start tipping the scales, to start moving a school culture in a more inclusive direction; I very much hope, for the sake of the students who need you, that you'll be that person. ♥

ONE MORE RESOURCE: LGBTQ+ youth face more than double the risk of experiencing homelessness compared to their nonqueer-identifying peers. In the last decade, many organizations have formed to help these young adults and children, providing support and resources so they can have somewhere safe and stable to live. To address this issue, Architectural Digest Reviews created this guide to housing assistance for LGBTQ+ youth.

There's more where this came from.
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Making School a Safe Place for LGBTQ Students

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Discrimination and harassment are still a daily reality for many LGBTQ students. Here are some things teachers can do to change that.

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trans and queer youth uniting for racial and gender justice

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We're so glad you found us! PFLAG is the nation's largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.

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*Note: We can offer any of our workshops online via Zoom. You and your organization or institution can also travel to Maine, and we can conduct our workshops in person .
EDUCATIONAL WORKSHOPS

Transgender 101 for Schools, Professionals, Businesses, etc. Designed to meet your needs.

Contact TYEF offices at 207-478-4087or email contact@transyouthequality.org
TRANSGENDER CAMP FOR YOUTH. START ONE!
After over a decade of holding our popular trans youth camps, we are available for any person or organization to train you from A-Z to start a camp or retreat near you. More camp experiences are needed. Ask us about this.

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The Trans Youth Equality Foundation is a national 501(c)(3) non profit foundation that advocates for transgender, non binary, gender non-conforming, and intersex youth ages 2-18.

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It is important to be intentional about the way we use pronouns so we can create an affirming, inclusive environment for everyone. Check out the new Welcoming Schools Pronouns 101 resource for information on what a pronoun is, why pronouns matter and pronoun etiquette tips!

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Welcoming Schools - Gender and LGBTQ+ Inclusive Schools

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Comprehensive bias-based bullying prevention program providing LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive professional development training and resources.

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We are two U.S. public elementary school teachers. We have 17 years of teaching experience between us. We've hosted professional development for teachers, presented at conferences, consulted, and have spent several years creating our own gender inclusive content.

Kieran (left) teaches fifth grade and is transgender and white. He uses the pronouns he/him.

Katy (right) teaches second grade and is cisgender and white. She uses the pronouns she/her.

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Gender Inclusive Classrooms | Genderinclassrooms | United States

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Gender Inclusive Classrooms is a website created by teachers for teachers. Find kid-friendly definitions, book recommendations, inclusive curriculum including free lesson plans, stories from real teachers, links to resources, blog posts and more. www.genderinclassrooms.com

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GLAAD | GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance.

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GLAAD is a non-profit LGBTQ advocacy organization focused on cultural change to ensure fair, accurate, and inclusive representation to advance LGBTQ acceptance.

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Your support and contributions will enable us to meet our goals and improve conditions. Your generous donation will fund our mission. Our donations may sometimes need to be routed through our parent 501c3 non-profit organization, Red Light Resources International/RLRI but rest assured all donations will go directly to the Parasol Patrol.

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Your support and contributions will enable us to meet our goals and improve conditions. Your generous donation will fund our mission. Our donations may sometimes need to be routed through our parent 501c3 non-profit organization, Red Light Resources International/RLRI but rest assured all donations will go directly to the Parasol Patrol.

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TRUTH OF NATURE.
In Nature we find exuberant reflection of abundant body and gender diversity. The truth of Nature shows us that body and gender diversity are normal, necessary, and valuable to the whole.

ACCURATE CONTEXT.
Understanding the origins, tools and impact of Patriarchy makes it easier to see its overlay onto Nature and its bully framework. Accurate context helps preempt an individual from internalizing and/or perpetuating the oppression.

WHOLE & INTERCONNECTED.
The whole self is never isolated or divided and is always nested in full community with other whole selves. With a whole and interconnected self, an individual's position and inherent value is always understood in relation to all of humanity.

COMMUNITY EQUITY.
Pronoun Protocol takes the risk and responsibility off of gender nonconforming people, especially kids. The responsibility to interrupt stereotypes and assumptions is distributed equally between all bodies and genders.

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TRUTH OF NATURE. In Nature we find exuberant reflection of abundant body and gender diversity. The truth of Nature shows us that body and gender diversity are normal, necessary, and valuable to the whole. ACCURATE CONTEXT. Understanding the origins, tools and impact of Patriarchy makes it easier to see its overlay onto Nature and its bully framework.

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"Thank you to Miley Cyrus and Happy Hippie Foundation for generously donating to our organization! We are grateful for your support and your donation will help us send LGBTQ-inclusive books to elementary school classrooms across the US and Canada!"

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At Pride and Less Prejudice (PLP), our mission is to foster inclusive classrooms by providing age-appropriate LGBTQ-inclusive books to preschool - third grade classrooms.

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American Library Association (ALA) Book Riot Censorship Coverage - Book Riot's coverage of censorship is comprehensive and covers a wide range of topics, along with book news roundups which include new and continuing trends in book challenges.

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Today on the site, I'm welcoming Chrissy Holm, author of the new memoir Finding Sunlight, to discuss find herself and her bisexuality after being raised in purity culture. Here's a little more on the book:

In the inspirational coming-of-age memoir Finding Sunlight (Wise Ink, September 2023), Chrissy Holm separates the pressures of purity culture from all the possibilities of meaningful love. Homeschooled at church and raised by a devout father, Chrissy suppressed her bisexuality and followed all the teachings of purity culture. But when she turned sixteen, her parent's divorce flipped the script. Devastated and unsure of her values, Chrissy embarked on a long journey, often making mistakes, until she figured out just exactly who she is and what she believes in. Raw and hopeful, this liberating memoir is an intimate look at figuring out how to forgive-and love-after purity culture.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
Imagine soaring in the sky on a hot air balloon ride with an ex-boyfriend, wondering if you should've married him while also being interested in pursuing someone else. You feel like you know what you're doing, yet floating up there, you feel unstable and unable to get down. For me, that state of confusion-while thousands of feet in the air-stemmed from purity culture. When I was a kid in the '90s and early '00s, I learned from my church that dating was only intended for marriage. That I needed to "remain pure" and abstain from sex before marriage. As a woman, it meant succumbing to traditional gender roles and submitting to men. And it meant that it was a sin to love anyone of the same sex.

