Professional Development and Teacher Training
Schools and service agencies should be positive places where all children, youth, and families are valued and encouraged to be their full selves.
Our Family Coalition's Inclusive Schools Program works with families, teachers, administrators, and child-serving professionals to help them understand and implement more equitable practices to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer families and their allies.
We offer professional development and family education workshops for preschool, elementary, middle, and high school communities, and we provide service agencies with the most current information and strategies on how to create more inclusive and respectful services for all families, including LGBTQ families.
Learn more about our training workshop topics and structure.

Teaching LGBT History: An Educator's Guide
Teaching LGBT History: An Educator's Guide has been developed by educational consultant Rob Darrow as part of Our Family Coalition's contributions to the CLIC Project (Content, Literacy, Inquiry, & Citizenship Project). The CLIC Project is part of the Sacramento County Office of Education's Community of Practice, a group of educators working together to support the implementation of the newly LGBT-inclusive History Social Science Framework. More about the CLIC Project at UC Davis' History Project page.
The guide, along with the additional reference material below, is meant to guide educators as they approach K-12 lesson planning using LGBT history based on the California State History Social Science Framework. For more information about this Framework and the process that led to it, see About the FAIR Education Act.
Resources and References cited in the LGBT History Educator’s Guide
Materials below have been compiled by Rob Darrow and appear, along with additional references, on his CLIC Project Resources page.
LGBT History Lesson Plans
LGBT History Cirriculum Guides and Workshop Content
- Santa Cruz Safe Schools Project – 8th Grade * 11th Grade
- Quick LGBT History Lessons for GSA Clubs
- 11th Grade LGBT History Resources
- 8th Grade LGBT History Resources
- 11th Grade History Teacher Workshop Content
- 8th Grade History Teacher Workshop Content
LGBT History Timelines
LGBT History Primary Source Locations
- CSU Monterey Bay LGBT Archives
- GLBT Archives (San Francisco)
- LAMBDA Archives (San Diego)
- One Archives (Los Angeles)
- Online Archive of California Search
- Out History (New York)
Articles/Documents
- California Department of Education. California History Social Science Framework. Adopted July 14, 2016.
- Blair, Karen. Has Gender Always Been Binary? Psychology Today Blogpost, September 16, 2018.
- National Park Service LGBTQ Theme Study (2016). Collection of 32 different historical articles about LGBT history.
- Romesburg, D., Rupp, L.J., Donahue, D.M. (2014). Making the Framework FAIR: California History-Social Science Framework Proposed LGBT Revisions Related to the FAIR Education Act. San Francisco, CA: Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History.
- Styles, Emily. “Curriculum as Window and Mirror.” Listening for All Voices, Oak Knoll School monograph, Summit, NJ, 1988.
Books
- Barker, Meg-John and Scheele. Queer: A Graphic History. London, Icon Books, 2016
- Bronksi, Michael. Queer History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Books, 2011.
- Linday, Randall et al. A Culturally Proficient Response to LGBT Communities: A Guide for Educators. Corwin, 2013.
- Meyer, Elizabeth and Sansfacon, Annie Pullen. Supporting Transgender & Gender Creative Youth.Peter Lang, 2014
- Meyer, Elizabeth J. Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools. New York: Springer, 2010.
- Romesburg, Don, Ed. The Routledge History of Queer America. Routledge, 2018.
- Rupp, Leila J. and Freeman, Susan K. Eds. Understanding and Teaching: U.S. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2014.
- Stryker, Susan. Transgender History, second edition: The Roots of Today’s Revolution. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2017.
Media/Podcasts
- Video: “Making History: The FAIR Education Act” Our Family Coalition, San Francisco, 2017 (10 Minutes)
- Video: “Don’t Erase My History” Frameline, San Francisco, 2015 (30 minutes)
- Video: “Transgender Basics” Gender Identity Project New York City, 2009 (20 minutes)
- Webinar: Webinars about LGBT History. Rob Darrow, Santa Cruz, 2017
- Podcast: Making Gay History Podcast Eric Marcus, New York, 2016-2019
- Podcast: History is Gay Podcast Leigh and Gretchen, 2018-2019
- App: QUIST App About Queer History