Queer Families & the Classroom

Education touches all our families around the world in very different ways. This episode is dedicated to the ups and downs, challenges and inspiration of pushing for LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices in schools, especially early education. Guests Justine Gonzalez and Caitlin Ryan share perspectives as advocates, parents, and educators. 

Episode Transcript

Emily (00:04):
All right, folks, it's time.
With over 30 episodes under mybelt.
It's time.

(00:24):
We talked about the educationsystem, which touches all of our
families around the world invery different ways.
We've mentioned to school inpast episodes, but this one we
are dedicating to the ups anddowns, the challenges and
inspiration of pushing forLGBTQ+ inclusive policies and
practices in schools.

(00:45):
We're focusing on elementary andearly education this time, which
means most advice is reallygeared towards adults in our
families, but queerspawn inschool and out of it also have
voices and a really importantrole to play in advocacy in the
education system.
So with me to help me siftthrough all of these pieces are

(01:07):
Justine Gonzales and CaitlinRyan.

(02:26):
I want to start with thequestion.
We start every episode off withwho is in your family and how
was it formed?

Justine (02:35):
It's a complicated situation.
So my family, primarily it's meand my daughter.
She turned six years old just afew weeks ago and just started
kindergarten.
So that's really exciting.
Me and my co-parent haveseparated.
So we have sort of an extendedfamily and luckily we're still
good friends and she livesnearby.

(02:57):
So Ceclia is my biological child, me and my co-parent are both
queer and we decided to have abiological child together.

Caitlin (03:06):
In my family of origin was my mom, my dad, my brother
and me.
But currently my family is meand my wife and we have just
started foster parenting withinthe last few months actually.
So we are new to parenting andwe are very excited and we

(03:27):
currently have a wonderful kiddowith us and we're having a great
time.
He just turned 17 months oldtoday.

Emily (03:33):
How would you describe your relationship with the
education system and how, when,why do you advocate for LGBTQ
families in school?
What is your role in thisparticular conversation?

Justine (03:54):
Yeah, so like I said, Cecilia, the idea of where she
was going to school was alwayssort of in the background.
How are we going to do this?
Me coming out as transgenderhappened when Cecilia was one
year old and she was a big partof that decision for me to come
out because I didn't want tohave a future where I was her

(04:16):
dad.
I thought that I could move upmy transition, get it done in a
way that, I could just beCecilia's mama and it could be
clean cut and we'll move forwardfrom there.
But it turns out transitionsdon't happen that way anyway.
You can't really force them tohappen a certain way.

(04:37):
So lessons learned there, butalso she spent a full year in
transitional kindergartenalready and it was really
concerning about how wouldteachers react, how would other
students react, other parents.
And so as that time approachedover the years, you have the

(04:58):
general anxiety of like whatthis is like, what will it be
like, what challenges would mydaughter face in this?
And to think of four or five,six year old has to even
navigate this space was scary.
Fundamentally there's just thatpersonal experience of being in
it.
And so it was sort ofoverwhelming, sort of like, I

(05:22):
don't know how any of this isgonna play out.
We live in LA unified schooldistrict and California has some
of the strongest policies onpaper in terms of inclusivity.
From my experience in working inthe nonprofit sector and in
local government over almost 10years, I knew that having

(05:45):
policies on paper is verydifferent from the lived
experiences and encounters ofLGBTQ families, among so many
other groups of students,families.
What are the real resourcesthere and how do we navigate
them?
So there was the personaljourney, there was my
professional career, whichinformed me of like, Hey, you

(06:07):
need to be prepared to be anadvocate.
Like so many other parents haveto be.
So right now I'm a consultantstill, but working specifically
with nonprofits around buildingparent communities and building
parent workshops to give parentsthe tools to 1) support their

(06:28):
children and 2) then to navigatethe districts in a way that when
they need to, they can accessthe right channels and resources
to get the support they needfrom staff and administrators.