But I knew deep down, after a game of truth or dare with one of my friends who was a girl, that this meant I also had to hide my sexuality and desires. As I continued life, I was homeschooled at my church and learned more about "God's will" and how I could abide by it. Flash forward a few years when I attended a purity conference with my mom and sisters, where speakers talked about making decisions about relationships and sexual health. They encouraged us to maintain purity, especially in a world that promotes sexual promiscuity. One speaker in particular focused on how she became a grandmother at age thirty-six and blamed it on generations of sex before marriage. Though romantic relationships were forbidden in my house until I was sixteen, I still sought out connections with boys. And with every relationship I entered, I had to imagine it was my intention to marry them, even at a young age. I also needed to satisfy them and address their needs, as mine came last. And yet, when I had moments of attraction to women sprinkled throughout my teenage years, I had to hide in shame in hopes that no one would discover my secret. If I forced myself not to think about it, I would be safe, and God wouldn't send me to Hell. When I turned fifteen, I dated someone who I eventually lost my virginity to. Instantly, I felt shame, guilt, and like I had failed as a Christian. I was going to Hell, and nothing would save me - not even Jesus, whom I had accepted into my heart when I was six. At seventeen and eighteen, I kissed two girls, and those small moments allowed me to slowly unbury that part of who I was, though it would take many more years to express it out loud. More clarity would start to arrive as I headed to college a few months after breaking up with my boyfriend and the hot air balloon ride. At school, I learned the differences between sex and gender. I learned about gender roles, societal expectations, and sexuality. During lectures about cohabitation, my throat would close, and my stomach would churn, but I realized that it was okay to live together and be in a sexual relationship without being married. It was the first time I had accepted and understood that. In my college relationships, each moment I embraced sex or intimacy before marriage, I still felt in the pit of my gut telling me it was wrong. But yet, I kept learning and continued embracing my desires. The second night I met my now-husband, we had sex. I had come a long way beyond shame and confusion, and for the first time in my adult life, I felt empowered. Over the next several years, I learned more about well-being, spirituality, and sexuality. I prioritized my health, set boundaries, sought therapy, and found ways to practice self-compassion. I spent time in nature, hiked, and connected with people who understood the harm of restrictive religion.

On one of those long hiking trips, one person inspired me to dedicate myself to writing a book, a passion of mine since I was little. Over the following five years, my memoir became a space to heal and reflect on these aspects of my life - sex, love, purity, religion, sexuality, and more. And though I stepped away from the church, I built a community and found acceptance and empowerment in who I am. I finally had the courage to share and no longer hide my queer identity. While there still may be flashes of shame and guilt that sit in my body, it's finally freeing to know that I can connect the dots and understand where that's coming from. It's liberating to know that I can feel stable, get down from that hot air balloon ride, and ground myself with greater clarity.

***

Chrissy Holm (she/they) is a writer, editor, and project manager. She is the host of the podcast Stirred By Words, where she interviews guests and discusses words, writing, and wellness. Her writing has been featured on Everyday Health, National Council on Aging, and more. She is an alumni at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, where she studied Public Health Education and Promotion. Chrissy lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband and daughter.

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Queering up your shelf, one rec at a time!

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More than 100 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. When you find a book at this site, please purchase it here. Our titles are linked to Bookshop. A portion of your book purchase helps sustain our work. New Releases Activism and Organizing Africa Afro-Latinx American Indians Arabs […]

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Learning for Justice is a community education program of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that centers civic and political action education for everyone.

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Bilingual

In this slideshow, you will find 10 bilingual books (grades K-3) with LGBTQ+ themes. You will also find various Instagram accounts that advocate for different aspects of inclusion/representation in the classroom.

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LGBTQ+ Book Recs - Teaching Outside the Binary

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In this slideshow, you will find 10 bilingual books (grades K-3) with LGBTQ+ themes. You will also find various Instagram accounts that advocate for different aspects of inclusion/representation in the classroom.

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A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, WNDB aims to create a world where every reader can find themselves in the pages of a book. To reach this goal, we've created programs to mentor diverse writers and illustrators, support diverse publishing professionals, and provide books to classrooms nationwide.

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We Need Diverse Books: Book Banning & Censorship — Banned Authors Speak Up

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Note: There is an interactive version of the Gender Unicorn that is only visible on desktop. English Coloring Book (English) Español (Spanish) Português (Portuguese) ру́сский язы́к (Russian) 日本語 (Japanese) Deutsch (German) Français (French) italiano (Italian) ภาษาไทย (Thai) Türkçe (Turkish) Nederlands (Dutch) ភាសាខ្មែរ (Khmer) magyar (Hungarian) dansk (Danish) íslenska (Icelandic) English Interactive (English) Coloring Book (English) [...]

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T oronto parent Tessa Yang is raising Elia, who is best described as a gender-fluid child. (Pseudonyms have been used for both to protect their privacy.) Gender identity is something they discussed together when Elia was six. "When I asked, 'Do you feel like a boy or girl?' Elia said, 'I feel 25 percent like a boy and the rest is like a kid.'"

Elia, now a teenager, used the pronouns "they/them" before switching to "he/him" in public school. A few years ago, she also started using "she/her," and Yang seamlessly changes between the two sets of pronouns throughout our interview. "When Elia said to me, 'I use she and he pronouns now,' I asked, 'How do you know which one to use?' . . . but Elia just really wanted both all the time."

Yang says that, when switching between pronouns, it's like they're "seeing a little more of Elia."

