LGBTQ Inclusion in the Classroom and Being an Ally as an Educator

 What does it mean to be an LGBTQ ally? What does it mean for us as educators? The webinar "LGBTQ Best Practices: Classroom Culture and Curriculum" it goes into discussing what it means to make students who are in the LGBTQ community to feel more included and let them know your classroom is a safe space for them to be themselves.

How can we do this? There are a number of things we can do as educators to make our LGBTQ students feel included and allow for their ally peers to become even more of an ally.

• Start the class by sharing your pronouns and also having students share their name along with their own pronouns
• Ask for students and anyone else in the classroom what their pronouns are (Don't assume pronouns)
• Use they pronoun when when addressing all students (everyone is included where as things like boys and girls may make some students who don't identify with either feel left out)
• You can even ask pronouns in a student survey at the beginning of the year
• Representation of what you are reading, writing or discussing (either the character or author) in the LGBTQ community
• Posters around the classroom can also help with the representation of the LGBTQ community
• Create ground rules when talking about the LGBTQ community (Such as no negative comments or statements) (Can also, create a student signed contract to enforce this policy)
• Give students proper language to use when they may be confused about certain things such as pronouns
• Never let a homophobic or transphobic remark go uninterrupted
• Never present someone's identity as up for debate
• respond to myths surrounding the LGBTQ community with facts about the community

By doing these things students who are a part of the community feel more included and will be able to recognize your classroom as being a safe space for them. Also, by doing this you are allowing for other students to grow in their understanding  of the community, stay respectful of peers and create allies to the community.

What Happens when we miss gender someone, witness someone else miss gender someone, or a homophobic/transphobic comment is made? These issues may come up in your classroom and the webinar also goes into discussing what we as educators can do to correct the situation.

• If we miss gender someone: Apologize and correct yourself but don't over apologize (if more needs to be said it should be done as a one on one with the person and not a public issue)
• If you notice someone else miss gender someone: You can correct the pronoun in the moment (by rephrasing or repeating what the person said but using the correct pronoun), or continue the conversation and use correct pronouns
• If a negative comment is made (Transphobic/homophobic):  Never let it go uninterrupted (even if it is just a brief interruption to signal to the person that the comment was not okay)
• If religion is brought up: make sure students understand that religion is not an excuse to harass someone else

Overall, by using these tools we can make for a more inclusive classroom setting when it comes to LGBTQ communities and being allies. We as educators can model correct and positive behavior surrounding this topic and also have the tools to correct any negative (intentional or unintentional) behavior that may come about in the classroom.