Emily (06:40):
Wow.
That's, that's fantastic.
To have those kind of two sidesof parent and then also really
supporting others, improving thesystem.
That's awesome.
Caitlin, how would you describeyour relationship with the
education system

Caitlin (06:54):
One thing I like to remind the teachers that I work
with is that all LGBTQ people,adults were actually kids.
I think it's important when wethink about this topic to
remember that I was a student, Iwas a queer person who was in
schools for a very long time.
But since then I have been ateacher, I taught, like you said

(07:17):
in my bio in the Washington DCpublic schools and I am now a
teacher educator.
So I train current and futureelementary school teachers,
particularly in helping kidslearn how to read and become
lifelong readers.
Also in that capacity, I'm aresearcher and I study how to
help K-5 teachers in particular,but all teachers become more
LGBTQ inclusive in theirteaching.

(07:39):
So I feel like in some ways Ihave all the sides of it.
I was a student, I was ateacher, I'm training teachers
and like you said, now I'm aparent who will have kids
eventually in schools as theyget older.
Most of the work that I do interms of research around LGBTQ
inclusive teaching, I do with mylongtime research and writing
partner, Dr JillHerman-Wilmarth.

(08:01):
We've been working on this for awhile to try to make sure that
teachers and other people inschools have some tools for how
they can be better advocates andmake their practice more
inclusive so that families don'thave to do quite so much work.
Sort of meet in the middle as itwere.

Emily (08:18):
And what inspired you to have that particular focus and
to be doing that particular typeof research?

Caitlin (08:23):
I think in general my own queer identity.
I identify as a lesbian and asqueer.
And so I knew that schools couldbe better.
Both individually and then alsocollectively as a community, I
knew that people's experienceswith schools weren't great.
As part of that, I also havebeen connected to COLAGE, which
is obviously, as you know, partof Family Equality now.
And I've been connected toCOLAGE for a long time.

(08:44):
Even though I'm not a COLAGEr ora queerspawn myself, I knew some
of the very early founders ofthat work, including Hope Berry
Manley, who was a very goodfriend of mine.
And so I have been thinkingabout queerspawn experiences for
a long time and ended upactually writing my dissertation
on the experiences of youngqueerspawn in schools.

(09:05):
And that led me to think about,well what could we as adults in
schools, whether that beparents, administrators or
teachers, how could we take onsome of that work so that it
doesn't have to land on COLAGErsand queerspawn?

Emily (09:17):
How do LGBTQ+ families, both parents and youth
themselves, how do we advocatefor safe and inclusive schools
for our families?
You've each mentioned a fewdifferent ways.
Justine, you talked about thoselarger scale policies that
sometimes will explicitly stateLGBTQ people and families need

(09:39):
to be celebrated and recognizedand affirmed in school.
So there's a policy level,there's the practicalities as
you've both done of trainingstaff, updating forms, using the
inclusive language around theschool.
There's the in-classroomexperience, which again is a
different level and sometimesthere continues to be disconnect

(10:00):
between those three.
And then there's those peerexperiences and thinking about
the welcoming of our youth inschools and the preventing and
addressing of bullying.

Justine (10:15):
There's so many different ways and there's not
one answer.
When I think about this and mycurrent involvement, I bring the
organizing and f ieldwork aspectand campaign aspect to it, to
the same sort of arena forparents where I go, you know,

(10:36):
first and foremost on issueslike this that are really
powerful personal, intimate issues.
I think you need to buildphysical spaces where people
consistently communicate andtalk.
I think you need to have thatentry level space of like, where
am I safe to talk about thesethings?

(10:57):
Where can I build t he skillseven to build inclusive
environments?
Because I think how my work hasbeen steered here is because
parents on a regular basis reachout to me and they're like, Hey,
I think my child is LGBTQ andwants to transition or wants to
come out.
How do I support them?
You know, it's easy to find aweb page and handouts, booklets

(11:18):
and online resources.
But I think for most parents,looking at something like that
and then turning that into anaction with your child, it's a
scary thing.
A lot of parents don't want toget it wrong, so there's very
much a desire to like, Hey, Iknow I'm just a parent.
I'm a parent, I'm not a teacher,but I want some of those skills.