When Elia's voice first dropped, Yang considered visiting their family doctor to discuss puberty and puberty blockers, the medications used to postpone some effects of adolescence-like menstruation and voice changes-in children. After carefully broaching the topic with Elia, her response was that of a typical teen. "I didn't say, 'Do you want puberty blockers?'" says Yang. "I just named puberty and asked how he felt about that, and he was like, 'Ugh, cringe.'"

Yang left it at that but made it clear to Elia that they could always return to the topic-though it has crossed their mind that the appropriate care might not be easy for Elia to access when and if he needs it.

New data from the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that the number of young people in the United States who identify as trans has doubled in recent years, which might help explain why access to gender-affirming care for children and youth has become the centre of an increasingly high-stakes public debate. Between 2021 and 2022, thirty-four US states introduced bills banning this type of care, with some labelling treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapies as "child abuse." While Canada may be more progressive on the matter, finding health care providers who are both willing and competent to provide these services to youths is still a serious struggle. In Ontario, any family doctor or nurse practitioner is legally allowed to refer patients for gender-affirming surgery, but in practice, there are few clinics that actually offer it. At Toronto's SickKids Transgender Youth Clinic-one of the only clinics in the province that specialize in gender-affirming care for children-wait times to see a practitioner average one year.

The problem goes beyond a simple lack of service availability. At its core, it boils down to a misunderstanding about the nature of gender itself. On the conservative side, gender is determined by biological sex; on the progressive side, it's often seen as internal-a feeling of strong identification with a gender regardless of the one assigned at birth. And while each side has its disagreements, there is a common denominator between the two views: permanence, or the idea that individuals have a single true gender identity. Parents and professionals alike worry about the perceived risk of making the wrong choice-that young trans people may eventually think they were mistaken about their gender identities and come to rue the day they were prescribed body-altering hormonal and surgical treatments.

Yet in the trenches of trans health care, there is a growing idea that pushes back against the "one true gender for each individual" framing altogether-one that could allow us to resolve the bitterly divisive culture war over the psychological and medical care of transgender children. What if, instead of viewing gender as a fixed trait, we started to think of it as something that could evolve over the course of a lifetime? Or if detransitioning wasn't considered a sign of failure and was instead regarded as a natural and healthy part of the gender development process?

T o access gender-affirming care, patients are often required to undergo a series of assessments. These vary across jurisdictions but can include simple psycho-social interviews with primary care providers, years of gender-focused psychotherapy, or a "real life test" in which the patient lives in their so-called "target gender" without access to medical treatment for a period of time. For bioethicist Florence Ashley, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the Joint Centre for Bioethics who has published widely on gender-affirming care for trans people, such procedures can cause more harm. That's because there's no reliable way to ascertain whether a trans person is "really" trans or not.

"The very idea of assessing gender comes from the history of devaluing of trans identities," says Ashley, who argues that there isn't any research to prove such assessments do what they promise to do: predict the future. "What we see from trans people is that gatekeeping makes them less likely to express doubts, which can impair their ability to make the best possible decisions."

Ambivalence, of course, is a normal part of any decision-making process, particularly when those decisions involve potentially life-altering effects. As a transgender woman and former mental health clinician and therapist who spent several years working in the public sector with transgender children and their families, I've had countless conversations about gender with young people, parents, and professionals. I would often tell them that embarking on a gender transition is no different from any other major life decision, such as engaging in a serious romantic relationship, moving to a different country, or buying real estate. There will likely be benefits but also potential regrets-as well as the possibility that one might change one's mind at any point in the process and seek a new direction.

Why, then, is gender transition still seen as an all-or-nothing process?

Over the years, many of the youth I saw expressed a deep terror and shame about the possibility of "getting it wrong," while parents of trans youth often privately confided in me that they are afraid of their children getting "stuck in between" conventional gender expressions and never fitting into society. Yet most trans people already feel that way before transition.

Psychotherapist LeeAndra Miller has worked in LGBTQ2+ mental health care for over twenty-five years and is the project manager of Families in TRANSition at Central Toronto Youth Services, a virtual, nationwide program that provides psycho-educational support to hundreds of parents whose children have recently come out as transgender. (I helped develop the program's curriculum while working there between January 2020 and October 2021, and I returned there part time last June.) They push back against the traditional notion that gender is a fixed trait, with gender transition being a linear and permanent shift from one gender to another.

"That's the transphobic nature of this kind of thinking-that there's one journey, one path, and that's everything. That's just not the reality," says Miller. "We never know what anything is going to be like until we do it, and that's a part of the discovery of who we are."

Miller instead defines gender as a developmental process. "The variety of gender is as rich as the multitude of plants in the plant world," they add. In Miller's paradigm, gender cannot be reduced to biology, psychology, or social roles but is rather the way that an individual responds to all of these factors over time. From this perspective, trans people aren't really so different from non-trans people: we all explore and develop our gender identities as we grow from childhood into adulthood, but some people experience bigger and more visible changes than others.

In the daily lives of transgender youth and the adults who care for them, such a shift in perspective might relieve the stress of having to commit to a single path. This model offers the chance to explore oneself fully without the pressure to make the "right" life-altering choice in a single moment. Instead, youth get to develop confidence in their own decision making through trial and error.

What I find most powerful about this approach is that it encourages deep trust and collaboration between young people and their caregivers. When adults take on a gatekeeping role, they may actually jeopardize their relationships. Telling youth that they're wrong about their gender runs the risk of making them feel like they need to dig their heels in and cling even more tightly to their asserted identity. Yet when we trust in their ability to explore and decide for themselves, they're more likely to reciprocate that trust by telling us if they feel confused or worried. In turn, this allows us to support them when, and if, they switch paths.

O f course, some parents and professionals might say that exploration is all well and good but what about the impacts of trying on a trans identity and then changing one's mind? Or the potentially permanent effects of hormones and surgeries?

