First Impressions: Kind Like Marsha
Isabella Liang
This September, I became a Communications and Development intern at Pride and Less Prejudice (PLP). I help with social media posts, data entry for book requests, and so on. Before knowing about PLP, I had no clue that LGBTQ-inclusive picture books existed. Kind Like Marsha by Sarah Prager was one of the first few picture books that I read. Prager’s short and simple writings and Thuesday’s colorful illustrations lured me into reading the book. From Sappho from ancient Greece to Leonardo Da Vinci from the Italian Renaissance, and to X González and Audre Lorde from contemporary America, the intersectional representations of the LGBTQ+ leaders in Kind Like Marsha stand out among the white dominant LGBTQ culture: the 14 leaders in the book are from different nationalities, race, time periods, occupations, etc. Despite the complexity and violence of LGBTQ history, Prager wrote the biography for each leader in simple language that young children can understand.
Instead of specifying the sexual orientations of the leaders, Prager focused on their qualities: teaching children to be expressive like Sappho, outspoken like X, and thoughtful like Audre, just to name a few. These LGBTQ+ leaders are just as kind, creative, and brave as their heterosexual peers. LGBTQ folks are no different than the majority, and they can become leaders and impact the world. As Prager said in the PLP panel Teaching Inclusive History in the Classroom, “Queer people are in every history.” Yet the history children learn in schools is still heteronormative, and LGBTQ history is dominated by whiteness. When I was researching LGBTQ history for PLP’s LGBT History Month social media posts, I was inspired by Kind Like Marsha and wanted to include LGBTQ folks in history that represent intersectionality. It took me a while to find folks like Geraldine Roman (the first transgender person elected to the Congress of the Philippines) and Terisa Siagatonu (a Samoan queer poet). Nevertheless, Kind Like Marsha is a good start to shift the heteronormative and white-dominated history to a more diverse and inclusive perspective. Other than intersectionality, I also wish there were more non-Eurocentric representations of sexual and gender minorities in LGBTQ history, such as Two-spirit from the Native American culture and Takatāpui from the Māori people in New Zealand.
Teaching diverse history in the classroom could provide the “mirrors and windows” for students that students would feel a sense of belonging when they see people who have similar identities as them (mirrors), and they can be more accepting and understanding of the people whose identities are different from their own (windows) (Leung & Adams-Whittaker, 2022). Students would be more engaged in academics and have higher self-esteem and self-competence without perceiving themselves as lesser than others. Lastly, I want to highlight the Author’s Note at the end of Kind Like Marsha that reflects the advantage of teaching diversity to children.
When children see themselves reflected in the stories they hear, their idea of what they’re capable of expands. When children see people different from themselves represented in the story they hear, their idea of who can be a hero expands.
Growing up as a girl in a gendered, heteronormative society, my idea of what I can become was limited. I had these narrow ideas of marrying a man and staying at home taking care of the children or doing a job with a wage that is lower than that of men. It wasn’t until 2018 (I was 16 years old) when I got to know more about the LGBTQ+ community through Adam Rippon and the “Fab Five” in Queer Eye, I had a better sense of who I am and what I really want to become. During the same year, I was also doing research on the history of the US LGBTQ community. The history of their fighting to legally be themselves and be accepted by others is so inspiring and moving. Learning about those LGBTQ leaders and icons made me realize there are other possibilities of who I can be and what I can do: a girl can get married or not to get married, have a partner of any gender or not to have a partner at all, and become a stay-at-home mom or work as a leader in a male-dominated field. If I had read inclusive books like Kind Like Marsha earlier in my life, I would not feel so constrained and confused about my identity. I believe through early education of “mirrors and windows,” children will accept interpersonal differences, and there will be no need to change their personalities or identities in order to fit in.
References
Leung, E., & Adams-Whittaker, J. (2022). Content Analysis of LGBTQ Picture Books for Elementary Education Through an Intersectional Lens. Front. Educ. 6: 769769. doi: 10.3389/feduc.