(11:39):
Can someone just sit down withme and talk to me about this?
When we talk about like LAunified school district, t he
school district with 600,000students covering millions of
people overall a nd trying tofind the right resources, you to
get as many of those families on b oard is difficult from a
budgeting perspective, from adistrict perspective.

(12:00):
So I find myself sort oforganizing and going like, where
are the gaps?

Caitlin (12:03):
It's interesting, Justine, I'm really struck by
how your description of parentsand organizing parents and
limited knowledge and wantingresources and wanting help
translating resources topractice.
It rings so true for my workwith teachers.
I want to echo what you've said,but again from a teacher
perspective.
Jill and I find over and overthat teachers really often want

(12:26):
to be supportive.
Now there are unfortunatelystill cases where there is
explicit outright homophobia andtransphobia expressed by
teachers.
GLSEN has some unfortunatedocumented statistics about
things that students hear andfamilies hear from educators
themselves.
To say it's a shame is puttingit mildly, but we also find
there are many, many teacherswho in fact do want to be

(12:48):
supportive of LGBTQ people andfamilies, but they either don't
know how or they don't thinkthey know how.
And so there's still a lot ofquestions around, okay, well how
do I do it?
What can I do in my state?
What are the laws say I can do?
What does my district say I cando?
And so trying to make sure thatpeople know that they can
advocate and as teachers thatthey can make their classrooms

(13:11):
more inclusive.
And in fact that it's aresponsibility of educators to
serve every child and to serveevery family.
And you know, you talked beforeabout the gap between some of
those policies that if yourdistrict says that you're going
to educate every child or thatyou're going to work with
families as partners instudent's education, then that
has to mean LGBTQ people.
And it has to mean LGBTQfamilies as well.

(13:32):
And just sort of helping themsee the sources of support that
they do have.
This just has become reallyimportant.
And so the other thing I wouldencourage when we're thinking
about parents is, and this ishard because I know for many
LGBTQ parents, there's a lot ofvulnerability in this and not
everyone can be out or can besafe in these kinds of advocacy.
But for LGBTQ parents who can bevocal, the more visible that

(13:57):
queer folks are as parents andas family members really helps
to change the discourse.
Because the number one thingthat Jill and I hear from
teachers is, but what about theparents?
I mean, we've been doing thisfor like 12/15 years now.
I don't know the exact number.
And every time we talk to aclass, we talked to a school, we
talked to a district.
The first question every timeis, well, what about the

(14:17):
parents?
And what they mean by parentsis, what about the conservative
parents?
What about the religious rightparents?
What about parents who object?
And one thing that Jill isreally good about saying, Jill
has two children and is queer aswell, is- I'm a parent and trust
me, you don't want to not dothis stuff if my kid's in your
class cause I will come inthere.

(14:38):
And I was like, no, you reallydon't want that.
So, how can we shift thatnarrative of who parents are and
to think about that there are infact many parents, queer and
allied parents, who do wantschool to be LGBTQ inclusive and
who do want a reduced focus ongender binary in elementary
education and who do wantclassrooms to be more inclusive

(15:00):
for more learners, particularlyfor queer learners.
And the more that we can startto think parents want that too,
I think teachers will feel a lotmore security maybe or just a
lot more confidence inundertaking some of those things
that really can still be risksin a lot of places.

Justine (15:17):
Yeah, that totally makes sense when we talk about
students and teachers.
And administrators as the otherand then parents and the other.
I think we all need to realizethat all three need the tools.
There's not really a way to doit one at a time.
I see it here locally in LosAngeles where there are so many
resources for LGBTQ youth to beloud and to create those spaces,

(15:40):
which is amazing.
I accessed those services I whenI came out.
But there's just a gap in thatavailability between students
and then administrators,teachers and parents.
Like you said, there's so muchdesire but there's a lack of
capacity in terms of the realfunding needed, the real

(16:00):
resources needed by schools, bydistricts, by parents that
really get on the same page.
I mean, all of these groups needto work together and there are
people, there are teachers,administrators, parents already
doing good work and parents andall of these people who want to
do more good work and want to beon the same page and supportive.