While a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that 94 percent of children who transition retain their gender identity five years after first coming out, Kinnon MacKinnon, an assistant professor of social work at York University, is undertaking research on the experiences of "detransitioners" and "retransitioners"- individuals who identified as transgender for a period of time and then returned to their previous gender identities (or, in some cases, moved into non-binary or gender-fluid identities). As part of a qualitative study published in 2022, MacKinnon interviewed twenty-eight adults on their detransitioning experience and found that the majority did not express feelings of regret-even when serious medical interventions were involved. "Most of those who went back to their assigned sex were still happy with having had some changes through medical transition-like orchiectomy (removal of the testes) or vaginoplasty (surgical construction of a vagina)," says MacKinnon. "They still felt content with their bodies and explicitly spoke against the narrative that they were regretful."

He is careful to add that a small number did express regret. "Medical science stigmatizes changing your mind," says MacKinnon, and that stigmatization, which contributes to the negative messaging from "gender-critical" or anti-trans organizations, may be partially responsible for those feelings.

MacKinnon has deep respect for the perspectives of his participants who detransitioned. "I felt like I was talking to people from the future," he says. "They definitely went against the popular notions that there is an internal gender that we need to discover or authenticate. They spoke against the self-actualizing narrative, never felt like they had a true gender, but still experienced gender dysphoria and were seeking to alleviate that through medical transition."

Perhaps this is what the new gender universe is all about: letting go of the illusion that we can be completely sure of anything, releasing the idea of certainty in order to embrace the complex truth of being alive, messy, complicated. "Gender is forever changing," Miller says. "I think the galaxy is a great metaphor for it, because there's tons we don't know-and that's great if we have the courage to step into it."

As for parents? We might need to shed the idea of providing children with easy futures so that we can instead offer them deep attunement and care in the present. And while parents certainly have a role to play in guiding gender-diverse young people's decisions, it may ultimately be best to follow their lead.

Tessa Yang tells me they worry about how their parenting choices may be interpreted by people around them. "I've been accused of teaching my child what to be," Yang says. "I am teaching my child, but I didn't teach my child who to be. It was to make sure my kid knew they were loved and accepted by me-that I wanted to see them and whatever they are and celebrate it."

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Kids Deserve a New Gender Paradigm | The Walrus

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T oronto parent Tessa Yang is raising Elia, who is best described as a gender-fluid child. (Pseudonyms have been used for both to protect their privacy.) Gender identity is something they discussed together when Elia was six. "When I asked, 'Do you feel like a boy or girl?'

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Rudine Sims Bishop's Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

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Rudine Sims Bishop video: Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors

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Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors

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The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child's Bookshelf | Grace Lin | TEDxNatick

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Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS): Critical Thinking and Inclusive Discussion

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VTS is an education nonprofit providing schools and museums with curriculum, professional development, and training in critical thinking skills.

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Lambda Literary nurtures and advocates for LGBTQ writers, elevating the impact of their words to create community, preserve our legacies, and affirm the value of our stories and our lives.

Our Impact

For over 30 years, Lambda Literary has dedicated itself to championing LGBTQ literature and supporting LGBTQ writers at all stages of life.

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Lambda Literary nurtures and advocates for LGBTQ writers, elevating the impact of their words to create community, preserve our legacies, and affirm the value of our stories and our lives. Rectangle Red Created with Sketch. Rectangle Red Created with Sketch.

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Together: A First Conversation About Love by Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Anne/Andy Passchier

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Together: A First Conversation About Love by Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Anne/Andy Passchier

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We are pleased to have guest editor Katie Schaffer's help in addressing this sensitive and timely issue. Katie brings extensive knowledge and insight regarding gender issues to this column.

Four-year-old Michael usually comes to school in jeans and a T-shirt but always goes to the dress-up area as soon as he arrives and puts on a dress or skirt.

On the day his mother was volunteering in the classroom, he walked in and immediately put on a ballerina skirt and sparkly shoes. She firmly told him to take them off and instead put on the firefighter's hat and boots, try on the cowboy hat, or do "something that boys do." Michael complied with his mother's demand but soon left the dramatic play area.

When the children went outside to play, Michael's mother told Ana, Michael's teacher, that he consistently plays female roles at home and shows little interest in toys and activities typically associated with boys. She and her husband were very concerned about his behavior, and she asked Ana not to allow Michael to play with any "girl stuff" at school.

Ana also has observed that Michael strongly prefers playing with girls and chooses activities that are stereotypically feminine, like having tea parties and wearing dress-up clothes that have lots of ribbons and sequins. He also frequently tells the other children that he is really a girl and that he wants to be called "Michelle."

Ana knows that some children begin to persistently identify with a gender different from their assigned sex at a very young age (Ehrensaft 2011; Fox 2015). (See "Glossary of Terms" for definitions of words and phrases used in this column.) She is also aware that the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct strongly supports maintaining close, collaborative relationships with families and respecting their child-rearing and cultural preferences. What is her most ethical response?

Responding to the issue

This scenario is similar to the one described in the Focus on Ethics column "Don't Let My Son Dress Up as a Girl!" in the September 2017 issue of Young Children. In both cases, there is a conflict between a family's request that its son not be allowed to engage in stereotypically feminine activities in school and a teacher's belief that it is best for children to be encouraged to choose the activities that are most meaningful to them.

Our role as educators is to create a safe and reflective space for children to develop their identities and to counterbalance gender stereotypes.

Despite the similarities, there are some important differences between these two scenarios. Like Victor (the child described in the September 2017 column), many boys are fascinated by glittery clothing and enjoy playing a variety of roles-including feminine ones-in the dramatic play area. Michael's interest in "girl stuff," however, is not limited to playing with clothes and roles. Michael consistently gravitates to female-assigned pursuits, identifies as a girl, and asks to be called by a girl's name. These are examples of how Michael's gender expression (how a person shows their gender to the world through external choices) is currently gender nonconforming (it does not follow prevailing cultural and social expectations about what is appropriate for their gender). Michael may be-or ultimately identify as- trans or transgender (a person whose gender identity is different from the sex assigned at birth).

While there is nothing new about gender nonconforming behavior in early childhood settings, advice for how educators can best handle conflicting perspectives has been scarce or absent, and resources to help teachers work with children and their families on this issue have not been readily available (Kilman 2013).

