
For almost two years I’ve been working for Jennifer Bryan as a research assistant / general assistant / consultant / tech aid /etc. A lot of our work has been focused on consultations with individual schools and presentations at larger education conferences. Another aspect of our work has been writing+ this book. I include the plus, because the book has so much more than just inspired and helpful text. It has resources, lesson plans, diagrams, glossaries, cartoons, news clippings. We finished the book at the end of 2011 and it was published last month by Rowman & Littlefied. People have already started contacting Jennifer to share that they are reading the book and trying to work her strategies and concepts into their schools and school districts. SO exciting.
I’m going to copy and paste a bunch of information on the book below and I hope that y’all will reblog what you think is relevant to your followers and readers or like it on facebook or tweet about it. It’s just such an amazing resource and I want to get the word out as far and wide as possible.
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LIKE THE FROM THE DRESS-UP CORNER TO THE SENIOR PROM: NAVIGATING GENDER AND SEXUALITY DIVERSITY ON FACEBOOK for information on the book, upcoming events and related current events / new resources: https://www.facebook.com/FromTheDressUpCornerToTheSeniorProm
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Available in Hardback, Paperback, E-Book, and Kindle Editions
Purchase links:
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781607099789
http://www.amazon.com/From-Dress-Up-Corner-Senior-Prom/dp/1607099799/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
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About the Author:
Jennifer Bryan, PhD, author of the children’s book The Different Dragon, is a psychologist and educational consultant with over twenty-eight years of experience working with administrators, teachers, board members, parents, students, and school communities. She is a specialist in Gender and Sexuality Diversity and a consultant to PreK-12 schools throughout the United States. Bryan lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with her partner and two children.
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Reviews:
If you are interested in the role of gender and sexuality in schools, the only thing you need to know is: read this book! It is a long overdue resource that is rich with examples from PreK-12 classrooms across the country. The student and teacher voices framed by Dr. Bryan’s research and expertise combine to form a powerful tool that will help educators everywhere make their schools and classrooms more inclusive and freer of all forms of bias. This well-researched text is strengthened by pedagogically meaningful stories, lesson plans, and interventions that offer guidance and support to educators engaged in this work. Her valuable insights and ideas will certainly help reduce the harmful impacts of homophobia, transphobia, and heteronormativity in schools everywhere.
— Elizabeth Meyer Ph.D, author of Gender, Bullying and Harassment: Strategies To End Sexism and Homophobia in Schools and Gender and Sexual Div, Assistant Professor of Education at California Polytechnic State University
A brave, lucid, and insightful exploration of the intersections of gender, sexuality, and the experiences of K-12 students. Informed by scholarship and years of school experience, Jennifer Bryan has written a superb manual for faculty, administrators, and families on how to navigate safe passages for all students. Following Bryan’s advice not to run from these issues, but to embrace them conscientiously, will help educators and parents meet the challenges of raising healthy children in a nation where gender and sex have become tools of commerce.
— Arthur Lipkin Ed.D, Chair, MA Commission on GLBT Youth
From the Dress-Up Corner to the Senior Prom: Navigating Gender and Sexuality Diversity in Pre-K to 12 Schools, by Jennifer Bryan, is a must read book for any and all teachers and parents interested in getting their hands around gender stereotyping: what it is, how it’s limiting to all, and how to teach children to overcome it, towards the end of embracing gender and sexual diversity in the same way enlightened cultures embrace racial, ethnic, class, and religious diversity. The copious anecdotes alone are worth the price of admission to a future world where we transcend millennia of assumptions about “what boys do” vs. “what girls do” toward a more psychologically and socially androgynous and balanced future. Readers will find themselves thinking time and again, “It never occurred to me that our kids might be saying, and wondering, and exploring these things. How would I address that situation when it arises in my classroom?” This book of innumerable stories and wise counsel is also the new definitive authority reference book on terminology and resources on the topic. The central question Bryan addresses—what to teach about gender and sexual identity diversity in schools—is articulated perfectly by a fourth-grade teacher: “The school community needs a point of view on these issues. Then we all need to support this view.” Schools and teachers that don’t address the question collectively as a school community will address it, at their own risk, haphazardly and poorly individually.
