How Inclusive Teaching  Could Help Students

Many people don’t choose to label themselves as anything in the acronym LGBTQIA+ but are still part of the community. Forcing anyone to be anything is exactly what we want to discourage, and no one should feel like they have to know their sexual orientation or gender at a young age, but being taught that it’s normal and welcomed is essential to being true to who you are as a person.

 Your childhood is the time to figure out who you are and what you want to be, so including LGBTQ+ topics in classroom conversations can help children struggling with how they identify themselves and be introduced to different opportunities and possibilities. 

Many children have been “In the closet” at some point in and out of school. “In the closet” or “closeted” are terms used by the LGBTQ+ community to describe someone who has not told people they are queer. Students who are closeted at home have no other place to go for acceptance besides school, this is one of the many reasons that having an openly accepting school environment is crucial.  

By simply speaking about events that include queer individuals can make queer students feel as though they are normal, and can teach non-queer students that the LGBTQ+ community is normal and isn’t a new thing. As a fellow LGBTQ+ classmate noted, “It’s important to remove the idea that people are born Heterosexual and that you are (heterosexual)  unless explicitly quoted otherwise. We must allow people the room to choose.”