As in previous columns, we will use the process described in Ethics and the Early Childhood Educator (Feeney & Freeman 2018) to systematically apply the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct (2011) to this situation. We will then consider the unique challenges presented by this case and explore some resources that might be helpful to teachers and administrators who are working with children like Michael and their families.

Our analysis is informed by contributions from students in the ECE 200, The Professional in Early Childhood Education, class at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon; participants at the June 2018 NAEYC Professional Learning Institute in Austin, Texas; Briel Schmitz, head of Spruce Street School in Seattle, Washington; and Rabbi Meir Muller, assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of South Carolina and head of Cutler Jewish Day School in Columbia, South Carolina. We thank them for contributing to this analysis.

We begin with the first two steps of the process we use to address a workplace issue.

Identify the problem and determine if it involves ethics

This situation involves ethics because Ana must decide the right course of action to support a gender nonconforming or trans child and the child's concerned family.

Determine if it is an ethical responsibility or an ethical dilemma

While we noticed similarities between Michael and Victor (from our 2017 column), we came to appreciate that Ana faced a more challenging situation than Victor's teacher. She needed to respect Michael's preferences while working effectively and sensitively with his parents.

After presenting the scenario to two groups of early childhood educators and doing some research and reflection, we came to the conclusion that Ana is facing an ethical responsibility (a situation with just one morally justified course of action), not an ethical dilemma (a situation for which there is more than one possible resolution, which can be justified in moral terms). Because we consider it an ethical responsibility to respect children's gender self-determination, we will refer to Michael using her chosen name, Michelle, and chosen gender pronouns, she/her, for the remainder of the article.

Assigned sex: The label given at birth-usually male or female-based on a variety of factors (usually genitalia, but sometimes also hormones and chromosomes). The term assigned at birth acknowledges that someone (often a doctor) is making a decision but there is far more biological, anatomical, and chromosomal variation than captured by the binary labels of male and female.

Gender: A social construct that categorizes and labels societal and cultural expectations (i.e., gender norms) for how people of different assigned sexes (and thus assigned genders) are supposed to act. Gender varies over time and from place to place.

Gender identity: How a person self-identifies their gender, which may include man, woman, genderqueer, or other gender identities. A person's understanding of their gender identity can begin as early as age 2.

Gender expression: The way in which a person expresses their gender identity, typically through their appearance, affect, behavior, and activities.

Gender nonconforming: A term to describe a person whose behavior or appearance does not follow prevailing cultural and social expectations about what is appropriate to their assigned gender (and thus assigned sex). Some people who position their gender outside of a man/woman binary describe their gender as gender nonconforming or genderqueer.

Trans or transgender: A self-identification of a person whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex. For example, someone who was assigned female at birth but identifies as male might use the term transman.

Cis or cisgender: A person whose gender identity is the same as their assigned sex. For example, if the doctor said "It's a boy," and the child continues to identify as a boy/man, then he is cis or a cisman. People who are not trans are, therefore, cis.

Queer: A term that allows individuals to avoid the rigid categorization of straight and gay, and can indicate an attraction to people of many genders. For some, queer is also a political statement, expressing rejection of binary thinking and asserting that sexual orientation and gender identity are complex and potentially fluid. Although historically a derogatory term, queer has been reclaimed by many communities to have a positive connotation.

Sexuality: Sexuality is not just about sex. It is about individuals' bodies, genders, feelings, relationships, and ways of experiencing intimacy. In this context, children's healthy sexual development involves learning about their bodies, feelings, and relationships. Sexuality can also refer to sexual feelings, thoughts, attractions, and preferences. Sexual orientation often refers to whom we are sexually attracted. Some common terms for sexuality include bi (or bisexual), gay, straight, and queer.

Guidance from the NAEYC Code

Let's look at the guidance the NAEYC Code provides for this decision.

The groups who discussed this situation both concluded that they could not justify forbidding a child to behave in ways that express her strongly held sense of self and that, therefore, they could not comply with this family's request to keep her from activities associated with girls or femininity. They agreed that Ana's primary responsibility was to Michelle, and that she needed to honor Michelle's ways of expressing her identity. The groups also emphasized the importance of Ana listening carefully to the family's concerns and treating them with understanding and respect.

Some noted that Ana might feel she lacks the expertise to respond confidently to this situation. They recommended that she work closely with her director and seek out other knowledgeable professionals. Together, they could help her prepare to share information about young children's developing gender identity with Michelle's family, helping them understand their child's request to be identified as a girl and to engage in play that she finds meaningful. For suggestions on how to engage families and respond to some of their concerns, see "Practical Guidance for Teachers: Supporting the Families of Gender Nonconforming Children". It would also be important that Ana and the director work with the program's other teachers and families to help them accept Michelle's gender identity with kindness and understanding.

The Code's Core Values, Ideals, and Principles

Respondents to this case found that the Code's Core Values, Ideals, and Principles offered guidance that would help Ana address this family's concerns. They noted, in particular, educators' responsibilities to children and the importance of nurturing positive relationships with families. The following excerpts from the Code are those most applicable to this situation.

Core Values

Base our work on knowledge of how children develop and learn

Appreciate and support the bond between the child and family

Respect the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of each individual (child, family member, and colleague)

Recognize that children and adults achieve their full potential in the context of relationships that are based on trust and respect

I-1.2 -To base program practices upon current knowledge and research in the field of early childhood education, child development, and related disciplines, as well as on particular knowledge of each child.

I-1.3 -To recognize and respect the unique qualities, abilities, and potential of each child.

I-1.5 -To create and maintain safe and healthy settings that foster children's social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development and that respect their dignity and their contributions.

I-2.2 -To develop relationships of mutual trust and create partnerships with the families we serve.

I-2.5 -To respect the dignity and preferences of each family and to make an effort to learn about its structure, culture, language, customs, and beliefs.

I-2.6 -To acknowledge families' childrearing values and their right to make decisions for their children.

