LGBTQ Back-to-School Resources: 2024 Edition

It’s that time again! Here are some of my best tips for LGBTQ parents with kids in school; LGBTQ-inclusive, school-related book recommendations; and my updated annual resource list about creating welcoming schools, developing inclusive curricula, supporting LGBTQ youth in sports, countering book bans, and more.

These three pieces encapsulate many of my thoughts and (I hope) offer some useful advice and inspiration. (Some were written many years ago; my son is now in college.)

• “Back-to-School Tips for LGBTQ Parents: 2023“
• “4 Things LGBT Parents Can Do to Prepare Our Children for the School Year“
• “Back-to-School ABCs for LGBTQs“

Also of interest might be:

• “What LGBTQ Families Should Know for Back-to-School Time,” my 2022 interview of Family Equality Chief Policy Officer Shelbi Day and Director of Education Law & Policy, Senior Policy Counsel Nikhil Vashee. I particularly appreciate Vashee’s assertion, “Your family has nothing to be ashamed of, and your children deserve the right to learn and grow in a classroom that affirms their family composition no matter what.” (Disclosure: Since the time I interviewed them, I have become an unpaid member of the Family Equality Communications Committee.)

For book recommendations, check out:

• My recent post on “4 New LGBTQ-Inclusive Picture Books for Back to School.”
• Last year’s roundup of some of my favorite LGBTQ-inclusive picture books with school themes, often revolving around a first day of school. You can also filter my Database of LGBTQ Family Books by the “School” tag to find additional titles.
• The excellent recent book for grown-ups, The Advocate Educator’s Handbook: Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive (Jossey-Bass), by Vanessa Ford and Rebecca Kling, and my interview with the authors.
• More LGBTQ-inclusive books for ages 0-12 and for parents and caretakers in my full Database of LGBTQ Family Books.

For even more resources, below is a categorized list of links to external sources that I hope offer even more useful information. Links will appear below the categories after you click.

I wish you and your children a happy and safe school year, full of learning, friendship, and fun.

For All Ages—General Resources

• GLSEN prides itself on “Championing LGBTQ issues in K-12 education since 1990.” They offer a wealth of resources, some of which are further detailed below.
• Family Equality has several handbooks and factsheets that offer specific suggestions for communicating with your children’s school(s) and ways that educators can help create welcoming, inclusive spaces.
• Our Family Coalition, the organization for LGBTQ families in California, offers a number of school-related resources, including training and professional development; a list of schools that have had such trainings; and an annual LGBTQ-Inclusive Preschool Fair for parents.
• Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) offers “Best Practices for Serving LGBTQ Students,” a useful compact reference for classrooms of all ages. They also provide other resources on gender and sexual identity as well as materials for inclusion and support across many other aspects of identity.
• The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, offers resources for understanding and supporting LGBTQ youth.
• The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention offers a Model School District Policy for Suicide Prevention that is LGBTQ inclusive but not exclusive.
• Teach All Families is full of information and resources for parents and teachers who want to make schools more inclusive of LGBTQ-parented and other diverse families. It was created by Dr. Abbie Goldberg, clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Clark University, based on over 20 years of research.

For Young Children

• HRC’s Welcoming Schools site is perhaps the best single resource here, covering family diversity, gender stereotyping, and bullying. They offer teachers and administrators recommendations, ideas for building community, ideas for productive discussions with teachers and administrators, and more. Be sure to watch their videos for educators and parents, What Do You Know? Six- to twelve-year-olds talk about gays and lesbians and What Can We Do? Bias, Bullying & Bystanders.
• GLSEN’s Ready, Set, Respect Toolkit is a great set of tools and lesson plans for elementary school teachers covering name-calling and bullying, family diversity, gender-role diversity, and more.
• Queer Kid Stuff offers a webseries on various topics related to LGBTQ identities and social justice, including an eight-week remote learning course on social justice and LGBTQ+ topics for PreK to 3rd graders.