Caitlin (16:21):
And I think in addition to the structural things that
you named in terms of resources,sometimes I also come up,
especially in elementaryeducation with just limitations
of what feels possible- whatpeople have thought through,
particularly straight people.
The teaching force, I don't knowif the numbers are true in LA
unified it might be different,but nationally our teaching

(16:42):
force is overwhelmingly whitefemale, middle-class, Christian,
able-bodied and straight.
Just overwhelmingly.
And so a lot of times teacherswho fall into those identity
categories haven't thought abouttheir privilege in those
particular ways.
They haven't thought about whatother needs people from more
marginalized communities mighthave with intersectional

(17:05):
identities and other kinds oftopics.
They just haven't thought aboutit.
And so they don't have a senseof what it could sound like.
Sometimes it's a failure ofimagination almost, in addition
to some of the structural issuesthat you mentioned.
And so just helping people thinkthrough how education could
sound, because unfortunately Ithink for teachers and for us as
parents, we haven't actuallyseen schools where queerness has

(17:26):
been affirmed very much, that iskind of a new thing at least at
the national system wide level.
And I remember when I wasworking with a teacher I worked
with for a long time and she wasreading a chapter book with an
openly gay middle schooler in itto her fourth and fifth grade
students.
And I remember the first timeshe came across a derogatory
slur for gay people in the book.

(17:47):
And I realized I had never beenin a classroom space where that
word was said in an educationalway to talk about it and to take
the power out of it.
And here were elementary schoolstudents doing this work that I
do for my job.
Professionally I'm supposed tobe the expert on this and I
realized I'd never really heardthis kind of conversation in a
classroom before- as a student,as a teacher or as a researcher.

(18:09):
And so it is new and it's goingto feel new in different ways to
different constituents anddifferent people.
So giving ourselves some graceand some space to build those
kinds of new practices and thatnew picture, but also knowing
that it's absolutely imperativethat we get to it because kids'
lives are at stake and familiessafety's at stake.

Emily (18:30):
In this particular conversation we're really
focusing on elementary school.
We're talking about advocacythat parents can do,
understanding that for youth tohave some of the tools for them
to be their own best advocates,it's so important for them to
have adults in their lives whoare able to do that with them,

(18:52):
support them, and help educatethem.
Do you get push back ordifferent responses based on the
level of where kids are ineducation and the types of
schools?

Caitlin (19:04):
I would say absolutely, in terms of age and grade level.
There's also a lot ofassumptions about where this
work can happen geographically.
I teach in the South and I am ina mid-sized city now, but I was
in a very rural area and untiljust this fall.
And so teaching teachers who aregoing to be teaching in very

(19:25):
rural areas in the South andthere's definitely an assumption
that, Oh, this might be okay inother places, but like we
couldn't do that here.
And the thing is that Iunderstand the fears, but there
are kids and families here andso not being able to do
something isn't really ananswer.
So one of the things that welike to say is there's maybe a

(19:47):
lot of things that you can't do.
There might be risks that ateacher or a school can't take.
There might be decisions that aschool board would reject or are
against the laws, like with the"no promo homo states".
There are some limitationsunfortunately still.
But find what you can do insteadof thinking about what you can't
do, is to think about what youcan do.
And so if what you can do is puta safe space sticker up, but you

(20:11):
can't read a book aloud.
Okay.
If you can read a book, you canput a book on your shelf but you
can't read it a lot.
What is it that you can do?
Or if you can just stop usingboy and girl lines, right?
If you can just treat gender ina more, what my colleague Lee
Aerogen calls gender-friendlyway.
Can you just expand what'spossible?
Find what you can do becauseyeah, there might be a lot that

(20:39):
doesn't feel possible right now,but, what are the ways that you
can continue to push back on thesystem, even with young kids?
Cause that's the other thing,how can you teach about
families?
Family is in every ELA andsocial studies standard in K and
one.
It's such a go-to topic forearly childhood topics.
There's definitely places totalk about LGBTQ people.