I-2.8 -To help family members enhance their understanding of their children . . . and support family members in the continuing development of their skills as parents.

Principles

P-1.1-Above all, we shall not harm children. We shall not participate in practices that are emotionally damaging, physically harmful, disrespectful, degrading, dangerous, exploitative, or intimidating to children. This principle has precedence over all others in this Code.

P-1.4 -We shall use two-way communications to involve all those with relevant knowledge (including families and staff) in decisions concerning a

child, as appropriate, ensuring confidentiality of sensitive information.

P-2.4 -We shall ensure that the family is involved in significant decisions affecting their child.

P-2.6 -As families share information with us about their children and families, we shall ensure that families' input is an important contribution to the planning and implementation of the program.

The Code offers strong justification for a teacher to base her actions on the needs of the child and for honoring the family's childrearing values and agreeing to their request. However, the Code also points educators toward putting the wellbeing of the child above all other concerns. P-1.1 takes precedence over all other items in the Code and supports Ana's decision to place the highest priority on the best interests of the child.

Guidance for the director

These items from the Code's Supplement for Program Administrators (2011) provide additional guidance for the director who is helping Ana address this issue:

P-1.1-We shall place the welfare and safety of children above other obligations (for example, to families, program personnel, employing agency, community). This item takes precedence over all others in this Supplement.

I-2.2 -To serve as a resource for families by providing information and referrals to services in the larger community.

P-2.10 -We shall respond to families' requests to the extent that the requests are congruent with program philosophy, standards of good practice, and the resources of the program. We shall not honor any request that puts a child in a situation that would create physical or emotional harm. In such instances, we shall communicate with the family the reason(s) why the request was not honored and work toward an alternative solution.

Reflecting on the case

Gender curiosity in children is not a recent phenomenon. Young children have always engaged in various forms of gender play, exploration, and identification. However, in recent years there has been greater recognition of the range of ways that individuals can express their gender identity and significantly more representation of trans people and communities in mainstream media. While this has opened up space for conversations about gender nonconforming and trans-identified children, some adults (including some educators, parents, grandparents) still attempt to stop the behavior (as in the case of Michelle's parents) or attempt to rigidly categorize the behavior (assuming they can predict the child's ultimate identity).

It is important to note that in US society today, children who are assigned male at birth receive more intense gender scrutiny than children who are assigned female at birth. For instance, girls are often encouraged by their parents to explore and participate in games traditionally associated with boys. These children are often celebrated as "strong" and "independent." However, when boys express interests in activities associated with girls, they are typically reprimanded, ostracized, or identified as problematic. This double standard stems from a culture that often demeans behavior associated with women and femininity.

This case warrants particularly careful consideration because of the potential lifelong consequences of respecting or refusing to respect Michelle's view of herself. It is important that the adults in Michelle's life be willing to honor who she says she is. Denying children the opportunity to express themselves by forcing them to accept adults' views of gender-appropriate behavior is likely to damage relationships and the children's sense of self, in addition to making their lives more difficult.

Teachers working with families who are concerned about how their children are expressing their gender identity need to be flexible and well prepared. It may be helpful to refresh their knowledge of child development, specifically identity development as it relates to concepts of gender. Gender is varied and dynamic. All of us express our gender differently over the course of our lives; children should be encouraged and supported to play, explore, and define the gender that feels right to them at the time (without an expectation of day-to-day or month-to-month consistency). Our role as educators is to create a safe and reflective space for children to develop their interests and identities and to counterbalance pervasive gender stereotypes.

Flexibility and preparation are also essential for supporting families. The most important thing that a teacher or director can do with families is listen carefully and try to understand their concerns. Some families may be worried about their children's future school experiences during their middle childhood and teen years. They may be seeking assurance that their children will be safe, happy, and well adjusted. Other families may be interested in knowing if there is research that indicates that a transgender child can grow into a confident and well-adjusted adult. Families with strong religious or cultural beliefs that do not support gender nonconformity need to feel that their perspectives are being heard.

Teachers also need to have appropriate resources in mind for families, knowing that different families will be best supported in different ways. Some will be interested in reading scientific literature; others may just need someone to listen to and reassure them. At times, it may be appropriate to refer the family to a community resource person who is skilled in addressing questions of gender and sexual expression.

It may be helpful to remind family members that the ultimate goal is preserving their positive long-term relationships with their child. By sharing current information on child development, teachers may point out that there are things about the child that the family can neither change nor control. While they can't change their child's gender identity, they do have the power to strengthen the relationship by being loving and supportive no matter how their child self-identifies. (For more specifics to help you work effectively with families, see pages 91-93.)

As we pointed out in our September 2017 column about a father's disapproval of his son dressing up in girl's clothing, many child-rearing values are strongly rooted in families' cultural beliefs. Sensitive teachers must carefully balance their responsibilities to children and to their families-this can be particularly challenging when working with groups that have strong positions about appropriate gender roles. Additional challenges arise when a child's gender preference is at odds with their family culture and values. Those situations will call for exceptional cultural navigation skills and, most likely, additional support from experts and organizations in the community. We anticipate that this topic will continue to be addressed in early childhood education.

As a teacher, you have the ability to make the world a better place for children who are gender nonconforming, are gender creative, or identify as trans. One place to start is with an inclusive classroom that supports a variety of gender expressions and avoids perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes. There are simple ways to make classrooms more inclusive, like avoiding consistently dividing children into groups by gender. For example, think about how you call children to the door. Instead of calling boys, then girls, to line up at the door, you might ask children wearing red, then blue, then green, to get ready to go outside. You can incorporate pictures, books, and dress-up materials that avoid gender stereotypes into the classroom. And you can help children move beyond traditional gender roles by encouraging girls to pretend they are firefighters and boys to role-play as nurses. If possible, make your restrooms available to all genders. Respond to children's fears, teach children to stand up for themselves if teased for their gender expressions, and validate their gender identities as they choose to express them. Strive to help all the children and adults in your program embrace a more inclusive, less restrictive view of gender.