For Older Children

Many resources aimed at older students focus on LGBTQ youth, but most also have applicability to children of LGBTQ parents, whatever the children’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

• GLSEN again is a good resource here, with materials on creating an inclusive curriculum, Gender and Sexuality Alliance tools, and research about the impact of homophobia and transphobia. Of particular note is Unheard Voices, an oral history and curriculum project done in partnership with in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League and StoryCorps, to help educators integrate LGBTQ history, people, and issues into instructional programs for grades 6-12.
• GLSEN also manages a number of programs/events to engage school communities of all grades throughout the academic year, including Solidarity Week, ThinkB4YouSpeak, the Day of Silence, No Name-Calling Week, and the Safe Space Kit.
• PFLAG’s Safe Schools for All: Cultivating Respect program has similar materials (in English and Spanish) for making schools safer, reducing bullying, and providing comprehensive health education. They also offer PFLAG Academy Online, with free, monthly learning sessions on topics including how to help create safe schools.
• The Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network (formerly the Gay-Straight Alliance Network) has great materials for starting or sustaining a GSA.
• The 2018 LGBTQ Youth Report from the HRC Foundation and the University of Connecticut is an insightful survey of 12,000+ LGBTQ teenagers across the nation about their daily lives at home, at school, and in their communities.

For College Students

• Campus Pride is a national organization for student leaders and campus groups working to create a safer college environment for LGBTQ students. Among other work, they publish the annual Campus Pride Index to assess institutions’ LGBTQ friendliness.
• The Point Foundation offers scholarships to promising LGBTQ students and promotes change through scholarship funding, mentorship, leadership development, and community service training.
• The LGBTQ+ Student Scholarship Database from HRC is a list of scholarships, fellowships and grants for LGBTQ+ and allied students at both the undergraduate and graduate-level.

For All Ages—Specific to Transgender and Nonbinary Students

• Schools In Transition: A Guide for Supporting Transgender Students in K-12 Schools, is a free guide co-authored by several major organizations, aimed at helping administrators, teachers, and parents provide “safe and supportive school environments for transgender students.”
• Gender Spectrum’s education section has classroom discussion ideas, information about teacher training, school policy suggestions, and many other useful resources for parents, teachers, health care professionals, and others.
• Trans Youth Family Allies offers resources for educators about trans and gender-variant youth.
• Trans Youth Equality Federation addresses school-related topics.
• The National Center for Transgender Equality offers information on the rights of trans students at school.
• The Trans Formations Project tracks and educates about current anti-trans legislation in the United States.
• Beyond the Binary: A Tool Kit for Gender Identity Activism in Schools is a collaborative project of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance Network, the Transgender Law Center, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
• Bending the Mold: An Action Kit for Transgender Students, from Lambda Legal, addresses similar topics.

For All Ages—Mostly for Educators

Curricular Resources

• Welcoming Schools offers numerous lesson plans for “building welcoming, affirming LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive schools.”
• History Unerased offers resources and training for K-12 teachers on LGBTQ-inclusive academic content.
• Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has LGBTQ-related lesson plans, student texts, and many more resources.
• Our Family Coalition manages Teaching LGBTQ History, which provides lesson plans and other resources to fulfill the curricular requirements of California’s FAIR Education Act (but may be useful to educators in other states).
• Queer Kid Stuff has lesson plans (including a Remote Learning Social Justice course), posters, worksheets, songs, and other resources for educators.
• The Queer Mathematics Teacher offers a number of resources, including LGBTQ+ culturally responsive mathematics tasks for elementary, middle, and high school students.
• Gender Inclusive Classrooms, created by two elementary school educators, has tool to foster safe, welcoming gender-inclusive classrooms.
• Gender Inclusive Biology offers examples of adapting curriculum to Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and gender-inclusive standards, as well as resources for advocating to administration and others.
• The American Association of School Librarians has published “Defending Intellectual Freedom: LGBTQ+ Materials in School Libraries,” a resource guide (with a cool infographic) that “uses the AASL Standards framework as scaffolding to help users explore LGBTQ+ materials and needs in their own communities.”
• Reading the Rainbow: LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the Elementary Classroom, by Caitlin L. Ryan and Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth, is aimed at helping elementary school English language arts (ELA) teachers introduce or deepen classroom discussions around LGBTQ identity and gender, even in schools resistant to such topics.
• Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum, ed. Paula Greathouse, Brooke Eisenbach, and Joan F. Kaywell, offers 6th to 12th grade ELA educators guided instructional approaches for including queer-themed young adult literature.
• One book that may be in some school libraries, but that should be used only with care is LGBTQAI+Books for Children and Teens, by Christina Dorr and Liz Deskins. This compact guide includes suggested books for young, middle grade, and teen readers, along with discussion questions. The book’s heart is in the right place—but includes a number of errors (notably one where they misgender a transgender girl character), so readers should exercise caution.