(21:03):
But that also means that theteachers and administrators and
other parents, particularlyparents who aren't allies, have
to understand that talking aboutLGBTQ people is not talking
about sex, which in schools isstill really a huge
misconception.
We have to tell people that it'stalking about connections and
families and communities andlove.
And so I think shifting to thatis a good starting point

(21:26):
sometimes too, particularly whenyou start to talk about early
childhood because so many ofthose myths unfortunately still
circulate and do make it riskyfor queer educators and do make
it risky for queer families.
And so thinking about what youcan do and finding age
appropriate ways to talk aboutLGBTQ people.

Emily (21:41):
That's so true.
Both of you have brought this up- our families are everywhere.
We know in recent studies thathave been done by the Movement
Advancement Project and otherresearch institutions that LGBTQ
families are more likely to bein states that have broad laws

(22:01):
that are not a safe andaffirming for our families.
Youth who identify as LGBTQ arein elementary schools, people
with LGBTQ parents are inclassrooms and of all ages.
And Justine as you mentioned,what our peers are saying to us,
what we're observing in theclassroom, what we're hearing
from adults doesn't suddenlyturn on when we enter high

(22:25):
school.
It is something that meets us atthe door that first day of
pre-K.

Justine (22:30):
So much of what both of you have said has resonated with
me.
I'm in Los Angeles and you wouldthink Southern California,
California has best laws on thebooks protecting folks.
We have the Fair Education Act.
There's incredible delay inimplementation across the state.
So there is no consistentimplementation, no consistent

(22:52):
enforcement, even in the regionin Los Angeles since it's such a
sprawling city.
When I talked to differentparents in different schools,
they go like, well that couldwork in your neighborhood in
Northeast Los Angeles, but whatabout the heavily Latino and
immigrant community in SoutheastLos Angeles?
And you know, it's reallydifficult to hold that line of

(23:15):
one- we have to do it.
This is about kids' safety,health, wellness for the long
term.
This is the trajectory of theirlives and how they are impacted.
There are incredible s takes tothis and getting it done right.
But also t oo, I think in myexperience, and I ran for school
board late last year, reallysitting down with parents i n

(23:38):
that region and even monolingualSpanish speaking immigrant
families said, we tell our kidsthat they can be whatever they
want to be and you are embodyingthat.
And it was one of the mostpowerful experiences
professionally I ever had.
When we don't do the changesnecessary, so many of those kids
and their families fall throughthe cracks.

Caitlin (23:58):
One thing I would encourage LGBTQ families who are
listening to this to do is toreally think about what safe and
inclusive means for your familybecause with the diversity of
our families, that's gonna lookand sound different for
different people.
In my research with COLAGErs inparticular, the number of times
I heard kids say, Oh well shedoesn't make a big deal about

(24:19):
it, so it's fine.
This idea that silence wassomehow good enough or as as
good as could have been expectedgiven their experiences.
That there was some sort of,well as long as I wasn't being
mocked or teased for my family,then it was okay.
And thinking about the gapbetween that as acceptable
versus being affirmed and fullyincluded, it just feels like a

(24:42):
really wide distance still.
And so this idea that a lot ofteachers have, and I don't know
if it comes out of a sort ofpoliteness, like a fake
politeness idea that if we don'ttalk about it, then somehow
that's polite.
If we don't talk about it, thensomehow that's good.
Where it's like, no, I want youto talk about all the parts of
my kids' life.
I want you talking abouteverything and talking about it

(25:02):
in respectful, inclusive,thoughtful ways, just like you
would talk about anybody else.
Just not realizing how damagingthat kind of silence can be.
And what I found in my study isthat the more that adults are
willing to open upconversations, the more kids
will fill the space.
So I started to find this overand over- the more that an adult

(25:22):
made some space to say, thistopic is valid here, this part
of you is welcome here, kidswould hear that and kids would
take up that space.
That's really important for usto remember as parents and as
teachers and as organizers andas administrators, is that if
there's a silence, it's probablybecause you're sending some kind
of message that you're expectingit.

