Watch: Reps. Angie Craig and Jackie Speier Read Kids’ Books on Gender Identity — from the U.S. House Floor

• Allies, Books for Kids, Politics and Law, Supporting LGBTQ Children • children's books, gender identity, milestone, transgender

Yesterday was the annual Jazz & Friends National Day of School and Community Readings, organized by HRC’s Welcoming Schools program. Watch Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), the first lesbian mom elected to Congress, and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), a strong LGBTQ ally, read two great children’s books on gender identity on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives!

I Am Jazz - They, She, He, Easy as ABC

The event began in 2016 when an anti-LGBT hate group forced a school in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, to cancel plans for supporting a transgender child with a reading of I Am Jazz, a book about a transgender girl. More than 600 residents then showed up at a public reading organized by a parent—and days later, the school board adopted measures to fully accommodate transgender students. Welcoming Schools began organizing similar yearly readings at schools, libraries, bookstores, community centers, and places of worship.

Rep. Craig, a member of the LGBT Equality Caucus, won election to the House in 2018, but has long fought for the rights of queer parents. Back in 1997, she and her then-partner Debra Langston had struggled to adopt a child when they were living in Tennessee. Same-sex couples could not adopt jointly at the time, so only one of them could be the legal parent. Additionally, although the birth mother of the child they hoped to adopt wanted them to do so, the birth mother’s own parents tried to claim custody instead. A court battle ensued, which Craig and Langston ultimately won. Craig and her current wife Cheryl now have four boys.

Rep. Speier, is an ally and member of the LGBT Equality Caucus and the Transgender Equality Task Force. She may be best known outside of her home state of California for successfully spearheading legislation to stop sexual harassment in Congress. Like Craig, she is also a co-sponsor of the Equality Act that would prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Here’s Craig reading I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and transgender teen Jazz Jennings (Dial/Penguin), and Speier reading They, She, He, Easy as ABC, by Maya Gonzalez and Matthew Smith-Gonzalez (Reflection Press) yesterday in the U.S. House:

If you want to watch a reading of I Am Jazz by Jazz Jennings herself, with the illustrations on display, you can do so here (with either English or Spanish subtitles, if you wish). (There’s no online reading of They, She, He, Easy as ABC, though you can get an idea of the beautiful art from the cover above.)

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