— Patrick F. Bassett, president, National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
What we teach in our school curriculum helps shape the minds, attitudes, and identities of children. Conversely, what we omit or leave unexamined matters as well. In this carefully researched, courageous book, Jennifer Bryan cogently argues that despite the centrality of gender and sexuality to our core relationships and identity, schools rarely contend with these topics. Bryan is persuasive, forthright, and sensitive in challenging us to formulate a more inclusive and complex approach to addressing gender and sexuality diversity in school. As a teacher, I have often shied away from topics of gender and sexuality. I fear that I don’t know enough or that traversing these topics is too fraught and dangerous. Reading this book challenged me to re-think my tendency to sidestep these issues and provided me the conceptual vocabulary and practical strategies to be a better teacher for all my students.
— Sam Intrator Ph.D, Professor of Education and Child Study, Smith College
The issue of safety for GLBTQI students in our schools today is a matter of life and death, not a matter of politics. Jennifer Bryan’s book is essential reading for anyone directly or indirectly involved in the education of children today. As the Head of a pre-K through 8th grade independent school, I found valuable information contained in this book for faculty, parents, and trustees alike. Whatever your role is in the process of education, Jennifer Bryan’s book provides real life examples along with excellent solutions, making it a useful tool in the classroom and at home. Bryan does not shy away from the conflict, rather she encourages us to face the prejudices and inequities that exist with confidence, candor, and even humor. This book is a must read now!
— John Peterman, Head of School, Brookwood School, Manchester, MA
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PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE - Gender and Sexuality Diversity at School: What Educators Need to Know and Then Some
CHAPTER TWO - Heteronormativity at School: Questioning the “Natural Order” of Things
CHAPTER THREE - A Framework for Engaging GSD at School: Educational Mission; Best Pedagogical Practices
CHAPTER FOUR - GSD at School: Understanding What You See; Thinking Critically About What You See
CHAPTER FIVE - GSD Professional Development: “Learnings” that Lead to Best Practices
CHAPTER SIX - GSD in Early Childhood and Elementary Education: Strategies, Application and Curriculum
CHAPTER SEVEN - GSD in Middle and High School Education: Development, Safety, and Curriculum
CHAPTER EIGHT - Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Providing Foundations for GSD Literacy
CHAPTER NINE - Leadership, Policies and Programs: Supporting GSD Education at Schools (Not for Administrators Only!)
CHAPTER TEN - GLBTQI and Straight Educators and Parents: Different Challenges; Unique Opportunities
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Website:
JUST A REMINDER - THIS IS TONIGHT!!
Attention everyone ages 12-21 in the geographic areas surrounding Western Massachusetts:
The queer youth programs I work with are throwing our annual Kiss n Tell Ball in Northampton, MA! I’m super psyched about it and the youth have been (and will be) hard at work to make it THE place to be.
When: Friday March 23 2012, 7pm-10pm
Where: Northampton Center for the Arts (17 New South St, Noho, MA)
What: An awesome FREE event for LGBTQ+ youth and allies
- Sponsored by Generation Q and TREE (of Community Action Youth Programs)
- DJ Sebastian Barr (yours truly)
- Live Performance by Who’Da Funk It
- Hip-Hop Dance Performance by Crazefaze
- Special Drag Performance
- Catwalk event
- Photobooth station
- Confidential Rapid HIV Testing by Tapestry Health
- Substance-Free and Sober
- Gender Neutral Bathrooms
- Drag Dress-Up Station
- Even more!
Sound and Lighting for the event are being provided free-of-charge by AR Rproductions! Expect state-of-the-art club-level lighting and sound (we’re talking 4 subwoofers and professional lighting techs, people)!
