Breaking Down Some of the Barriers to Including LGBTQ+ Literature in Early Childhood Classroom Curriculums
Sarah Jewell Leonard
Anti-bias education is a philosophy of teaching that emphasizes teacher reflection as they actively challenge bias, prejudice, and injustice and has four goals: identity, diversity, justice, and activism. Anti-Bias Curriculum: For Young Children and Ourselves was written by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen-Edwards and serves as a practical guide for educators as they explore family composition, ablism, economic diversity, and cultural identity. In its most recent edition, published in April 2020, included the addition of gender diversity and fairness and was also written by Catherine M. Goins. As we choose books and materials in our classroom, we (teachers and our leadership team at the Child Study and Development) use an anti-bias approach to guide our decisions. This also extends to the curriculum we develop and the way we engage in reflective practice.
“Anti-bias leaders provide the necessary time, space, resources, support, and facilitation for teachers and other staff to be part of the process of change. They build a community of learners that enables everyone to explore and grapple with anti-bias issues. A collaborative style of leadership, the preferred early childhood education model, empowers staff members to first begin and then take ownership of their anti-bias work. Anti-bias work grows best in an environment where collegial, mutually respectful relationships among staff and between staff and the program leader are the norm and where a culture exists that fosters open conversation and dialogue, reflection, and risk taking” (Derman-Sparks, LeeKeenan & Nimmo, 2015).
In the Pride and Less Prejudice blog post titled “Reflecting On Our Teaching Practice: Supporting Children’s Exploration of Gender Identity in Preschool,” I shared a vignette from our classroom as Kristen, my co-teacher, read It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity (Thorn, 2019) to our preschoolers and the dialogue that she facilitated with children after the reading. As part of a college lab school, meaning that we operate with missions for early childhood education and the adult education of pre-service teachers within the Human Development and Family Studies department, we have developed the routine of recording different parts of our teaching practices and reviewing them to examine our pedagogy and to develop curricula. Just days later, Kristen shared the video of her practice with some of our colleagues and I facilitated a conversation reflecting on Kristen’s reading and facilitation. These personal reflections about the inclusion of LGBTQ+ inclusive literature in the classroom addressed some of the barriers that have prevented this work from happening in our classrooms and provided a launching point for future work that could happen.
Is having LBGTQ+ inclusive books in the classroom developmentally appropriate for young children?
According to the Family Equity Council, “Between 2 million and 3.7 million children under age 18 have an LGBTQ+ parent. Many of these children are being raised by a single LGBTQ+ parent, or by a different-sex couple where one parent is bisexual. Approximately 191,000 children are being raised by two same-sex parents. Overall, it is estimated that 29% of LGBTQ+ adults are raising a child who is under 18 (LGBT Demographic Data, 2019; Press Release 2019; Gates, Marriage and Family 2015)” (2020).
Children are inundated with information about gender from the moment they are born. From gifts given prior to and after their arrival, to the color of walls in their nursery, to gifts or toys given. Between the ages of 18 and 24 months, children are able to identify and label gender groups within the gender binary and most children are able to label their own gender by the age of three. “Some children may identify with a different gender from their sex assigned at birth (ie, transgender). Evidence of gender nonconformity is often apparent in early childhood, as early as 2 years of age; for others, it does not occur until later in adolescence or even during adulthood” (Bright Futures). Having LGBTQ+ inclusive literature in your classroom means that you are providing resources that are inclusive of the children and families within your school community and also the teaching cohort within your school. “Despite myths and misconceptions, there is no evidence that being gay is caused by early childhood experiences, parenting styles, or the way someone is raised” (Dowshen, 2018). Additionally, providing inclusive books in the classroom can be affirming, can reduce bullying and foster acceptance.
Freedom: Saying it [reading LGBTQ+ books; in this case, ones about gender identity] versus seeing it can offer a different level of comfort even for someone who is saying “that is not my belief.” Witnessing and seeing…no one was projecting or telling a child, “You are this [gender]” or “this is what it means to be that [gender],” um, I don’t know. I can’t speak for others, but I feel like for maybe people who feel like this isn’t directly what I believe or how I feel. Sometimes that fear is something projected onto the child or somebody telling them this and what I witness in this video [of Kristen reading It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity (Thorn, 2019)] is not that. It’s more “I’m opening a place for conversation.”
Where do I start?
Finding an entry point can look different for each teacher. This entry point may be influenced by an interaction with a child or family or based on your own personal comfort. For me, starting with books that were representative of the different family structures and, in turn, the families in my classroom felt the best for the teaching team that I worked with. Choose one topic with LQBTQ+ inclusive literature and begin.
Jess: And for people to be comfortable, right? Because just because we are uncomfortable doesn’t mean we should not dive in, but you have a to have an entry point for everybody and if there is a practice in place that hasn’t been challenged.
Sarah: How do you challenge someone’s practice without saying “you’re wrong”? Because it’s not about being right or wrong - it’s that not everyone has had access to the same experiences.
What if I say the wrong thing?
When asked about the next steps as it relates to conversations about gender identity, Kristen shared a viewpoint that often comes up in my conversations with colleagues about self-identity and in having LGBTQ+ inclusive books in the classroom- what if it’s not perfect?
Jess: I know that I am like, “Ugh, I am going to say the wrong thing. I’m going to do the wrong thing.” It takes a level of courage to put yourself out there and then to let your colleagues look at it with an open lens. There were many moments when I teared up.
About incorporating more gender-neutral language into our daily conversations:
Freedom: It’s been very challenging for me.
Rachel: Even calling the toys like “Oh, what is your bear doing? Is he happy?” Then, I’m like “wait a minute.”
Freedom: Yeah!
Jess: It’s everything. It really is.
Freedom: It’s so interwoven…
Jess: Which is why you need to give yourself time and space and grace to make those changes, right? And to unlearn what we have been taught. Then, to make those changes or to correct yourself when it happens.
Freedom: And to bring it to the forefront of your thought process so that you can.
Kristen: It’s finding moments to correct myself and keeping things at the forefront whether it is in conversations with children or conversations with other staff members and just kind of knowing that no one is going to do it perfectly. It’s something that I have been thinking a lot about…I think one of the biggest things for me was just realizing that you aren’t going to get it perfect. So, it doesn’t have to be perfect for you to be able to start. I always felt like, ‘Well, I don’t know enough about that so…I don’t think I am ready to have those conversations with children.’ But I think being able to know that this is something that I am still figuring out, too. And just going for it. The more I have gone for it, the more that I have learned throughout the process. I’m continuing to learn more and practice more is making more a part of my regular everyday life in the classroom and outside of the classroom.”
Rachel: I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but I also don’t want to ignore it. Is it just that he doesn’t understand the grammatical pronouns or is it more?
Sarah: As adults we can say, “I am stuck on something that I am really worried about. How do I answer questions about pronouns?” Is there a right or wrong answer? Is the wrong answer not talking about it at all?
Freedom: or shaming people for it.
What if I don’t feel comfortable because it doesn’t align with my personal beliefs?
Donna: Listening to Kristen read this book - I am thinking “Okay, growing up in a religious background and being Baptist and both of my parents are like, ‘How dare you think you can change your identity or whatever? You are female and you will always be female. Or you are a male and you will always be male.’” And even as a teacher just starting out in the beginning, those were my thoughts. But, of course, working here all these years, and working with my team members, my own personal feelings have changed drastically. I think that this is what other people struggle with.
What does this mean for my practice and past experiences that I have had as a teacher?
Donna: It also shows me - in all the years that we have been here, especially Sarah and I, and all the children we have worked with - how far we have come because we have had children in the past that we’ve often wondered about how, as teachers, we can support them. But THIS, you know, TODAY and watching this video - I think one of the reasons I was so emotional is because we were able to express and able to share these [books]. These children are having the opportunity to express or share how they are feeling and what’s going on in their little minds at the ages of four and five because way back when, that never happened.
Sarah: I wish they were here now because this is the experience that they would be having. I think there’s this permission for grace that we are evolving humans, right? And how do we learn from that previous experience and say, “We can never let this happen again. We know better now and we can never let this happen again.”
Jess: All children deserve to have these conversations and to feel welcome to do so. Do you know how many children are out there and it’s just squashed? “You’re a boy and you’re a girl” and that’s it. And that’s just depressing…I don’t want these conversations to stop. That’s my fear [for my child]. We live in a small town in New Hampshire. I don’t know if it’s very inclusive or open.
“The reality is that inclusive children’s books play an incredibly powerful role in cultivating an accepting and progressive mindset for our youth” (Let Me Out, 2019).
We know the importance of visibility when it comes to the representation of books and materials in a classroom. Having LBGTQ+ inclusive books in classrooms can play an important role in a much needed culture shift as it facilitates normalizing LGBTQ+ content in literature. Inclusive books have the power to teach, create comfort and acceptability for those who identify as LGBTQ+ (currently or in the future) and those in LGBTQ+ families, can reduce bullying, and may play a role in the introduction of the LGBTQ+ community for learners who may not know anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ (Let Me Out, 2019).
As important, perhaps, is the making the process of using LGBTQ+ inclusive books in the classroom visible to our colleagues. By normalizing the use of inclusive books and sharing these experiences with those in our teaching communities, we can work to positively shift people’s feelings towards the practice and can create a teaching cohort where vulnerability, honesty, and dissonance can meet and growth can occur.
Rachel: I just thought it was beautiful how you guys have created such a safe space to have these conversations and allow the children to be real and ask questions and then tell you how they feel. How they want to be called. And I don’t think that’s something you see a lot starting at this [age], you know. I think it’s so amazing that the children are receptive to talking about it. And you guys are there to help them figure it all out.
Bright Futures. (n.d). Guidelines for health supervision of infants, children, and adolescents: Promoting healthy sexual development and sexuality. https://brightfutures.aap.org/Bright%20Futures%20Documents/BF4_HealthySexuality.pdf
Derman-Sparks, L., LeeKeenan, D., & Nimmo, J. (2015). Leading anti-bias early childhood programs: A guide for change. Building anti-bias early childhood programs: The role of the leader. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/may2015/building-anti-bias-programs
Dowshen, S. (2018, May) KidsHealth: Sexual orientation. https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/sexual-orientation.html
Family Equity Council. (2020). Facts about LGBTQ+ families. https://www.familyequality.org/resources/facts-about-lgbtq-families/
Let Me Out. (2019, January 22). Why LQBTQ+ children’s books are so important. https://letmeoutbook.ca/support-diverse-books/.
