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Let’s Learn About National Coming Out Day & LGBTQiA2S+ History Month

For LGBTQiA2S+ history month, let’s learn about some of the activists and resistors who fought so we could be free to be.

Within this month, the 11th is ‘National Coming Out Day.’  Take this day to remind kids that disclosing a stigmatized identity is a highly personal choice that should never be obligatory or coerced. We can show up and support our friends who decide to come out, on their own timeline, and show up and support friends who don’t feel comfortable doing so.

When is it?

• National Coming out day falls annually on October 11
• We celebrate LGBTQiA2S+ History Month throughout October

Read:

• Introducing Teddy (Ages 3-6)
• Sylvia and Marsha Start a Revolution (Ages 5-9)
• Max and the Talent Show (ages 4-8)

Discuss:

• What does it mean to ‘come out?’
• Why might we feel nervous about telling people our invisible identities?
• If a friend chooses not to come out to us, how can we remember not to take this personally? What can we do to support them and help them feel safe either way?
• Why is it important to get enthusiastic consent from a friend before disclosing their identity to others, even if they are ‘out’ in other spaces?
• Why should we never pressure a friend into disclosing their targeted identity to others?
• What ideas about gender, bodies, and sexuality are we clinging to, that we inherited from our families and the stories around us?

Activities:

• Free Gender Affirming Coloring pages via Reflection Press. While you’re there, check out their workshops on decolonizing gender in childhood education.

Additional resources to dig deeper into this topic:

• LGBTQiA2S+ History
• Kids Stories On Transitions, Growing Up, Coming Out & Accepting Change
• Kids Books on Solidarity & how to be an Accomplice