Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality book cover

Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality

Edited by Annika Butler-Wall, Kim Cosier, Rachel Harper, Jeff Sapp, Jody Sokolower, and Melissa Bollow Tempel

Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality is a collection of inspiring stories about how to integrate feminist and LGBTQ content into curriculum, make it part of a vision for social justice, […]

Fighting for LGBTQ+ Youth and Families

An Interview with Melissa Bollow Tempel

Jody Sokolower

Jody Sokolower interviews Melissa Bollow Tempel, the Wisconsin teacher — and former Rethinking Schools editor — fired for speaking out about her district’s decision to refuse to allow her 1st-grade students to sing “Rainbowland.”

Transsexuals, Teaching Your Children

Loren Krywanczyk

A middle-school teacher describes how he makes his classroom safe for broad discussions of gender identity and explains why anti-bullying curriculum isnt enough.

Editorial: Queering Schools

The Editors of Rethinking Schools

How can we create classrooms and schools where discrimination and assumptions about gender and/or sexuality don’t keep us from nurturing every child, parent, and staff member?

The Day of Silence

Queer Kids, Conservative Kids, and the Silences Within and Between Them

Anna McMaken-Marsh

A high school teacher navigates the tensions that arise in conversations with students about the Day of Silence, and how to bridge divides.

Protecting Trans Youth

Rethinking Schools Editors

The Right has declared war on trans youth. Recent headlines offer a sickening taste of what reactionary governors and state legislators have been cooking up in their laboratories of transphobic […]

“Aren’t There Any Poor Gay People Besides Me?”

Teaching LGBTQ issues in the rural South

Stephanie Anne Shelton

A teacher redesigns her curriculum to support a gay student. As the classroom community strengthens, they confront the impact of poverty and geographic isolation.

Teaching Them into Existence

Mykhiel Deych

A high school English teacher (also the QSA staff advisor) wrestles with the suicide of a transgender student and calls on heterosexual and cisgender teachers to integrate LGBTQ authors, themes, and history into their classrooms.

#SchoolsToo: Educators’ Responsibility to Confront Sexual Violence

the editors of Rethinking Schools

The ongoing, persistent verbal and physical violence against women, youth, and LGBTQ communities has not been adequately addressed in most schools. Instead of educating children and youth about gender equity and sexual harassment, schools often create a culture that perpetuates stigma, shame, and silence. Student-on-student sexual assault and harassment occurs on playgrounds, in bathrooms and locker rooms, on buses, and down isolated school hallways. Students experience sexualized language and inappropriate touching, as well as forced sexual acts. And they encounter these at formative stages of their lives that leave scars and shape expectations for a lifetime. What isn’t addressed critically in schools becomes normalized and taken for granted.

Big Reactions to Small Steps

One Teacher’s Story About Using Inclusive Children’s Literature

Nettie Harrington Pangallo

Harrington Pangallo describes pushback for reading a book to answer a student question — “What does gay mean?” — and her response.

Rethinking the Day of Silence

Adriana Murphy

When the Day of Silence doesn’t work at a middle school, staff and students look for another way to talk about LGBTQ issues.

Do Ask, Do Tell

What's professional about taking social justice and sexual orientation out of classrooms?

Therese Quinn, Erica Meiners

Two Chicago educators question the premier teacher education accrediting agency’s removal of social justice and sexual orientation language from its standards.

The Growing Attack on Educators

Jesse Hagopian

A growing number of educators are being pushed out of the classroom for teaching about race or LGBTQ+ issues.

Queering Black History and Getting Free

Dominique Hazzard

A Black freedom organizer demands that teachers and activists radically change their frameworks around Black history by lifting up the stories of Black LGBTQ people like Marsha P. Johnson.

#MeToo and The Color Purple

Linda Christensen

During a recent conversation, a former high school classmate said, “I always wondered why you left Eureka. I heard that something shameful happened, but I never knew what it was.”

Yes, something shameful happened. My former husband beat me in front of the Catholic Church in downtown Eureka. He tore hunks of hair from my scalp, broke my nose, and battered my body. It wasn’t the first time during the nine months of our marriage. When he fell into a drunken sleep, I found the keys he used to keep me locked inside and I fled, wearing a bikini and a bloodied white fisherman’s sweater. For those nine months I had lived in fear of his hands, of drives into the country where he might kill me and bury my body. I lived in fear that if I fled, he might harm my mother or my sister.

I carried that fear and shame around for years. Because even though I left the marriage and the abuse, people said things like “I’d never let some man beat me.” There was no way to tell them the whole story: How growing up and “getting a man” was the goal, how making a marriage work was my responsibility, how failure was a stigma I couldn’t bear.

Nos empezamos a conocer unos a otros

Maiya Jackson

Una directora escolar describe el proceso que transcurrió su escuela primaria al darle la bienvenida a una nueva estudiante transgénero de octavo grado y a otro estudiante que estaba haciendo una transición de género.

4-Year-Olds Discuss Love and Marriage

A.J. Jennings

An early childhood educator shows how far-ranging discussions can open children’s eyes to a broader understanding of relationships, including same-sex marriage and not getting married at all.