Resources for Teachers and Families

Books and articles for adults

Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children. Diane Ehrensaft (2011). This developmental and clinical psychologist provides clear advice about supporting children who do not conform to society's narrowly defined gender categories.

The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals. Stephanie Brill & Rachel Pepper (2008). A comprehensive resource with information to help adults guide gender-variant and transgender children.

This Is How It Always Is: A Novel. Laurie Frankel (2017). A family's journey of learning and acceptance begins when their 3-year-old son announces that he wants to be a girl when he grows up.

"Tate and the Pink Coat: Exploring Gender and Enacting Anti-Bias Principles." Janice Kroeger, Abigail E. Recker, and Alexandra C. Gunn. 2019. This article presents current research on the importance of gender inclusivity in early childhood classrooms and offers practical tips to help teachers support children's explorations of gender. NAEYC.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2019/exploring-gender-enacting-anti-bias

Gender Spectrum. This website has links to resources that help programs create gender-sensitive and inclusive environments for all children. Includes resources for children, families, and teachers, and training materials addressing a wide range of topics. www.genderspectrum.org

Teaching Tolerance. This website contains resources for educators committed to diversity, equity, and justice, including classroom and professional development materials focused on race and ethnicity, religion, ability, class, immigration, gender and sexual identity, bullying, and bias. www.tolerance.org/topics

Gender Justice in Early Childhood. This website focuses specifically on young children and offers resources and links to help educators consider their language, teaching practices, and programs from a gender justice perspective.
www.genderjusticeinearlychildhood.com

The Boy & the Bindi, by Vivek Shraya, illus. by Rajni Perera (2016). (Ages 4-8) A 5 year-old South Asian boy is fascinated with his mother's bindi, the colored dot commonly worn in the middle of Hindu women's foreheads. He wants to have one of his own. His mother agrees and teaches him about its cultural significance.

Elena's Serenade, by Campbell Gleeson (2014). (Ages 3-8) A young Mexican girl admires her father's glassblowing and wants to follow in his footsteps. However, pointing to her size and gender, he disapproves of her aspirations. She disguises herself as a boy to learn the craft and ultimately changes her father's views. Told in both English and Spanish, the story explores the limiting nature of gender roles and the power of children to challenge adult thinking.

Introducing Teddy, by Jessica Walton, illus. by Dougal MacPherson (2016). (Ages 3-6) Errol and his teddy bear, Thomas, are best friends who do everything together. One day, Thomas tells Errol, "In my heart, I've always known that I'm a girl teddy, not a boy teddy." Errol replies, "I don't care if you're a girl teddy or a boy teddy! What matters is that you are my friend."

Julián Is a Mermaid, by Jessica Love (2018). (Ages 4-8) Inspired by women he sees on the subway who are colorfully dressed as mermaids, Julián dresses up like a mermaid when he gets home. He worries about how his grandmother will respond, but she celebrates his transformation.

My Princess Boy, by Cheryl Kilodavis, illus. by Suzanne DeSimone (2009). (Ages 4-8) This story is told from the perspective of the mother of a 4-year-old boy who likes to wear dresses and enjoys things that typically appeal to girls.

Sparkle Boy, by Lesléa Newman, illus. by Maria Mola (2017). (Ages 4-8) Casey loves blocks, puzzles, and his dump truck, but he also wants to try out the shimmer skirt, glittery nails, and bracelets his sister and his grandmother wear. The adults in his life support his choices, but he worries when older boys tease him.

Photographs: © Getty Images

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Focus On Ethics: Gender Expression and Identity

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Our role as educators is to create a safe and reflective space for children to develop their identities and to counterbalance gender stereotypes.

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In " Focus on Ethics: Gender Expression and Identity," Stephanie Feeney, Nancy K. Freeman, and I explore the case of a 4-year-old child assigned male at birth who asks to be called Michelle and to be referred to as a girl, and her teacher's ethical responsibility to support Michelle despite her family's request that she not be allowed to play with "girl stuff." While that article offers ethical guidance, many teachers may be interested in practical guidance on engaging with families who are concerned about their child's gender expression. As a queer educator and the creator of a training series on gender and sexuality in early childhood education, I will lay out some frameworks for those conversations here.

It is critical to say up front that families will have very different feelings given their other experiences, identities, communities, and histories of access or marginalization. For families who have experienced racism or other forms of interpersonal and institutional violence, fears for their child's safety may be at the forefront. For families who are part of conservative religious communities, social acceptance may be of greatest concern. Recognizing the complexity of interactions between educators and families, this article provides a set of strategies for opening up conversations and offering support when children's gender identity or expression do not conform to their families' expectations.

As a teacher supporting a young child exploring their gender, you may wince at a family's resistance, feel torn between the child's needs and the family's requests, or be unsure or anxious. Given these active feelings-both yours and the family's-it may be tempting to assume you already know what the family is thinking. It is worth, however, staying open-minded and having an exploratory conversation.

Having worked with many families, I've found that it's impossible to predict what feelings (or fears) are driving a family's response. They may be concerned about social ostracism or bullying, uncertain what response is in the best interest of their child, or fearful of grandparents' reactions. Given the depth of what we do not know in these situations, it's important to carve out time to talk with the adults who care for and love the child. While there may be an emotional moment that sparks this conversation-like Michelle's parent expressing alarm about her wearing a dress in the play corner-try to find a time to talk when everyone can come to the discussion level-headed. Below are some questions you can use to open this conversation.

Questions you might ask family members:

1. What do you like about your child? What excites you about your child? When do you see your child experiencing joy?

2. It sounds like you are concerned abouthow your child is thinking about under. What worries you?

3. What are your hopes for your child-this year, next year, as an adult?

4. What are your hopes for your relationship with your child?

5. What are some ways to address your concerns? What support do you need? What support may your child need? Who else could be brought into this conversation?

These are simply opening questions. Make sure you are reflecting back the family members' feelings and concerns and asking follow-up questions. For example, if a family member responds to the second question by saying "It's just not normal," be prepared to dig a little. You could ask, "What's your concern about your child not being 'normal'? What worries you about that?" If the family member says that they hope their child will be a "good man," find out more: is this desire about maintaining the family's connection to their community, wanting the child to have a family of their own, or something else?

