How to Help LGBT Students Every Single Day

After reading our books for this week, Some Assembly Required and Rethinking Normal, I had this new inside look into the minds of transgender teens that I had never experienced before. My eyes were opened to a new world, new feelings, and a new type of person (to me, anyway). LBGT people have been around since the dawn of man, but only in recent decades have LGBT people gained basic human rights and recognition. 

If these books showed me anything, it is that what these transgender teens go through is incomparable nearly other internal adolescent struggle. To constantly question ones identity, to think of ones body as merely a physical attribution and not something beautiful, to want out of your own skin. These are all things transgender teens go through due to the fact they feel they cannot fully express themselves due to the pressures and bias' of today's world. Though gay and lesbian have become much more accepted and encouraged in our society, transgender can, for some reason, still be a touchy and unclear subject. 

As I read these books I kept finding myself thinking about how I would help students like the ones in our books. How could I help them even without directly addressing the situation? Then it came to me, books like these. Not only could these books help transgender adolescents, out or not, but it can also help any other person of any other sexuality. 'Transgender' can be a word that brings confusion and lack of clarity, but books like these help teenagers see inside their world and understand exactly what they go through, what their situation entails, and life is like as a transgender teen. Along with these books, positive discussion of acceptance is something that should be happening within the classroom. As a teacher, it is a job to demonstrate and teach empathy to students. Always teaching love and acceptance.