Post submitted by former HRC Digital Media Manager Helen Parshall

For many children with marginalized identities, the first few days back to school can make or break their year -- and for trans and non-binary students, it can be doubly difficult to know where to turn to seek support for their unique needs.

That’s why it’s critical that educators and school administrators continue learning how to create safe and supportive schools for transgender and non-binary students so that their classrooms provide safe, supportive environments.  

Here are some valuable resources from HRC Foundation that will help ensure your classrooms are fully inclusive of gender-expansive identities and help students understand the ways that gender stereotyping impacts everyone.

1. Children’s Books Featuring Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender-Expansive Children 

Books such as Kyle Lukoff and Kaylani Juanita’s “When Aidan Became A Big Brother” and  Vivek Shraya’s “The Boy & the Bindi” teach children about gender identities and how to express their inner selves. 

2. HRC Foundation’s 2018 Gender-Expansive Youth Report 

This report captures experiences of approximately 5,600 transgender and gender-expansive youth in their families, schools, social circles and communities. It details the alarming challenges and barriers facing transgender and gender-expansive youth around the country -- and their perseverance in the face of discrimination and harassment.

3. Resources for Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Students in Schools

As school communities work to create environments that embrace and welcome transgender and non-binary students, all students benefit when educators encourage youth to be themselves without limitations based upon gender or their gender expression.

4. Lesson Plans to Help Students Understand Gender and to Support Transgender and Non-Binary Children

These lesson plans are great tools for educators to use when discussing and challenging gender stereotypes with their students, expanding children's ideas about gender and helping gender-expansive youth feel welcome in the classroom. 

5. Jazz & Friends National Day of School and Community Readings

After a national anti-LGBTQ hate group bullied a young transgender girl in rural Wisconsin, her community rallied behind her by hosting a community reading of “I Am Jazz,” a book co-written by transgender trailblazer and former HRC Youth Ambassador Jazz Jennings about her experience as a transgender girl. In honor of the original event in Mount Horeb, communities across the country are invited to join HRC's Welcoming Schools program and the National Education Association for our next annual Jazz & Friends National Day of School and Community Readings on February 27, 2020.

For more resources like these, visit WelcomingSchools.org. 

Housed by the HRC Foundation, Welcoming Schools and Time to THRIVE are national programs designed to help LGBTQ youth succeed. Welcoming Schools is the nation’s premier professional development program providing LGBTQ- and gender-inclusive resources to schools to reduce bullying behavior and establish a positive school climate. Time to THRIVE is an annual national conference that brings together K-12 educators, counselors and other youth-serving professionals to build awareness and cultural competency to better support LGBTQ youth.