Professional Development

• Welcoming Schools offers LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive professional development training.
• Our Family Coalition offers various trainings for educators and school community members related to LGBTQ education, inclusion, and advocacy.
• The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, offers training for youth-serving professionals to help prevent suicide amongst LGBTQ young people.
• The Stonewall National Education Project, part of the Stonewall National Museum and Archives, hosts an annual symposium for school district leaders, federal and state agencies, not-for-profit organizations, and university offices.
• The Queering Education Research Institute (QuERI), an independent think-tank, offers professional development courses and more.

Children’s/Middle Grade/YA Book Recommendations

• My own database of 1600+ items with reviews, searchable and filterable by age, identity, and topic, from picture books (including board books) through middle grade—plus guides, memoirs, and more for LGBTQ parents.
• The American Library Association’s annual Rainbow List offers LGBTQ-inclusive children’s and young adult books chosen by a committee of librarians for quality as well as content. See also the lists from Family Equality and Welcoming Schools.
• Jaime Campbell Naidoo’s Rainbow Family Collections is an annotated guide to nearly 250 LGBTQ-inclusive books and media for children through grade five. It’s a few years old now (2012), but still valuable.
• For young adult books, try Queer Books for Teens, “a comprehensive list of all LGBTQIAP+ YA titles published between 2000 and 2020,” compiled by a team of librarians and other book experts. They also offer several “Best of Lists” on various sub-topics.

Free LGBTQ-Inclusive Books for Schools

• Hope in a Box donates LGBTQ-inclusive books and curriculum guides to educators.
• The Pride and Less Prejudice Project provides age-appropriate LGBTQ books for Pre-K to 3rd grade classrooms.
• The Make It Safe Project donates books about sexual orientation and gender identity to schools, youth homeless shelters, and juvenile detention centers.
• Open Books (formerly Gender Nation) provides school libraries with LGBTQ+ affirming literature.
• GLSEN’s Rainbow Library sends LGBTQ+ affirming K-12 text sets to schools and libraries in many states.
• The Unicorn Express will send a free, LGBTQ-inclusive book to any student in a state or district with book bans, or who otherwise has trouble accessing them.

Books for Grown-Ups on LGBTQ Inclusion and Schools

• Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality Rethinking Schools’ volume of essays from a wide range of teachers and educators, covers LGBTQ topics as well as ones related to gender and sexism in general.
• Safe Is Not Enough: Better Schools for LGBTQ Students, by Michael Sadowski, looks at how educators across the U.S. are creating LGBTQ-inclusive curricula and school climates, providing adult mentors and role models, and building family and community outreach programs. It’s a useful volume of ideas and solutions beyond just anti-bullying policies.
• Celebrating Difference: A Whole-School Approach to LGBT+ Inclusion, by Shaun Dellenty, has a U.K. focus but still offers plenty of strategies and tips for educators anywhere.
• From the Dress-Up Corner to the Senior Prom: Navigating Gender and Sexuality Diversity in PreK-12 Schools, by Jennifer Bryan, while a few years older, is also excellent.