The goal of this series of questions is to elicit family members' concerns and then help them assess the kind of help they need to be the best possible support for their child. (Usually the adults need much more support than their child does!) By asking the family to think through what they hope for their child, you orient them away from fear and toward a more expansive and caring vision for their child.

Engage hopes and fears

You will want to engage specifically with the hopes and fears raised by family members. The following are the most common questions I hear while working with families, and the responses I offer.

1. Will my child be ostracized by our family or community?

We don't know. There may be family or community members who struggle to accept your child's gender identity or expression, but there will be many people who support them, and you can play a powerful role in building a supportive community for your child.

2. Will my child struggle or experience violence because of their gender identity or expression?

Homophobia and transphobia are real and can lead to bias or violence. They can also intersect with other forms of bias, including racism and misogyny. However, many queer and trans people not only survive but thrive, building loving communities and families. As a family member or caregiver, you have a critical role to play in helping your child build these early networks and develop the resilience that comes from a deep well of support and familial love.

3. Will my child be able to have a family of their own?

Yes. Your child-regardless of gender or sexuality-can have a family, including a partner and children. Of course, we cannot predetermine our children's futures, and they may or may not fulfill the specific visions we have for them. (Whether queer, trans, straight, or cis, your child may or may not wear a white wedding dress!)

4. Will my child be happy?

We all have complex lives and emotional experiences, and your child will move through some hardships as part of life. But being queer or trans will not preclude your child from happiness, and may also open up new communities that are joyful and sustaining.

5. Is my child violating our religious convictions?

Many spiritual and religious traditions have a celebrated role for trans or two-spirit people. However, families whose religious traditions have specific prescriptions for "men" and "women" may struggle with any diverging ideas about gender. As an educator, this is a hard place to provide specific counsel, but you can speak to the value of love (if you feel comfortable) and encourage consultation with others. Ask the family member who in their religious community may be able to support them in celebrating their child.

6. Did I do something wrong as a parent or caregiver?

No. Identity is complex and multifaceted. Think of all the ways that your child has opinions, tendencies, and personality traits that are very much their own. We can support our children, but we also need to let go of a sense that they are a reflection of us. When a child is gender nonconforming or trans, it is often a family member who considered themselves of the same gender as the child (i.e., the father of a trans girl) who struggles the most, in part because the child's gender identity or expression can feel like a rejection of that family member.

7. Is my child sick?

No. There is nothing wrong with your child exploring gender, identifying with a gender different from the one assigned at birth, or "doing" their gender differently than their families expect. The binary concept of gender-the idea that there are only two genders-is a social construct that is not based in science and is not accepted by all cultures. Instead of pathologizing your child's identity, it can be helpful to ask, "How is my child doing?" Are they happy? Playful? Curious? If so, how can we continue to support their positive development (even if their gender feels new to us)? If not, what can we do to support them? If your child is being teased, let's figure out how to address that. If your child wants to be referred to by a different name or gender pronoun, consider how to best support their emerging identity.

Provide child development context

At 3 years old, children are developing a sense of their own gender. However, we do not know the endpoint of their identities, and must recognize that all of us will experience and engage with our gender differently over the course of our lives. This acknowledgement should not lead us to discount children's self-identification-we should be respectful of it and take them seriously-but we should not expect that their identity is immutable. For all of us, gender identity and expression are lifelong endeavors.

Pretend play is key to children's social, cognitive, linguistic, and emotional development. Through pretend play, children learn about themselves and others, develop problem solving and other cognitive strategies, engage creativity, and heighten social and emotional development. When one or more parents of children in a particular classroom are pregnant, for example, we may see an increase in "pregnancy play" as children-regardless of gender-explore what it means to be pregnant. We should encourage these explorations, but we should also notice when a child more persistently claims a particular identity.

Ultimately, while we can control whether we react to children with love or shame, we cannot dictate children's identities. We can support children to develop an expansive sense of themselves, provide language to give voice to different experiences, and support them through play and conversation.

Use resources and engage support

As an educator, you can provide resources that speak to the family's underlying fears, as well as books and media with a range of gender representations. You can help families think through how to engage with these texts to support their child. Additionally, you can discuss with families how the school can support them and their child, which may include inclusive picture books, discussions of family structures, and more. (For more resources, see "Resources for Teachers and Families"
on on page 88.)

Here are a few books I often recommend for adults (items 1-3) and for children (items 4-6).

1. The Bold World: A Memoir of Family and Transformation, by Jodie Patterson (2019)

2. Raising the Transgender Child: A Complete Guide for Parents, Families and Caregivers, by Michele Angello and Ali Bowman (2016)

3. The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children Who Live Outside Gender Boxes, by Diane Ehrensaft (2016)

4. Who Are You? The Kid's Guide to Gender Identity, by Brook Pessin-Whedbee, illus. by Naomi Bardoff (2016)

5. When Aiden Became a Brother, by Kyle Lukoff, illus. by Kaylani Juanita (2019)

6. They She He Me: Free to Be!, by Maya Gonzalez and Matthew Smith-Gonzalez (2017)

Be generous with yourself

You may be compassionate and supportive, and a family may still be angry or transfer their child to a different school. The stronger your pre-existing relationships with parents, families, and the larger school community, the easier this work will be. Continue to build connections, provide supportive space for children, and acknowledge the larger social, cultural, and political structures that make raising children-particularly those with marginalized identities-a challenge.

Photograph: © Getty Images

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Practical Guidance for Teachers: Supporting the Families of Gender Nonconforming Children

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Recognizing the complexity of interactions between educators and families, this article provides a set of strategies for opening up conversations and offering support when children's gender identity or expression do not conform to their families' expectat

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Being You: A First Conversation About Gender by Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Anne/Andy Passchier

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Being You: A First Conversation About Gender by Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Anne/Andy Passchier