Elementary School
BuildingBridges: Queer families in early childhood education (Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development, by Zeenat Janmohamed and Ryan Campbell)
Educational materials to create an inclusive school environment. Focused on three main areas: embracing family diversity, avoiding gender stereotyping and accepting diverse gender identities, and ending name calling and bullying.
Junior High and High School
Safe and Supportive Schools Toolkit
A model from Ireland that arose from recommendations in a national anti-bullying report, “the LGBT Safe and Supportive Schools Project was developed to help create schools that are fully inclusive of LGBT young people. The project is unique and innovative, both in national and international contexts, in that it:
- Empowers schools to tackle homophobic and transphobic bullying in all its forms
- Involves a whole-school community approach
- Is jointly led by a voluntary and statutory agency
- Spanned a full academic year
- Involved whole staff training (teaching and non teaching) at participating schools
- Involved a high level of access to the full school community over a twelve month period
- Was rigorously tested through the administration of intensive questionnaires at four points over a twelve month period and through the use of ‘control’ schools.”(http://www.belongto.org/campaign.aspx?contentid=13561)
Bending the Mold: An action kit for transgender students (by Lambda Legal and the National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC)
Beyond the Binary: A toolkit for gender activism in schools (from the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, Transgender Law Center, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights)
All Grade Levels
We Begin to Know Each Other. Rethinking Schools, Vol. 30, No.2 Winter 2015-16 By Maiya Jackson. An administrator describes how the school responded to two different students, one of whom transitioned prior to entering the school and the other who remained at the school while in transition.
Responding_to_concerns about being LGBTQ inclusive (Welcoming Schools)
An interactive skill-building activity, good for PLC or staff circle (Welcoming Schools)
Creating Authentic Spaces (English) / Creer_des_milieux_authentiques (francais)\ (The 519)
Supporting Transgender Staff (Government of Nova Scotia)
Tips for interacting with transgender coworkers (Transgender Law Center)
A Positive Space Starter Kit to support LGBTQ Newcomers to Canada (Ontario Council of Agencies Supporting Immigrants)
Reflection activity: Reflection activity on the role of gender in your personal and professional life(Gender Spectrum)
Current Events
May 2017 CBC news: Canadian passport will have new marker for transgender travellers, justice minister says
Feb 2016 in Huffpost: Toronto District school board moves towards all gender washrooms.
May 2017 Halifax Metro: ‘I felt like I had to hide it:’ Halifax advocates launch petition for trans education in all Nova Scotia grades
February 2017 Halifax Metro: This is Elliott: Gender-nonconforming Halifax kid hopes to educate, break down stigma
Excerpt from the above article: “Although Elliott said they have a couple friends who’ve stood up for them and called out bullies for hurting their feelings, Kym [Elliot’s mom] said she would have liked to see teachers have conversations about different gender identities in class, which to her knowledge hasn’t happened.
After-school staff did try reading some books about gender last year when Elliott was in primary, but some parents complained, Kym said with a shrug. “Kids can definitely understand these things. They did learn about the Holocaust this year in school, so I’m like ‘I find it hard to believe that you feel that 6-year-olds can handle (that) but not … gender identity,” Kym said, watching Elliott play across the room.
“It doesn’t have to be a complicated conversation. It can just be like ‘there’s boys and there’s girls, and there’s people that are neither, or both.”
Education for Gender Inclusion 