Book Bans and Challenges

If your school, school district, or public library tries to ban or restrict LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books (or any others), a few good resources are:

• “A Template for Talking with School and Library Boards About Book Bans,” from Bookriot
• The Book Challenge Resource Center from the National Coalition Against Censorship
• Book Ban Busters resources and training, from Red Wine and Blue
• PEN America’s extensive research and reporting on book bans
• Fight Censorship materials from the American Library Association
• GLSEN’s Rainbow Library has excellent information on responding to bans

Educational Films and Videos

• Groundspark has a commendable series of LGBTQ-inclusive diversity-education films and curriculum guides: That’s a Family, for elementary school students, about different family structures; Let’s Get Real, for middle schoolers, about name-calling and bullying; It’s Elementary and It’s STILL Elementary, for and about educators discussing gay issues in schools; and Straightlaced—How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up, for teens, about the pressure of gender stereotypes.
• Again, Welcoming Schools’ two videos for educators and parents, What Do You Know? Six- to twelve-year-olds talk about gays and lesbians  and What Can We Do? Bias, Bullying & Bystanders, are both worthwhile. Both are available for free streaming.
• Queer Kid Stuff offers a plethora of online videos explaining queer and social justice topics for kids.
• See also my compilations of videos for and about LGBTQ families, especially Educational Videos for Younger Kids About LGBTQ Topics, Educational Videos for Older Kids About LGBTQ Families, and LGBTQ-Inclusive Songs for Kids.

Sports-Related Resources

• GLSEN’s Changing the Game project features resources for athletes, athletic administrators, coaches, and parents, inspirational videos about people making a difference, and the Team Respect Challenge pledge.
• Athlete Ally, founded by straight college wrestling coach Hudson Taylor (a former three-time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler), runs public awareness campaigns and educational programs, and mobilizes ally Ambassadors in collegiate, professional and Olympic sports.
• The National Center for Lesbian Rights has long been a powerhouse of advocacy and education on sports and more, and offers legal assistance to LGBTQ athletes and coaches.
• The Movement Advancement Project offers a map of Bans on Transgender Youth Participation in Sports.
• Transathlete, created by Team USA member and trans man Chris Mosier, has a lot of resources and information.

Anti-bullying (LGBTQ-specific and not)

• The Matthew Shepard Foundation has a number of resources for educators and others specific to anti-LGBTQ bullying.
• Not in Our Town offers training, films, lesson plans, resources, and more (including some materials in Spanish) to help students and teachers create safe and inclusive school communities. LGBTQ-inclusive materials include “Our Family: A Film About Family Diversity,” a free YouTube video made in partnership with Our Family Coalition.
• Stopbullying.gov has many good general resources about bullying and cyberbullying, and includes content on LGBTQ youth.
• GLAAD organizes the annual Spirit Day each fall as a sign of support for bullied LGBTQ youth.
• The It Gets Better project continues to spread messages and videos of hope to bullied LGBTQ youth.
• Beyond Differences is a student-led organization that works to “inspire students at all middle schools nationwide to end social isolation and create a culture of belonging for everyone.” They organize several national days of awareness and action throughout the year.
• Many state LGBTQ organizations’ websites also have information on state-specific anti-bullying laws.
• The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education have published the guide “Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools: A Resource for Students and Families” (PDF).

Research

• GLSEN’s biennial National School Climate Survey is a long-running and oft-cited report on the school experiences of LGBTQ youth in schools. They also offer a number of other national (U.S.), state, and local reports.
• The Movement Advancement Project tracks and maps Safe Schools Laws, including anti-bullying and non-discrimination laws.

Legislative and Legal Resources

• Freedom for All Americans tracks anti-LGBTQ school policy bills, youth sports bans, pro-LGBTQ nondiscrimination bills, and more.
• The ACLU tracks LGBTQ-related legislation, including much related to schools.
• The Movement Advancement Project maps LGBTQ Curricular Laws, such as “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” laws.
• The Trans Formations Project tracks and educates about current anti-trans legislation in the U.S., including much pertaining to schools.
• TransAthlete.com tracks legislation targeting trans student athletes.

When all else fails, several organizations offer legal assistance to LGBTQ parents, youth, and others, often in school settings. Links are to their youth-specific pages, when available.

• ACLU
• GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders)
• Lambda Legal
• National Center for Lesbian Rights (and a separate page for trans youth)
• The National Center for Transgender Equality
• Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund