For Educator Advocates
As educators, we journey with compassion and love for our students and their families. We have compiled a growing list of resources to support you in supporting your gender-expansive and transgender students and their families. The resources have all been instrumental in growing educators’ knowledge of gender-expansive and transgender children and youth, helping educators gain a better sense of how to support their students. We encourage you to research each of these helpful organizations, by clicking on the link below to their online presence. Our hope is that through many of these organizations, you’ll begin to find resources to support the students and families your are advocating for at your school site. Check back often, as this list of resources is ever-changing and expanding, as our community’s journey evolves, too.
GLSEN
This organization’s mission is to “create safe and affirming schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
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GENDER SPECTRUM
Gender Spectrum is an organization “that helps to create gender sensitive and inclusive environments for all children and teens.”
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HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
“The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer equality.”
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WELCOMING SCHOOLS
“Welcoming Schools, a project of the HRC Foundation, is a comprehensive approach to improving school climate in elementary school environments with training, resources, and lessons to help schools in embracing family diversity, creating LGBTQ-inclusive schools, preventing bias-based bullying, creating gender-expansive schools, and supporting transgender and non-binary students.”
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NATIONAL PTA
“GayYA.org is a website and blog dedicated to everything LGBTQIA+ in YA! Now, our mission is to empower authors to write LGBTQIA+ characters, help ensure that what’s being published contains positive and affirming representation, and enable all teens to find themselves on the page! We pursue these goals with things like sharing best practices for librarians and teachers on how to get LGBTQIA+ YA books into the hands of teens, critiquing problematic narratives, and holding space for authors to talk about writing LGBTQIA+ characters.”
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TEACHING TOLERANCE
This website is a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and provides a wealth of information for educators, specifically providing helpful educational information, with resources linked to their “Being There for Nonbinary Youth” section. Check it out for ways to create more inclusive school environments.
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LAMBDA LITERARY
Part of Lambda Literary’s mission: “LGBTQ WRITERS IN SCHOOLS connects authors with classrooms via free Skype or in-class visits to discuss the author’s work and LGBTQ issues. Designed for teachers of grades K-12, student organizations, and organizations serving LGBTQ youth, the LGBTQ Writers in Schools program is an opportunity for writers to discuss their work openly with students and to encourage diversity not only in the students’ reading and writing lives, but also in society at large.”
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STONEWALL NATIONAL EDUCATION PROJECT
“Stonewall National Education Project is uniquely poised through its vast national network of professionals, to help eliminate barriers, stand up for and empower our young people in a time when it has never been more vital.”
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GAY YA
This organization was founded by Jazz Jennings and her parents, and as their mission states, their goal is to spread “the message of tolerance, acceptance and unconditional love which are a birthright for all transkids.”
