LGBTQ+ people have always made history. But students are only just starting to learn that.
There has never been a time when LGBTQ+ people did not exist in classrooms, but for most of the history of American education, they were invisible. In addition to closeted students and teachers, classes could move through years of history, literature, and health classes without encountering queer people in any direct way. In practice, that often meant students would never hear the word “gay,” let alone any other queer identities. Curriculum decisions have always determined which histories are treated as central and which are left out. For LGBTQ+ people, this is a particularly potent problem in K–12 schools, where discussions […]