Today marks the 9th annual International Family Equality Day—and while this usually means in-person events across the globe, there are ways to take part this year even while isolating at home!
The day originated as an idea of Swiss LGBTQ advocate Maria von Känel in 2010. The first International Symposium of LGBTQ parenting organizations in 2011 established International Family Equality Day (IFED) as the first Sunday in May, and celebrated the first one in 2012. Additionally, in 2018, IFED became an NGO (non-governmental organization) recognized by the United Nations, as a way to sustain and grow its work.
This year’s theme is “Family Diversity in Education,” focusing on “the need to integrate the idea of family diversity in the education system.” As IFED explains in a brochure:
Families with single parents, same sex parents, recomposed, adoptive, foster, extended, elective families… are part of the everyday experience of children. They are all equally valid and deserving equal rights and respect. Schools, education systems and informal education must recognize, honor, welcome and value such diversity.
For this to happen the ideas and representations of family in the schools, textbooks, education materials, language and narratives need to go beyond stereotypes and to represent different family structures embracing the growing diversity of family life. In this way, diversity in education will contribute to the well-being of all children and to fairer, safer, richer and happier societies.
I’ll heartily endorse that goal—and in support of it, offer the LGBTQ Back-to-School Resources that I compile every year.
IFED also has a number of suggestions for ways families can celebrate the day, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking of celebrations of LGBTQ families: For the 15th year in a row, #LGBTQFamiliesDay, a social media event that I created in 2006 (originally as Blogging for LGBTQ Families Day), will be held on June 1, 2020. Please join us!