(25:43):
And so the more that adults cantake on the role to say, no,
this identity is valid, thiskind of family is a family, this
kind of whatever those thingsare, then kids will hear that
message and then kids will feelmore free to make a wider range
of choices for themselves.

Emily (25:56):
What can people look for to help them determine or
decipher how safe and inclusivea school or a classroom is?

Justine (26:08):
I think it's all about communication.
It starts when you go on a tourof a school, when you're
researching and you set up thatfirst meeting.
Just being upfront about yourconcerns I think is very
important.
Saying this is our family.
And I remember having that firstconversation at Cecilia's
transitional kindergarten andgoing like, do you have other

(26:32):
families like ours?
Have you ever worked withfamilies like ours before?
What's your experience?
And get like a real sense ofwould they know what to talk
about?
Do they need resources too?
And just getting on the samepage and it's a learning
experience.
There were some bumps along theroad, but I always felt that our

(26:53):
teachers and administrators wereopen to it as long as we had an
honest conversation.

Emily (27:00):
Caitlin, any other advice for anybody who's trying to make
some of those determinations ofthe environment of a particular
school?

Caitlin (27:07):
Yeah, I'll say for people who might not have a lot
of choice in the schools theirchildren attend.
If you're just trying to get asense of how you might keep your
family safe, one thing you mightdo is check the shelves.
Do they have books with LGBTfamilies or LGBT people on the
shelves?
That can be a place if you'renot comfortable having some of

(27:29):
the more direct conversationsthat Justine was mentioning,
that would be also a reallygreat way to do things.
But if you're looking for othersigns- what's on their
bookshelves, you could also seehow they respond to requests.
So like if you said like, Oh,has anyone ever asked for this
form to say parent one parenttwo?
If they say no, why would we dothat?
That's good information.

(27:49):
You could see what happens ifparents have ever challenged
books before.
Has anyone ever said thatsomething that you were teaching
or a teacher was teaching wasn'tokay?
And what happened?
So just get some moreinformation.
How does the school talk aboutmarginalized people generally?
What are conversations likearound race?
What are conversations likearound immigration?
What are conversations likearound other kinds of identities

(28:10):
and power to give you a sensefor your family specifically.
If those are identities thatinterface with your family, but
also more generally about theiropenness to a range of
identities and a range ofpeople.

Emily (28:26):
And any final thoughts?

Caitlin (28:29):
I think that I would just encourage all the LGBTQ
families out there listening tojust, in general, be advocates
for education, be advocates forpublic education because of the
diversity of our families,things that affects kids and
communities affect our kids andcommunities.
Whether that's class sizes,whether that's over policing and
school to prison pipelineissues.

(28:50):
All of those big educationissues affect our kids in queer
families.
So you know, all the things thataffect kids in education or
affect our kids.
And so just standing up foreducators and making voting
decisions and funding decisionsthat support teachers and
support schools so that peoplecan have more spaces, better
spaces, safer spaces, moreinclusive spaces.

(29:11):
And if teachers need anyresources, give them Jill and my
book.
There's lots of other great onestoo.

Justine (29:18):
I don't think I have anything really major to add
other than that I think publicschools need to be funded.
We need to give the teachers theresources they need and really
you push ahead as partnerswhether we're parents, teachers,
administrators and work togetherbecause that's the only way
we're going to get to fullyinclusive schools that respect

(29:39):
that intersectionality betweenrace, gender, class, LGBTQ+
families.
The only way we get there isthat is if we're working
together.

Emily (29:47):
Thank you both so much and we will link on the website
to more information aboutCaitlin and Jill's book"Reading

the Rainbow (29:55):
LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the
Elementary Classroom and alsosome really awesome writings and
interviews with Justine as well.