Lindz Amer, whose award-winning Queer Kid Stuff webseries has offered LGBTQ educational resources for kids and their adults since 2016, here offers their learnings to parents, caretakers, educators, and anyone who wants to help raise kids—of all identities and genders—in queer- and gender-affirming ways. Amer’s mission, in the book as in life, is to “spread queer joy” and to show their readers how to do the same. Spreading queer joy, Amer explains, “is a philosophy for how to move forward as a grown-up with a responsibility to the young people around you to leave the world a little bit better than when you came into it.”
That’s a weighty goal, but Amer tackles it with their usual pedagogical thoughtfulness, conversational writing style, light humor, and plenty of examples from their life and others. The book is divided broadly into age-based chapters (infancy, toddlerhood, pre-K, and elementary school), each of which looks at topics such as queerness, gender identity and expression, family structures, sexuality, sex and health education (including bodily autonomy and consent), intersectionality, activism, and LGBTQ history in age-appropriate ways. Each chapter includes information on the relevant concepts, plus key takeaways, suggested activities, discussion topics, and book recommendations. Amer does not expect readers to have any previous knowledge of the topics covered—but as a reader who did, I still found much to learn and think about as this knowledge was placed into a framework of early childhood phases and broken down with suggestions about what to cover in each phase.
Amer offers plenty of suggestions for inclusive practices, and often frames them to emphasize their creativity and expansiveness. One doesn’t need to stick with gender-neutral baby clothes, for example, but can have fun with baby clothing intended for any gender, regardless of what gender your baby was assigned at birth (just avoid ones with slogans that perpetuate harmful gender assumptions, like “Future Ladies’ Man”). And being open to your child developing into the gender that is right for them doesn’t necessarily mean using gender-neutral pronouns from birth—just being open to having consistent, active, and conscious conversations around gender with them so that they feel free to experiment and claim other pronouns if that feels right for them.
Some sections go beyond strictly LGBTQ-specific topics to look more broadly at issues of privilege, social justice, intersectionality, allyship, and activism, as related to race, class, religion, disability, neurodiversity, and even climate justice, showing how those movements are in conversation with queer liberation as we try to shape a better world. There’s a lot here, but Amer is a good and patient teacher. They emphasize that readers should never expect to be perfect in this work, just to try our best and take responsibility when we make mistakes. They note, too, that what has worked for them in explaining and modeling these topics for kids might not work for all readers. “Take this book as guide, not gospel,” they advise.
As a guide, however, it is excellent. “This book is what I wish my parents had so they could have helped me along the way,” Amer says, asserting, “This is more than a book you just read; it’s a book you live out.” Whether the kids you are raising (or helping to raise) are queer, questioning, or straight/cisgender, and whether you know nothing about LGBTQ identities or are proudly queer yourself, this book will assist you in creating an environment where they and their peers can grow up affirmed and supported. Highly recommended.