Essentially, Generation Q and TREE, along with AR Productions, and the whole Community Action Youth Programs staff, are providing youth with a safe AND bigger/better alternative to other youth events that might not be so LGBTQIAA-friendly!
I can’t tell you how excited I am!
The location is across the street from the Academy of Music bus stop and many bus lines service it. Check out PVTA.com or Google Maps for more information on public transportation to and from the event!
RSVP on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/events/201336763299641/#!/events/201336763299641/
LGBT owned and operated, AR Productions LLC is a fully insured Audio, Visual and Lighting Design production company. AR Productions is a certified LGBT business by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
Attention everyone ages 12-21 in the geographic areas surrounding Western Massachusetts:
The queer youth programs I work with are throwing our annual Kiss n Tell Ball in Northampton, MA! I’m super psyched about it and the youth have been (and will be) hard at work to make it THE place to be.
When: Friday March 23 2012, 7pm-10pm
Where: Northampton Center for the Arts (17 New South St, Noho, MA)
What: An awesome FREE event for LGBTQ+ youth and allies
Sound and Lighting for the event are being provided free-of-charge by AR Rproductions! Expect state-of-the-art club-level lighting and sound (we’re talking 4 subwoofers and professional lighting techs, people)!
Essentially, Generation Q and TREE, along with AR Productions, and the whole Community Action Youth Programs staff, are providing youth with a safe AND bigger/better alternative to other youth events that might not be so LGBTQIAA-friendly!
I can’t tell you how excited I am!
The location is across the street from the Academy of Music bus stop and many bus lines service it. Check out PVTA.com or Google Maps for more information on public transportation to and from the event!
RSVP on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/events/201336763299641/#!/events/201336763299641/
LGBT owned and operated, AR Productions LLC is a fully insured Audio, Visual and Lighting Design production company. AR Productions is a certified LGBT business by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
Almost every school lists in their mission or their educational philosophy that they want to develop the “whole child.” They’re shaping people not manufacturing educated machines. And yet, there was a very large part of my identity that I didn’t even get to explore in school. I am of course talking about my gender identity and my sexuality. I was talking to friends about this recently – about how I was never offended by the fact that I couldn’t bring a girl to a dance, for example (oh remember that at this time I was presenting as a woman, didn’t know I was a guy, and sort of identified as a lesbian). My friends agreed that we just assumed school wasn’t the place for that part of us. But looking back, school did seem to be the place for that part of my straight and normatively-gendered peers. Heterosexual, cisgender people, for the most part do get to develop their gender and sexual identities in school. From early childhood through high school graduation, schools seem a little more committed to the development of the whole child for those guys. How? + Through the families depicted in children’s books
+ Role-playing options in PreK and Kindergarten
+ Characters studied in literature and film
+ Gender segregation (boys’ line, boys’ sports, boys’ bathrooms)
+ Pairings supported by faculty and administration (whether it’s a teacher commenting on the cute “couple” in 1st grade or the awarding of Homecoming King and Queen – again, gendered – to the well-liked straight couple in high school)
+ Alums whose weddings or work are celebrated in publications
+ Sex education classes that only talk about heterosexual sex or marriage
+ Teachers who talk about their personal lives and families
+ Photos on seemingly-benign motivational posters or in textbooks
+ Science courses that only address the binary sexes and genders in biology
+ History lessons that include spousal and familial details for heterosexual figures, but not homosexual figures.
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Transgender Center Opening in Philly | News | The Advocate
Philadelphia will soon be home to a health center geared exclusively to transgender people, though the specific site has not yet been released.
The Morris Home will hopefully open next month, Sade Ali, deputy commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health, told metro.us. The center will be city-funded and offer comprehensive health services for transgender men and women.
You go Philadelphia!
Fenway Health, the clinic in Boston known largely for their work in LGBT healthcare has a new blog, Fenway Focus.

They have different categories: Fenway News, LGBT Health, HIV/AIDS, Women’s Health, and Health Policy.
Definitely going to be following this, particularly the LGBT Health posts!